With its grey, smog-filled skies and murky rivers, China may appear to hinder rather than further the fight against global warming.
"If you ride your bike on a heavily polluted day -- if you clean out your nose, it's black," said Robert Earley, the clean fuels program manager for the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a Beijing-based NGO.
Such anecdotes fuel the country's reputation as an environmental wasteland. And then there are the facts, such as:
- As of 2006, China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas cited as the primary cause of global warming.
- Twenty of the world's 30 most polluted cities are within its borders, largely due to such emissions produced by cars and factories, according to The World Bank.
But lately, it seems the communist behemoth is working hard to rid itself of these dubious distinctions.
On Nov. 26, the Chinese State Council announced China would cut its carbon emissions intensity between 40 and 45 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels, a commitment that many analysts say is a step in the right direction for a country whose participation in the environmental movement was virtually non-existent in recent times.
So, how did this sudden shift to a greener China begin?
"It started about 15 years ago," says Jing Chen, a foreign advisor to the Chinese government and professor at University of Toronto.
Chen added that local environmental NGOs, a driving force behind China's eco-consciousness, are a relatively new phenomenon in the country. "There were almost (no NGOs) 15 years ago. Now there are 2000, 3000 of these -- many, many of these."
Friends of Nature is an example of this growth. Founded in 1994, it is the oldest environmental NGO in the country.
Attributing this "upsurge" in China's environmental movement to the state, Chen said, "China's government, especially the State Environmental Protection Administration (renamed the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2008), has taken a different view on the NGOs."
"They have become more open, they are supportive and they view NGOs as local eyes, if you will, on these environmental issues," Chen said. "This is very helpful for their mandate."
"So, they basically welcome this movement. They are not putting cold water on this movement."
Just government spin-offs?
But You-Zhi Tang, an environmental expert and chief scientific officer at DaoPower Canada, maintains that ecological awareness in China emerged even before the mid-1990s.
"Probably some smaller organizations started even earlier (than FON)," he said. "Most of these so-called NGOs in China originally came from government."
"Actually, it's kind of a government spinoff. In the very beginning, it was more a spinoff from pseudo-environmental type of organizations."
Recently, grassroots NGOs have been growing in numbers. "In the past 10, 15 years, we've seen more from the grassroots, and now more from the young generation, particularly university students," Tang said.
China's environmental movement is seen by many as an organic process that emerged following Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms. The country became more open, and Chinese citizens were exposed to foreign influences that included environmental activism and NGOs.
Tang believes the Chinese government is committed to helping local NGOs tackle pollution, but said there remain challenges.
"In China, as an NGO -- if you're on a course that will support the government mandate, it will be much easier. If you're trying to do something against the government mandate, obviously, very likely, you will hit a brick wall."
Either way, NGOs are an integral part of China's environmental movement, ICET's Earley said via phone from the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen.
"The key activity of NGOs is to do work that government can't do because it's too local, or other for-profit players can't do because they can't make money off it, or on issues that are so advanced that government hasn't noticed them yet," he said.
Most importantly, Earley said he believes NGOs have increased awareness about environmental issues amongst the Chinese public, fostering a dialogue between the government and its citizens.
"I do think that Chinese people, at least people in Beijing, are really interested in environmental problems," he said. "They do want to make a change."
"I think they have some faith in government, but I also think that they need to do things by themselves, and they do want to do things by themselves to make their lives better."
