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Robert Collier | Can Green Trade Tariffs Combat Climate Change?    •

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    Hundreds Stage Anti-Pollution March in China
    By Edward Wong
    The International Herald Tribune

    Monday 05 May 2008

    Beijing - Hundreds of people marched in a western provincial capital over the weekend to protest environmental risks they say are associated with the construction of a petrochemical factory and oil refinery, witnesses said Monday.

    It was the latest in a series of rare but increasingly ambitious grass-roots movements in Chinese cities aimed at derailing government-backed industrial projects that could damage the environment and people's health.

    The protest Sunday, like its predecessors, was organized through Web sites, blogs and cellphone text messages, showing how some Chinese are using digital technology, despite government attempts to control the Internet, to spur on the kind of civic movements that are usually disapproved of by officials.

    The protesters in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, walked peacefully through the center of the city for several hours Sunday afternoon to criticize the building of an ethylene plant and oil refinery in Pengzhou, a few minutes' drive outside the city. Some protesters wore white face masks to highlight the dangers of pollution.

    About 400 to 500 protesters took part in the march, which was watched by dozens of police officers, witnesses said.

    Organizers circumvented a law that requires protesters to apply for a permit by saying they were only out for a "stroll."

    Critics of the project said in interviews Monday that the government had not done proper environmental reviews of the projects, which they said could pollute the air and water and lead to health hazards.

    "We're not dissidents; we're just people who care about our homeland," said Wen Di, an independent blogger and former journalist living in Chengdu. "What we're saying is that if you want to have this project, you need to follow certain procedures: for example, a public hearing and independent environmental assessment. We want a fair and open process."

    Fan Xiao, a geologist and environmental advocate based in Chengdu, sent out a mass cellphone text message Monday morning that had been written by one of the leaders of the protest movement and was being widely circulated across the country. "Protect our Chengdu, safeguard our homeland," it read. "Stay away from the threat of pollution. Restore the clear water and green mountains of Sichuan."

    In an interview, Fan said, "People have been hoping this issue would get more attention."

    The chemical plant and oil refinery is a joint venture of the Sichuan provincial government and PetroChina, a publicly traded oil company that is the listed arm of China National Petroleum Corp., the state-owned concern that is the country's largest oil producer.

    The project, approved last year, is expected to produce 800,000 tons of ethylene per year and to refine 10 million tons of crude oil per year, according to the joint venture's Web site.

    Repeated calls to the company set up by the joint venture, PetroChina Sichuan Petrochem Industry, went unanswered Monday. The official view of the project was represented by a brief front-page article that appeared Monday in a state-controlled newspaper, The Chengdu Business News.

    "The Sichuan refinery project will install advanced equipment, apply new techniques and improve environment protection facilities with strict pollution prevention and risk control schemes," the article read. "The project passed an assessment by the relevant national departments after several hearings and revisions by many distinguished experts in the oil-refining industry and environment protection."

    The protest movement in Chengdu is at least the third such groundswell to emerge in recent years.

    Last year, construction of a chemical plant outside Xiamen, in Fujian Province, was halted after residents held a series of street protests.

    More recently, residents in Shanghai protested construction of a high-speed rail line designed to link a suburb with the airport, forcing officials to announce that the project was being delayed.

    In both cases, residents complained that the projects would bring significant environmental and health risks.

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    Can Green Trade Tariffs Combat Climate Change?
    By Robert Collier
    Project Syndicate

    Friday 02 May 2008

    Berkeley - In recent months, China has taken center stage in the international debate over global warming. It has surpassed the United States as the world's largest source of greenhouse gases, and it became developing nations' diplomatic champion at the recent United Nations climate negotiations in Bali. Now China may become the target of a full-fledged trade war that could destroy - or perhaps rescue - the chances of bringing rich and poor nations together to fight global warming.

    The focus on China intensified late last year, when new data from the International Energy Agency and other research organizations revealed that China had overtaken the US as the largest source of greenhouse gases - and, more ominously, that its emissions are growing at a rate that exceeds all wealthy nations' capacity to decrease theirs. Even if China met its own targets for energy conservation, its emissions would increase by about 2.3 billion metric tons over the next five years - far larger than the 1.7 billion tons in cutbacks imposed by the Kyoto Protocol on the 37 developed "Annex 1" countries, including the US.

    After the inconclusive end of the UN led Bali talks on the global environment, worry has grown among US and European industries - especially iron, steel, cement, glass, chemicals, and pulp and paper - that any new climate treaty would put them at a big disadvantage against their fast-growing competitors in China. In response, the US Congress is moving to create a system of trade sanctions that would levy heavy taxes on imports from other major greenhouse gas emitters. Ironically, the American plan is taking shape even before the US takes any action to reduce its own emissions, inviting charges of hypocrisy, violation of international law, and threatening a major trade war.

    The tariff proposal - contained in the central piece of global warming legislation now before Congress - would impose emission controls on domestic industries starting in 2012. It would also levy punitive tariffs on greenhouse-gas-intensive products imported from countries that lack "comparable action" to that of the US, starting in 2020. Industrial lobbies and labor unions are pushing hard for these sanctions to take effect more quickly.

    European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and industrial chambers of commerce strongly advocate a similar tariff system, leading many analysts to predict that the EU will also adopt some sort of green tariff system in the next few years.

    Warning of an "all-out trade war" if the sanctions go forward, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab argues that green trade sanctions would violate World Trade Organization rules. In a recent letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, she wrote, "We believe this approach could be a blunt and imprecise instrument of fear, rather than one of persuasion, that will take us down a dangerous path and adversely impact US manufacturers, farmers, and consumers."

    Developing nations' allies, meanwhile, are warning that the sanctions plan could destroy the chances of a post-Kyoto treaty. Chinese diplomats have not responded directly, but they have noticeably hardened their stand on climate talks. In February, China's top climate negotiator, Yu Qingtai, said at the UN that rich nations, which "caused the problem of climate change in the first place," must be treated as "culprits," and developing countries as "victims."

    Despite China's official hard line, some Chinese environmental officials privately express alarm at run-away carbon emissions, and suggest that foreign green tariffs would actually strengthen their hand in domestic policy struggles over controlling greenhouse gases by helping to win political support for emissions cuts. Pan Yue, vice-director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, recently argued in a China Daily article in favor of stronger emissions regulations and a more "green-oriented China," warning that "China's image among the international community" was in jeopardy.

    The growing dispute over trade sanctions brings to the fore not only the fundamental ethical question of whether wealthy nations should bear the burden of emissions reduction alone, but also the strategic question of whether sticks as well as carrots should be used to induce green behavior in developing countries.

    Although China may not like it, the international trading system may provide more leverage than any other post-Kyoto mechanism over developing countries' environmental policies. Despite the threat of trade wars, trade sanctions could emerge as the most effective means of forcing international action on global warming.

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