A primer on China’s lax environmentalism

Judging by the tenor of the story, we shouldn’t expect changes soon. How bad is the problem? A brief graf illustrates:

But China is more like a teenage smoker with emphysema. The costs of pollution have mounted well before it is ready to curtail economic development. But the price of business as usual — including the predicted effects of global warming on China itself — strikes many of its own experts and some senior officials as intolerably high.

The details of the problem?

The level of particulate (pollutants) is measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air. The European Union stipulates that any reading above 40 micrograms is unsafe. The United States allows 50. In 2006, Beijing’s average PM 10 level was 141, according to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. Only Cairo, among world capitals, had worse air quality as measured by particulates, according to the World Bank.

And, it’s not just air pollution. Half of China lacks access to quality water supplies. Between the two, about 750,000 Chinese a year are killed by pollution.

On air pollution, a large problem is Chinese factory inefficiency:

Chinese steel makers, on average, use one-fifth more energy per ton than the international average. Cement manufacturers need 45 percent more power, and ethylene producers need 70 percent more than producers elsewhere, the World Bank says. …

Chinese buildings rarely have thermal insulation. They require, on average, twice as much energy to heat and cool as those in similar climates in the United States and Europe, according to the World Bank. A vast majority of new buildings — 95 percent, the bank says — do not meet China’s own codes for energy efficiency.

Part of the problem is that American businesses that outsource production to China also outsource pollution, and know that’s what they are doing. (Actually, not all the pollution is ultimately outsource; particulate pollution in L.A. comes partially from China.) The Chinese government, instead of making death threats against corrupt managers, should insist American businesses include at least a few dinero to help China pay for improving its pollution mess. Most of these American businesses have enough sunk costs in Chinese manufacturing that they’re not going to baulk.

Up to this point, both the failure of Beijing to think of something like this, and the willingness of American companies to outsource pollution has been a damning indictment on what is known as capitalism.