New Eco-China Website Launched

Eco-China (生态中国网) is a new website launched last week by the Working Committee of Eco-China (生态中国工作委员会), which comprises the National Green Committee (全国绿化委员会), State Forestry Administration (国家林业局) and China Green Foundation (中国绿化基金会).

The website’s mission is to promote an eco-conscious culture and push for green development in China. The site is a goldmine of green tips and information, including water and soil management, nature conservation, green living, ecotourism, green technologies, climate change and energy management.

Visit the website (in Chinese) at http://www.eco.gov.cn/ or go to this Google translated site in English.

Image source: Screenshot from Eco-China

China Green Business Summit 2009

China Green Business Summit 2009 – Driving China’s Green Revolution through Leading CDM and Water Business

JW Marriott Beijing (May 13th – 15th, 2009) will welcome the opening of the China Green Business Summit 2009, expectedly a grand gathering of 300+ senior level executives from global green business fraternity in China and elsewhere around the world.

Delegates from all sectors of the green industry, including socially responsible companies (power generation, energy & utilities, chemical, iron & steel, cement, coal); water operators; water investment companies; wastewater treatment companies; CDM project developers; CDM potential project owners; green technology/equipment providers; capital owners, lawyers etc are attending and the swell of interest in this meaningful event has been remarkable!

For more information, please contact:

Ms. Anita MENG, Marketing Manager

Tel: (8621) 6875 8108

Fax: (8621) 6875 8750

Email: anitam@cfeci.com

Website: http://www.cfeci.com/cgbs2009

(AsiaIsGreen is a Media Partner of China Green Business Summit 2009)

China’s Dead Lakes

This article first appeared in Greenpeace China.

Beijing, China – In the summer of 2007 a thick toxic blanket of blue-green algae covered Tai Lake (Taihu) in Jiangsu province. The government earmarked billions of renminbi to clean it up but next year the same thing happened again. What is going wrong?

The problem is the intense amounts of chemical fertilisers in use.

These leak into the lake and are one of the main causes of poisonous algal blooms.

Unless farmers start using less chemical fertilisers and start practicing eco-agriculture China’s lakes and rivers will continue to be poisoned.

Year after year. Read more

China to Hold Firm on Climate Change Policy Position

(This article is contributed by our guest writer, Julian Wong, and was first published in The Green Leap Forward.)

China releases comprehensive white paper on its climate change policy ahead of key international meetings.

Ahead of the high level technology transfer summit in Beijing next week; next December’s 14th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Poznan, Poland, during which a general framework for a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012, will be hashed out; and of course, Halloween, the State Council of the central government has released a white paper on climate change policy titled “Comprehensive Plan on Climate Change.” This white paper also comes on the heels of China’s submission of a viewpoint paper to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action of the UNFCCC on September 28.

While the 11,000 word white paper reads like a kitchen-sink of domestic policies that may seem to ring hollow given the institutional limitations that China observers have come to be so familiar with, the document does provide a good summary of the specific policy programs that China has enacted so far and of future policies that we can expect. Above everything else, the timing of the release of this document is highly strategic, ahead of the above mentioned meetings, as the white paper also states in no uncertain terms various policy positions that seem to have the north and the south heading towards climate deadlock. Read more

Asia Environmental News: 11 Nov 08

• China pays high environmental and social price for reliance on coal (Guardian) – The True Cost of Coal, a new report published by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and The Energy Foundation, says that the social and environmental impacts of using coal cost China an additional 1.7 trillion yuan.
• New deal to rescue Borneo orangutans in Malaysia (Yahoo) – The Malaysian-based LEAP Conservancy group is planning to buy 222 acres of tropical jungle land on Borneo island from palm oil operators, and turn it into a forest sanctuary to protect Borneo’s orangutans, pygmy elephants and other endangered wildlife.
• Thailand commissions nuclear power plant study (Today) – The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand is conducting a feasibility study for Thailand’s first nuclear power plant.
• Marina Barrage: First city reservoir opens (Straits Times via Wildsingapore) – Singapore opens its new Marina Barrage to create the 15th reservoir, and to increase water supply and control flooding.
• Singapore could draw more green energy projects (Business Times via Wildsingapore) – Singapore is looking to attract more mega investments to develop new alternative energy ideas and technologies.

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