Survey on China’s youth and the environment

Chinese newspaper, China Youth Daily, recently conducted a survey on the youth in China and their views on environmental issues, including climate change, sustainable consumption, and environmental awareness. One interesting finding of the survey was that the top 3 things that most youth wanted as consumers were: a large home (38%), to travel abroad (21%) and to own a car (12%). If everyone drives a car and travels by plane, how much carbon dioxide would be released?

Source: China Youth Daily via China Dialogue.

New ways to educate and spread the green message

We need to look at new ways to educate the public and companies, and how to spread the green message. The Business Times recently lamented that companies are still not going green in a big way and “continue to drag their heels”. Although educating the companies is important, education using the old methods is not working. Read more

Indonesia wants peatlands to be included under carbon trading

Reuters has reported that Indonesia is pushing for the inclusion of peatlands under the carbon trading scheme. Read more

Local players can set the trend for green buildings

Channel NewsAsia reported that local players in the property sector can play a bigger role in setting the trend for green buildings.

There is a growing trend for property developers and owners to have green buildings, and this is mainly due to some help from the government. The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) launched the Green Mark Scheme in January 2005 to promote green buildings which incorporate best practices in energy and water efficiency, site and project management, indoor environmental quality, and environmental innovations. Read more

China is addicted to growth

The New York Times has published a special series, Choking on Growth, to examine China’s environment and the challenges it faces as it grows economically. The series include articles, audio slide shows, videos and graphic maps. In the article, As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes, Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley pointed out that China’s environmental problems are causing health and political problems. The problems arise out of the drive for increasing economic growth. Although they acknowledged that developed countries go through an initial phase of environmental degradation before starting to clean up their act, China’s environmental degradation is happening at an unprecedented rate such that it poses great challenges to the government and the public. Read more

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