As China continues to embrace a new era of hydropower expansion, demand for dam inspection has outpaced the country’s supply of inspectors, ramping up safety fears for thousands of small- and medium-sized dams in China’s rural areas that have been “ignored”, reports Ecns.cn.
China’s environment minister enlists people power to help clean up the country’s “black and stinky” waterways.
Experts fear Lintao’s dry-up is a sign of things to come. Probe International fellow and noted Chinese environmental journalist, Dai Qing, says China’s water scarcity and toxicity is the greatest danger facing her country today.
2016 will be a decisive year for hydropower projects on the mainstream Mekong. Southeast-Asia based journalist, Tom Fawthrop, looks at the notion of ‘nice dams’ that supposedly don’t inflict too much damage on their surrounding environments and their opposite reality: the hidden costs of hydropower and the irreversible destruction of unique ecosystems.
Beijing’s revisionist approach to the status quo in Southeast Asia is nowhere more evident than its “land grab” in the South China Sea and “water grab” in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, says renowned Thai commentator Thitinan Pongsudhirak.
The need for China to enter into institutionalized water-sharing arrangements with its downstream neighbours is key to building water cooperation and the protection of critical ecosystems but its reluctance to do so, says geostrategist and author Brahma Chellaney, is to secure its monetary and political power as the controller of Asia’s major waters.
Beijing’s Lhasa River Project comes under fire from high-profile Chinese geologist and environmentalist, Fan Xiao.
Journalist Sharron Lovell’s gallery of striking images portray the losing end of China’s massive water transfer scheme to alleviate some by taking from others.
Imagine waking up one day to be told your home and way of life is to be upended for the construction of a massive state water project?
President Xi Jinping’s pledge to prioritize environmental protection and halt new development projects on the Yangtze is a promising turnaround for China’s beleaguered river pulse but don’t hold your breath.
China’s push to replace petrol-engine cars with electric vehicles powered by coal-fired grids fuels fears of worsening pollution problem as the country’s switch to cleaner energy lags behind its “green” car market.
Cutting CO2 emissions and economic growth are incompatible. The Chinese know it, whatever they said and signed in Paris. This article for the South African Independent Newspapers group highlights the recent Probe International study “The Truth about China” by Patricia Adams.
China’s leaders, we are told, are leading us to planetary carbon salvation. For a reality check, consult a new report by Patricia Adams, the executive director of Probe International. Tom Switzer for the Sydney Morning Herald.
So far, all the pledges from all the countries put together would scarcely budge the needle on the great big global thermostat. This opinion piece for the Globe and Mail quotes Probe International’s new study on China’s climate policy and energy needs.
The biggest build-out of wind power “we’ll probably see anywhere” in the world, yet nearly one out of every five wind turbines in China isn’t spinning. Apart from wasting clean energy, this has meant China’s wind power industry has lost more than a billion dollars in the first half of this year alone. Rob Schmitz for Marketplace reports.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Lisa Peryman
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