Environmental China, February 12th to February 18th, 2010, Issue 47

OPINION

China’s first national pollution census: What does it mean for your business in the next five years? (CSR Asia, 2/18/2010) Just before the Lunar New Year, China announced the results of its first national pollution census, which mapped nearly 6 million sources of industrial, residential and agricultural waste.

Charity Case (Newsweek, 2/17/2010) Whether they like it or not, China has been very good for Tibetans.

Urban form, Behavior energy modeling in Sim City (World Changing, 2/16/2010) One of the great challenges in urban planning and green building has been material life cycle energy use--how steel, concrete and wood products were produced and transported. Add to that the decisions people make once construction is finished, and you can rightly conclude that development standards have only scratched the veneer of total energy and sustainability impacts.

PUBLIC SECTOR/NGOs

Environmentalists urge Beijing residents to take to bikes (Earth Times, 2/18/2010) When the Chinese dragon "coughs," it's largely due to the high degree of air pollution. In Beijing, for example, the amount of toxic substances in the air often is above approved limits. Chinese industries are accelerating production while traffic in the capital is incessantly increasing the amount of toxins and carbon dioxide in the air.

Chinese farming practices are acidifying soils (Mongabay.com, 2/11/2010) A new study in Science shows that farming practices in China are acidifying the nation's soils and threatening long term productivity at a time when food concerns worldwide have never been higher. The culprit is the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer.

China’s fertilizer fetish making soils more acidic – up to 100 times worse than acid rain (Treehugger, 2/12/2010) Brian recently told us about how China's water pollution problems are probably twice as bad as official government statistics show. Part of that is due to agricultural run-off from excessive fertilizer use. But water isn't the only thing being polluted by too much fertilizer. Mongabay highlights a new article in Science which details who China's soils are acidifying because of bad agricultural practice.

CORPORATIONS

China becomes world’s biggest car market (Press Office, 2/18/2010) China fulfilled industry expectations to become the world's biggest car market in 2009, overtaking the US by a significant margin. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) reported total vehicle sales of 13.64mn units in 2009, up 46.15% from 9.4mn the previous year.

China’s high-growth ghost towns (Foreign Policy, 2/18/2010) Visiting the eerily vacant epicenter of unsustainable progress, far out in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.

China’s high-growth ghost towns (Foreign Policy, 2/18/2010) Visiting the eerily vacant epicenter of unsustainable progress, far out in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.

Cement industry will spend $3.5 billion for air pollution (The McIlvaine Company, 2/17/2010) With China leading the way, the cement industry will invest more than $3.5 billion for air pollution control systems in 2010. Nearly 50 percent of this investment will be for fabric filters. These are the latest forecasts from the McIlvaine Company reports: World Fabric Filter and Element Markets, Scrubber/Adsorber/Biofilter World Markets, NOx Control World Markets and Electrostatic Precipitator World Markets.

Slow trip across sea aids profit and environment (New York Times, 2/16/2010) It took more than a month for the container ship Ebba Maersk to steam from Germany to Guangdong, China, where it unloaded cargo on a recent Friday — a week longer than it did two years ago.

China Industrial Waste Management provides update on Dongtai Organic Waste Treatment Project (PR Newswire, 2/11/2010) China Industrial Waste Management, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CIWT) ("China Industrial Waste Management" or the "Company"), a leading environmental services and solutions provider in China, announced today that its Dongtai Organic Waste Treatment Project (the "Project") received its first payment of $120,000 from the sale of biogas (natural gas). The Company expects the Project to yield at least $180,000 per month in revenues from supply of natural gas when it reaches full capacity.

GOVERNMENT

Tibetian Nationhood – A Quiet Revolution in the Making (Khaleej Times, 2/14/2010) Last year around this time Tibetans decided to observe the traditional New Year — or Losar — as an occasion of mourning for those killed in China’s crackdown in 2008 following the Tibet uprising.

China advances in independently tapping nuclear power (iStockAnalyst, 2/17/2010) Wang Binhua said that along with the No.1 generating unit put into construction at the Shandong Haiyang Nuclear Power Station on Dec. 28, 2009, three out of the four AP1000-based generating units have entered the stage of main body engineering construction. So far, all the generating unit projects are going smoothly. The Sanmen Nuclear Power Station is scheduled to generate electric power with its first generating unit in August 2013. Haiyang Nuclear Power Station is to follow suit with its first generating unit in February 2014.

Brazil, China to postpone joint satellite launching to 2011 (MundoGeo, 2/18/2010) Brazil and China will postpone their fourth joint satellite launching from 2010 to mid-2011, a Brazilian official said Wednesday.

Spain approves carbon offset projects in China, India, Peru (Bloomberg, 2/17/2010) Spain approved seven clean-energy projects to offset its carbon emissions with reductions in the developing world, the Environment Ministry said.

China’s Sri Lanka port raises concern (UPI, 2/17/2010) China's construction of a port in Sri Lanka and a Chinese admiral's suggestion Beijing build a naval base in the Gulf of Aden has raised fears in the Middle East that a confrontation between China and India is looming along vital energy export routes.

China blacklists polluting factories (Greenpeace, 2/12/2010) Industries pumping out poisonous substances day after day into rivers that entire communities rely on for their basic water needs - the reality of water pollution in China is one of the country's biggest tragedies.

Call for stricter food labeling after China pollution revelations (ABC Rural, 2/11/2010) Revelations that China's farm sector is doing huge environmental damage has prompted new calls for tougher country of origin labelling.