China’s Environmental Challenges & the Travel Industry (part 1) – Conde Nast World Savers Congress

photo courtesy: The Sietch Blog

I attended the World Savers Congress panel on China hosted by Conde Nast Traveler on September 23.  The panel was convened to answer, “How can the travel industry contribute to the positive development of China?”  But the discussion went far beyond to provide a broad framing of the huge environmental and economic development challenges facing China.  The panel provided a balance perspective that I’d characterize as a blend of cold-water realism and cautious optimism, and was moderated by Dorinda Elliott, Deputy Editor of Special Projects and previously Beijing Bureau Chief for Newsweek.  This is Part 1.  Part 2 forthcoming.

First, some background on the World Savers Congress event

How can the travel industry, which generates an estimated $8 trillion of revenue, make a positive impact in the world that provides its stage?  The editors at Conde Nast Traveler have cleverly created an awards program called World Savers Awards to harness the competitiveness of the travel industry to encourage examples of sustainability in travel.  Awards were in the categories of Poverty Alleviation, Environmental/Cultural Preservation, Education, Wildlife Conservation, and Health.  Thanks to Wendy Perrin of Conde Nast and the Perrin Post blog, I was able to get an invite to attend the World Savers Congress in New York to see the awards and keynotes by Jeffrey Sachs, Queen Rania Al Abdulla of Jordan, and Ashley Judd.  Pam Mandel of NerdsEyeView live-tweeted the event (transcribed by TravelingMamas) and posted about environmentalism in travel and did a nice round-up of the event.  Great roundup of the event at Perrin Post, Conde Nast Daily Traveler, TravelMuse, and NerdsEyeView. More on Conde Nast’s social responsibility initiatives here at Conde Nast MakeADifference.

Background on the China Panel

• Orville Schell – Director, Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations (bio, Wikipedia)
• Barbara Finamore – Natural Resources Defense Council’s China Clean Energy Project (bio, blog)
• Mory- Marriott International (lost her contact info — need to get this from Dorinda)
• Albert Ng – CEO of WildChina (bio, blog)

By the way, Schell recently wrote a richly nuanced article entitled “China: Humiliation & the Olympics” in New York Review of Books that discussed the connection between the perception of “a century of [Western] humiliation”, the impact of this perception on the Chinese psyche, the use of this perception to reinforce political power of the government, and the relation of this to nationalism in the face of the Olympics.  I am especially curious what Chinese people think about this article.  Read it!

Schell:  “Paradoxically, the kind of environmental problems you can see in China are not really the ones that are the most troublesome and worrisome in China”

photo courtesy Chang W. Lee / The New York Times via Envirochina blog

Thanks in part to the Olympics, the symbol of China’s environmental problems may be Beijing’s air pollution (and the heroic efforts by the government to control it).  Schell suggests that the real issue is China’s thirst for energy, burning of coal, and resulting greenhouse gas emissions.  The United States is, of course, the #1 emitter of greenhouse gases, and Schell points out that “neither country is going to shake off coal, especially with [today's] oil costs…This is a real dilemma.”  While China’s carbon emissions is five times less per capita than the U.S., last year China beat the US to be the #1 carbon emitter in the world.

Schell: “unless the US and China get in the game, there is no game”

Because the US and China emit 50% of all greenhouse gases in the world, “unless the US and China get in the game (solutions to climate change), there is no game,” according to Schell.  Right now there is no game.  US refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol.  China signed as a developing country, and thus has no binding emission limits until 2012.

Some related charts from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change

The Pew Center for Global Climate Change has a good resource site on China with some information and a downloadable brief (pdf).  Here are some charts that tell the story:

China emits a lot of greenhouse gases…

…but not much on a per capita basis…

…and power generation and industry is the lions share of greenhouse gas emissions

The need for energy, and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, is “of all the issues confronting China…probably the most daunting and the most inflexible,” according to Schell.  And the Chinese government and people are clearly seeing the “circumstantial consequences” of global warming, such as the ice rain in South China earlier this year.

When is America going to take the lead?

At this time, there is only one country in a position to lead a solution:  the United States.  According to Schell, “China is loathe to lead internationally.” China doesn’t want to be telling other countries what to do because it doesn’t want other countries telling China to do.  This obsession with mutual non-interference insures China will follow on global issues but will not likely lead for some time.

The discussion reminded me of some remarks I had heard from Taylor Francis, a 16-year old Menlo Park, CA high school student trained personally by Al Gore at The Climate Project and invited by the Chinese Government to speak about climate change, said that the resounding question from Chinese youth was “When is America going to take the lead?”  In his 26 events with high school youth and other interested Chinese citizens, Francis observed:

By far, the most common question revolved around China’s obligations as a developing country. They asked how the U.S., which rejected Kyoto, could call on China to act before we do. They were also concerned about the economic consequences of action; I tried to point out the business potential in developing new technologies and new jobs.

It is not hard to see why Chinese see Western hypocrisy everywhere they look.  In this case, the perception of hypocrisy is well-justified.

“The place is like a house on fire”: sheer scale of the problem makes small solutions seem adequate

Schell closed with some reflections on the daunting nature of the challenge in China.  “The sheer scale of development [of economic growth and environmental impact]..outstrips the scale of the remedy,” said Schell. “We can talk about the hopeful things that are happening, but the place is like a house on fire.  How do you moderate and modulate the growth to reasonable levels?  It is a real contradiction that [the Chinese government] doesn’t have the answer to.  There will be no answer if there is no partnership between the US and China, and unless the market develops support for a remedy.”

In short, we can all do our small part.  But we are in big trouble unless the United States government leads with the “power of our example, not the example of our power.”

More from the World Savers Congress in Part 2!