Thanks to my involvement in the editorial planning of China Daily's energy and environment section (published every Monday, as part of China Business Weekly), I have an opportunity to meet with some very passionate scientists and business people owning great environmental inventions.
Although they can upgrade their technology every few months, they have difficulty raising money to put their inventions into commercial use.
One person owns a biodegradable bag able to hold water for as long as eight months for trees or any other plant. It can save water and be useful for the control of desertification.
Another person owns the technology to convert sludge into a top-quality organic fertilizer.
But few people have heard of them and their inventions in China or the world. Little money is forthcoming to help them promote their solutions.
Their misfortune up to now reflects a deep flaw in man's efforts to deal with climate change and the environmental crisis. When so much money has been spent on conferences and documents about the forthcoming dangers of climate change, which is of course necessary, so little is being done to support those who are taking pioneering actions to meet the dangers.
I sometimes receive e-mails from readers in developed countries asking how China, as one of the major greenhouse gas emitters in the world, is going to "decouple" economic growth from harmful emissions.
An interesting question. But in the Chinese context, and indeed in the context of all developing countries, the issue can be addressed in a more straightforward way. To "decouple" economic growth from harmful emissions, I would say it is better to join economic growth with emission-control efforts.
This is a question that faces all officials meeting this week at the world climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.
It is easy to say that life is not worth living without either economic growth or a good environment. But to really have both, man must prove that being green can actually be more productive and profitable.
The disappointment is that, despite all the official papers from various international organizations, there has not been a single one with a list of solutions that are both useful and affordable for developing countries to implement economic growth together with emission control.
So far, from international organizations and the global media, all we have heard is primarily about "the inconvenient truth", or how badly things have got. Few solutions, on the use of less fossil fuels, cutting emissions, treating waste, or to save water, have hit the global media headlines - certainly fewer than the images of pollution damage and climatic disasters.
But these are the solutions, the weapons, by which the world can hope to usefully mitigate climate change.
If the environment is a matter of life or death for the entire world, as I believe it is, and if such a matter requires effective interference - which means forces from outside, why cannot the United Nations and the World Bank commission a group of scientists and financial experts, like the Nobel-winning IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to recommend solutions?
There can be solutions recommended to developing countries - their governments and enterprises, and to international corporations with investment interests in those countries.
Would not it signal an even greater danger that at a time when the global financial market (and the Chinese financial market) is awash with liquidity, and investments, so little of it is being directed to environmental solutions and inventions?
E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 12/03/2007 page4)
