A canary in the Chinese coal mine

The wheat farmers of Donglu village can’t sell their harvest. The wheat kernels are dark, sooty, hollow and twisted.

“Nobody wants to buy it, so we have to eat it at home,” says Zhang Xiaojiao, a farmer in the village.

“Look at it,” she says, brandishing a handful of the stuff. “It doesn’t taste good. It tastes bitter. It’s because of the coal pollution. But nobody cares about us, and nobody comes to investigate.”
Of course, the West has been guilty of many of China’s bad environmental habits, too. The average Canadian, for example, consumes far more energy than the average Chinese and is responsible for releasing far more carbon dioxide. But with China’s massive population, and its reluctance to enforce the use of modern anti-pollution equipment, China is quickly catching up to the industrialized world as a cause of global warming.

China is officially striving to restrain the rapid growth of its coal consumption, but mainly because of concern for its coal reserves, not because of the global-warming issue. And its efforts so far have been weak and ineffective. Even when it shuts down an illegal coal mine, the mine is often reopened by local workers and businessmen who don’t want to lose the revenue.

China aims to limit its coal production to 2.6 billion tonnes by 2010, a moderate rise from the 2.3 billion tonnes it produced last year. But this target is certain to be missed, Mr. Brock says. He expects China’s coal production to hit three billion or even 3.2 billion tonnes by 2010. And he expects China eventually to produce twice as much carbon dioxide as the United States.

Globe and Mail