Image by: Reuters: Stringer

I surfed the ABC news website this afternoon and clicked onto this headline: “China fights pollution: New environmental police squad to battle heavy smog”

The article seemed a little threadbare. When this occurs I search further and ideally for an article in the country relevant to the article, I like to get more details this way. I decided to try something different today and scanned the headline blurbs on the first Google page, and I noticed that all of the articles, bar two, started the same: “Officials in Beijing create a new environmental police squad in the latest effort to fight China’s persistent…”

The first one that differed was from The Indian Express, and it began with: ‘Beijing and dozens of cities in China spend many winter days under a thick, gray haze, with air pollution levels that…’

The second one was further down via the Deccan Chronicle and it began with: ‘Beijing will set up environmental police force to crackdown on erring factories and step up its supervision and enforce accountability in 16 districts to tackle the recurring pollution problem, officials said on Saturday.’ 

There was a bit more to the story than the basic Associated Press (AP) summaries that the media was reporting pretty much everywhere else in the news. In particular there was no mention of several other measures that were also announced at the same meeting, they included: ‘A target of cutting the use of coal by 30 percent in 2017 to shutting down 500 higher-polluting factories and upgrading 2,500 more. And about 300,000 high-pollution vehicles will also be restricted from entering the city starting next month.’ 

I also found an ABC news analysis that was posted around three hours later than the AP article, with the headline: “China’s air pollution crisis shows no sign of ending as nation fails to lower coal use” It goes on to say:

“People are frustrated because air quality was improving in 2016 until coal production ramped up in September to service a mini stimulus package for heavy industries. Cheap coal has powered China’s economic miracle and still provides 70 per cent of the country’s energy. The Government is reluctant to wean itself off coal, fearing unemployment and unrest. In a rare display of anger, China’s rising middle class took to the Chinese social media website “wechat”, demanding the Government take action and protect the children of China.”

There is nothing in the analysis above to back this up in the article in the way of links, or footnotes unfortunately. The writer says further that:

“China’s addiction to coal shows no signs of slowing. China produces and consumes more coal that the rest of the world combined. In the winter its citizens use the most. Like many in northern China, Li Yuan said he had no choice but to burn coal to keep warm. He cannot afford electricity or gas — coal is a quarter of the price. “Using coal is not good. It’s dirty. You touch it and your hands get black,” he said.” 

What also isn’t included in any of the above articles is that China is also investing 2.5 trillion yuan, the equivalent of $US361 billion in renewable power generation by 2020. Fortune reports:

“The investment will create over 13 million jobs in the sector, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in a blueprint document that lays out its plan to develop the nation’s energy sector during the five-year 2016 to 2020 period. The announcement comes only days after Beijing, the Chinese capital, and other cities in China’s industrial north-east were again engulfed in hazardous smog, caused largely by coal-fired power generation. The NEA said installed renewable power capacity including wind, hydro, solar and nuclear power will account for about half of new electricity generation by 2020.” 

Personally, I was aware of China’s five-year-planning but not of the lofty renewable energy target above until I started to write this. The current Australian government’s energy policies look dismal when compared to this news and it’s not right that the media has missed this, when so many Australians, especially Indigenous Australians care and value nature and worry about the repercussions of our climate changing. China is the world’s biggest investor not just in energy but in renewable energy. It’s citizens need to be able to breathe, just like the developed countries and the rest of the developing countries will follow too, naturally.

We can’t keep ignoring the ginormous elephant that is renewable energy in Australian politics and our economy, this is harming not just investment hopes within our country and overseas investors, but it’s also within our communities. The uncertainty and lack of long-term planning only opens us up to further exploitation by multinational corporations and or foreign countries. China is the world’s biggest producer and investor in solar energy now. Australia still has a chance, together, not on an elitist path, but closer to an egalitarianism one. One that questions authority and those that seek executive powers over us. If journalists can’t or won’t do it, we will just have to. It’s the pioneering Aussie way.