It’s Getting Hot In Here

I recently attended a talk by a visiting Chinese professor of environmental history. The talk was on China’s attempts thus far to green the upcoming Bejing Olympics taking place this August. China was denied hosting the summer Olympic games the last go around largely due to Australia’s proposal emphasizing the importance of “greening” the games. China went back to the drawing board and came up with an ambitious green Olympics proposal, winning the bid this time around.

The visiting professor’s talk was largely positive, focusing on Bejing’s green building practices (one stadium is built to attract nesting birds and the aquatics center uses mostly recycled water) as well as efforts to reduce waste and better the water and air quality. (Those Olympic athletes tend to breathe a lot of air and drink a lot of water).

The professor finished his talk with a question: What will it take to keep Bejing on the right track once they have finished preparing for the Olympics and the international community is no longer scrutinizing its efforts?

One answer is a continued sharing of technology and information on renewable energy development. Here in Washington state, Governor Christine Gregoire has opened up those talks, meeting with Chinese officials to facilitate a transfer of clean, renewable technologies. This thinking, that developed countries must share the knowledge and technologies to help developing countries move towards clean energy, was also one of the few positive things to come out of the Bali talks. It is also extremely important in countries like China with its vast supply of cheap coal.

When I asked the visiting Chinese professor how the rest of China was faring on the “green” scale, he replied that Bejing, being the capitol of China, is the hub of the nation and its green improvements could emanate outward to the outlying provinces. I think this may be an overly optimistic idea however, as the outlying provinces of much of China are still largely small rural communities, perhaps not so easily incorporated into much of what Bejing is doing.

And, of course, China has a long way to go on the human rights side of things. Just yesterday they opened fire on demonstrators in Tibet, killing at least two people.

Perhaps events like the Olympics will provide an opportunity for better scrutiny of China’s environmental quality and thus improvements. Or perhaps it’s simply another effort to greenwash the rest of the world, an attempt to make us forget how far China must still go on so many fronts.