China Daily has just published the Chinese solution to mitigating climate change. Their suggestion, population control, is an issue we discussed with our tour guides during our 3 week trip to their mainland in 2007. Specifically their one-child policy which has resulted in 13 million abortions each year since the policy went into effect.
However, let’s peel the onion back a little further. As we traveled through China we drove on many of the new freeways and toll roads. Our national guide told us they expect to surpass the number of vehicles produced in Japan by 2010. In fact we passed a few joint venture auto manufacturers building VW, Chery, Chrysler and GM products. So while they limit families to one child they are adding millions of cars on their new roads. Are we to believe that every vehicle in China will be electric powered. Not!
So while they speak of fewer births they fail to mention the millions of babies that are aborting every year with no end in sight. When we questioned the group leaders we were told that babies are put up for adoption yet could not provide any proof of that claim.
Following is but a few paragraphs from the China Daily story:
Population control called key to deal
By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-10 07:37
COPENHAGEN: Population and climate change are intertwined but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) .
“Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture,” said Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese government delegation.
Many studies link population growth with emissions and the effect of climate change.
“Calculations of the contribution of population growth to emissions growth globally produce a consistent finding that most of past population growth has been responsible for between 40 per cent and 60 percent of emissions growth,” so stated by the 2009 State of World Population, released earlier by the UN Population Fund.
Although China’s family planning policy has received criticism over the past three decades, Zhao said that China’s population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society.
As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year, Zhao said.
The UN report projected that if the global population would remain 8 billion by the year 2050 instead of a little more than 9 billion according to medium-growth scenario, “it might result in 1 billion to 2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions”.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/content_9151129.htm
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