The relationship between the environmental degradation and economic growth In China

This paper analyses and proves that environmental degradation is inversely proportional to the economic growth in the country. China is torn between economic growth and the quality of the environment. This paper explains the various ways in which the environment has been destroyed while industries and infrastructure has grown. Environmental Kuznets curves help to explain this paradox in the Chinese society. Literature review China has the second largest gross domestic product in the world and is the largest economy by purchasing power. The paper will offer a solution to pollution while still maintain economic growth. Introduction the latter part of the 20th century has seen China become an economic powerhouse. It became the fourth largest economy and the third largest exporting nation.

The standards of living of the people in the country have tremendously risen and millions of people are being lifted from poverty. With an economic growth rate of above 10 % annually, cities and industries have sprouted in every part of the country (Jintao 10). Many industries rely on coal as an energy source. Coal has a low energy efficiency and conservation capacity. Vehicles are another source of air pollution. As China's cities have grown, the number of cars have increased leading to long traffic jams. As a result, a lot of carbon compounds are emitted. After the completion of the urbanization in 2020, the reliance on coal is expected to have doubled. China is the world largest producer of coal and emitter of sulfur dioxide.

China is technologically advanced but its industries and buildings have not adopted the high energy utilization technologies and this causes high pollution level which can easily be avoided. The buildings consumed an amount of energy that is two to three times more than that consumed by developed countries in the same topic as China. The industries in China are three- to ten times less efficient than their counterparts in United States, India or Japan. The number of private cars is expected to range between 110 -160 million cars. The cars will increase because the standards of living are gradually rising up. The planning department from the ministry of communication predicts that the number of cars on China roads will surpass those in the United States.

Pollution from the cars is affecting the quality of air in the cities. Most cities in chia have heavy fog. Land resources Over the last half-century, China had experienced rapid deforestation to pave way for developments. The deforestation has led to the loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and a change in the local climate. Loess plateau is the most eroded place in the world. 6 million ton of soil from the plateau is drained into the Yellow River on an annually. Forty percent of the land in China is affected by erosion. More than four hundred people are affected by the desertification. As the dry areas expand, grain production in the country is becoming fragile due to the unpredictable rain and long dry seasons.

As a result, a lot of pressure is put on the environment because forest land becomes the target by farmers. A study conducted by experts in 2005 using high-resolution Landsat Thematic and Enhanced Mapper data of 1985/1990, 1995/1996, and 1999/2000. The study mapped the expansion of population in urban centers and analyzed the factors driving the increase. China has already invested in heavy chemical industries where there is high demand for energy. The machinery, car, and iron production factories require high energy. As the robots in the industries replace human resource, the energy in the recent past has been in high demand. Most people in the urban centers rely on electrical appliances and that has caused the energy consumption per capita to be three and a half times that of the rural areas.

China has established itself as a global manufacturing base and that has attracted other manufacturing industries from foreign countries to relocate to the country. The rate at which coal is recovering is only 40% and it is 25% lower in the small coal mines (Huang et al. The power shortage is as a result of poor use of energy rather than a shortage in supply. Chinese companies that produce steel consume more energy per unit production than their counterparts in the United States and Japan. The power production plants such as the thermal and hydroelectric plants are also inefficient in energy consumption. 10 % of energy get lost when producing power in the hydroelectric plants. As a result, the government is building water reservoirs and funding research for the technological solution of water shortage in the country.

Most of the water in northern China is exhausted by coal power stations. China is ranked fourth after Brazil, Russia, and Canada in terms of the volume of freshwater resources available in the country. However, there high demand from the huge population and extremely high toxic levels in the country produce a situation where six hundred cities in the country do not have enough water. The per capita water supply is twenty-five percent of the global average and expect to predict that by the year 2030, the per capita supply would reduce by 5000m3 from the 2200m3. The country was ranked 116 out of 132 by Yale University’s environmental performance index of 2012 with respect to changes in the quantity of water being consumed for industrial, agricultural and domestic purposes.

The pollution has put a sixth of the Chinese population to be at risk due to water pollution only. The cities that border the coast are famous for the pollution because the coastal belt has many factories that heavily depend on water. However, when the water is used, it is discharged to back to the environment loaded with chemicals. The state has made efforts in closing up paper mills, breweries, and other potential factories but the pollution level are still high. The mineral came from metallurgy factory which contaminated the water. In 2009, the resident of Zhentouu carried out a protest against Xiang chemical factory because the untreated effluents it released flowed into the rice and vegetable farms. Additionally, t0wo people had died.

The three great rivers in China- Yangtze, pearl and yellow river have very high levels of pollution that people are not allowed to fish or swim in them. Some parts of the river are dark and soapy (Gren 27). a decade later, there were two thousand eight hundred chemical factories in the area and some of them released chemicals directly to the lake. After various groups have shown concern over the levels of pollution, the government set up $ 132 billion for cleaning up China's water supply. Cities have turned to the private sector for proper water system management. Water consumed in Changzhou, Lizhou, and Shanghai is managed Veolia, a French company. China’s management of water is poorer than their developed counterparts. Another problem with China's growth of the economy is that it has become a significant participant in global trade on illegal timber.

Due to the strict policies the country has put in place as regards to cutting trees, most timber comes from foreign countries. However, forty percent of the timber and twenty percent f the pulp consumed is illegally fetched from foreign countries. Chinese logging companies get their raw material from the neighboring South Asia countries and in Amazon in South America. When the timber is processed, it is exported mostly to the G8 countries. For the World Bank to conclude that estimate, they considered factors such as days people leave work to seek treatment for pollution-related illnesses, closure of industries because of lack of enough water, crops, and fish lost climate change of natural disasters caused by environmental degradation. The economic loss attributed to the floods and drought that occurred in 2003 were estimated to total twenty-four billion US dollars.

The dry condition caused a loss of six billion US dollars. The Chinese industries incurred a loss of twenty-eight billion due to the water shortage, while the acid rain led to a thirteen billion loss. The water pollution in 2004, cost the Chinese fisheries one hundred and thirty million US dollars which were a forty million dollars more than that incurred in 2003. The change is costing the companies located along the river about the US $ 300-400 million. At the same time, the farmers have suffered a loss of four hundred million US dollars. The high cost of medical treatment along the river is attributed to the pollution along the river. The state in 2001, reported that two thousand lakes and rivers had dried up.

The desertification affected the economy because most power comes from hydroelectric power stations (Gren 34). In August, the effluents from a battery company that was located in Meishan were linked to the high lead level in the blood of the neighboring villages (Hu et al. As a result, there were massive demonstrations that hampered their operations. Such protest, block trade and business in the area. Some business that had nothing to do with the pollution get affected and therefore, the profits in that region are relatively reduced. Methodology The data for this analysis were collected from various article reviews that contained data from thirty eight densely populated cities in China. In the third stage, the economy and starts to grow and nature starts to show signs of revival.

As a result, a load of pollution in the environment reduces. Developed countries are in the third phase. Using the per capita income and the environmental factors that create an index, an Environmental Kuznets curve is formed. As the economy of a country matures, the environmental state declines and then revives. World Bank estimates that the turning point of pollutants emission is about eight thousand US dollars. Studies of the environmental Kuznets curves states that air and water pollution continue to increase even before the per capita income reaches in the range of 5000-8000 US dollar. When that income level is surpassed, the environment starts to get clean and pollution emission rates gradually reduce. The turning points in the environmental Kuznets curves are not independent but rather related to a country’s policies and institutional setup.

When the environmental Kuznets curve is relatively flat, it means that the pollution caused by the economic development is low and when the curve is steep-sided, the pollution caused by the development is high. On scale effect, the size of the economic activities is analyzed (Jintao 10). An increase in scale is attributed to the increased per capita income and expansion of companies. On composition effect, the growth on economy results in a change on the pollution composition. The economy shifts from agrarian to industrial model and therefore, the pollution becomes complex in nature and increases in amount. Technology affects the composition of the pollution. Zhao et al. (2005) suggest that soot emissions from industries give a weak EKC U-shaped curve. In China, the expected curve for sulfur dioxide and other gas emissions from 1981 to 2001 is not manifested.

This is an indication of an increasing EKC in the country. The relationship between income and pollution varies (victor and Robert, 2011). , N ) and the subscript t represents the time index (t= 1, 2, …. , T). Time dummy, θt is the specific time effect. µ Indicates a stochastic error term which in most cases is serially correlated. S denotes the pollutants while P stands for the population in ten of thousands. There are various reasons why China is in such a situation. The first reason is the limitation of the traditional system. There is lack of cooperation between the various provinces in the country. Additionally, the environmental management in China uses administrative measures. For example, the economy depends on the market and the role of protecting the environment belongs to the government.

Such a scenario allows the polluter's activities go on unabated because the administrative intervention measure depends on a control system too is faulty. As a result, administrative measures cannot be solely used to ensure sustainability and efficiency of environmental management. Political conflicts Due to climate change, the environmental resource has become the center of focus on international conferences. Many nations are concerned about the rate of pollution that is coming from China and that has put China under pressure hence affecting its economic development. The country is experiencing a high demand for raw material and has caused their prices to rise. China’s cost of resources is relatively low and that has enabled it to have a favorable balance of trade and some countries like the United States are not happy.

For example, America pushed for an RMB appreciation. Some of the political and diplomatic conflicts create a barrier to the exportation of Chinese products. China was forced to comply with the economic modification and that caused many businesses to make losses. When the RMB was sharply appreciated, many export businesses lost interest. The policies that regulate the emission of carbon dioxide should be strengthened. An environmental standard system and legislation should also be implemented. The second option is developing renewable energy and has a variety. Examples of such sources are solar, wind, geothermal, and ocean energy. In order for the country experience economic growth and produce less pollution load, coal has to be replaced with cleaner energy because it puts a lot of pressure on the environment.

The economy also advocates recycling and safe waste disposal. Conclusion The relationship between environmental degradation and economic degradation can be well explained using Environmental Kuznets curves. The curves vary based on the parameters being measured. Economic growth causes an increase in pollution until it reaches the turning point on the EKC curve. China is a developing nation and the pollution is on the rise. "Economic development, pollutant emissions and energy consumption in Malaysia. " Journal of Policy Modeling 30. Gren, Marie, and Henk Folmer. "Cooperation with respect to cleaning of an international water body with stochastic environmental damage: the case of the Baltic Sea. " Ecological Economics 47. Jalil, Abdul, and Mete Feridun. "The impact of growth, energy and financial development on the environment in China: a cointegration analysis.