Of the developing nations in Asia, China and India have shown the most rapid economic growth, fast joining the United States and Europe as superpowers.
Apace with steady economic growth, is an increased consumption of global resources. In 2005 alone, China consumed 26% of the world’s supply of crude steel, 32% of the rice, 37% of the cotton, and 47% of the cement. India doubled its oil consumption since 1992, and spends heavily on airports, roads, and ports.

With a projected population of 1.5 billion by 2030, India is expected to strain the world’s resources if it continues with its consumption patterns. According to Worldwatch Institute’s “State of the World” report, if China and India were to continue with the Western-style fossil-fuel, auto-centred, and throwaway economy they currently follow, the Earth would no longer be enough to support them.

The advocacy for renewable energy

China, the report adds, has recognised the need to use clean energy. It has recently put into effect its first “Law on Renewable Energy,” which orders power companies to “ensure that 5% of their electricity generators are fuelled by renewable energy by 2010.” China currently uses “dirty” coal-based energy in 70% of their country’s total energy production.

Burning of coal contributes to global warming and causes climate change. It is to this phenomenon that environmental groups attribute the extreme weather conditions in 2005, causing billions of dollars in damages. China is currently the second highest emitter of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases responsible for the continued rise of the Earth’s temperature.

“We were encouraged to find that a growing number of leaders in China and India now recognise that the resource-intensive model for economic growth can’t work in the 21st century,” the report says.

“China must go to sustainable energy,” Li Junfeng, secretary general of the China Renewable Energy Industries Association, says. Other energy experts in China also agree and seem to be following France’s example in developing renewable energy.

Concern over toxic wastes

However, it is not only these Asian superpowers’ rapid consumption of natural resources that worry environmental groups. Another area of concern is India’s tendency to buckle in the face of the waste trade lobby. Its environment ministry favours toxic waste imports despite the tremendous health risk these wastes pose to people’s lives.

The most recent controversy involved the entry of the French warship Clemenceau into Indian waters. The toxic ship contained 500 to 1,000 tonnes of asbestos, and was set to be scrapped at India’s Alang port.

Environmental groups say just a few kilograms of asbestos is already cancer-causing, and if India had allowed the ship to be scrapped at Alang, it would have violated the 1989 Basel convention which it signed and which prohibits the export of hazardous wastes from developed to developing countries. If India as a superpower had done this, it would have sent the message that other environmental regulations—including hazardous waste management, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions under the Kyoto protocol—could also be easily violated.

Thankfully, the monitoring committee of the Indian government recommended that the Clemenceau not be allowed into India’s waters.

China and India not alone

While China and India are countries to watch, Europe and the United States are still by far the largest consumers of global resources.

According to the Worldwatch report, the United States consumes three times as much grain per person as China and five times as much as India. The carbon dioxide emissions rate for the United States per person is still six times that of China and twenty times that of India.

Political will required

The fight to conserve natural resources is a huge challenge for governments. However, with enough political will and the right perspective, it is not an impossible task.

Sources:
Bezlova, Antoaneta. 16 January 2006. “Green energy begins to make sense.” Posted by the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency at <http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=31783>.

Bidwai, Praful. 13 January 2006. “Toxic warship in epic last battle.” Posted by the IPS News Agency at <http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=31759>.

Mekay, Emad. 11 January 2006. “China, India urged to shun western-style waste.” Posted by the IPS News Agency at <http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=31740>.