Artifacts: The real China dream

Vanessa Moore

While I was getting a foot massage in Zhuhai over the long weekend, as I was chatting with one of my friends a travel show was playing on TV in the background. Deep in conversation, I wasn’t paying much attention to it until the programme flashed back to scenes of 1950s London and its now-notorious fog. Not being old enough to have witnessed such a sight, it was somewhat eerie to behold those black and white panoramas of people in trench coats slinking trough the mist. Obviously we all know now that it wasn’t actually fog but in fact smog, the result of burning tons of coal for heating in winter. Living in China now, those TV pictures took me back to the time I spent living in Beijing, and how scarily reminiscent those scenes were of the infamous smoggy skies that now blanket the capital especially this time of year.
For the first time in a long while there may be a new ray of hope in what has otherwise been a consistent trend of general malaise over efforts to combat climate change. A few weeks ago, amidst all the doom and gloom of worldwide climate apathy, China surprised many when it announced a plan to curb its carbon dioxide emissions. But if I was surprised, probably the most shocked were the embattled citizens of smog-shrouded Shanghai and Beijing who, much like those Londoners of the 1950s, have gotten used to living their lives surrounded by the permanent threat of noxious PM2.5 particles.
China’s pledge, forgive the pun, didn’t come out of the blue. The other big carbon-
emitting economy, the US, also announced reduction targets in conjunction with China and those made by the EU in advance of a new round of UN-led climate negotiations. The talks, which began last week in Lima, Peru, are currently on going until the end of this week. 195 countries are now laying the groundwork to prepare for a new global climate pact in 2015. However despite the pledges, there still remain many sticking points.
China has now overtaken many developed countries in the amount of CO2 it’s creating. But there’s little evidence that other developing economies will follow its lead in reducing their emissions. Why jeopardize their economic growth if richer countries can make cuts instead, the thinking goes. What’s more, China has rejected the inspection of its efforts to limit carbon emissions. At the moment, Chinese negotiators at the talks are trying to have provisions in a draft text deleted that would allow other countries and NGOs to submit questions about its carbon-
reduction plans.
Also a cause for concern ahead of the next round of negotiations scheduled for Paris, debate will also hinge on the irksome question of how the costs of confronting climate change should be split between rich and poor countries. But what camp does China fall into? Should it still be judged a poor country considering many residents of first-tier cities own several cars and multiple homes? Probably not. But then again, elsewhere in the countryside and inland areas, China has a surprisingly large population of people living under the poverty line. In terms of GDP per capita, China still ranks only around number 90. So it isn’t a poor country, but neither is it completely rich.
What’s for sure is that rich or poor, China’s citizens all know what smog looks like. And although Beijing’s initial carbon reduction commitment is a breakthrough, its citizens won’t just expect political results. In the end, they want what we all do – blue skies and clean air. Despite what Xi Jinping claims, that’s the real China dream for now.