Drishtikone
In the rapidly declining health of our planet’s environment.. while the Chinese (and Americans) are busy ruining the environment with nonchalance… Europeans are serious about the recent report which pointed to the unbearably high overall costs of a degradation of the environment! The Europeans are planning a new Industrial Revolution!
The question that comes to your mind is – given the above contrasts: Is Economic Growth at the Cost of the Quality of Life (at its most basic level) worth it (or even sustainable)??
Details of Chinese environment article
China is failing to meet new targets on energy efficiency and pollution emissions, officials said.
China set the targets in a bid to rein in the environmental costs of the country’s rapid economic growth.
But only Beijing and five other provinces or municipalities improved efficiency by 4% and cut emissions by 2% in the first six months of 2006.
“Nationwide, it is certain that last year’s [targets] could not be achieved,” official Han Wenke said.
Chinese officials did not say how much the targets had been missed by.
The new targets are part of the 2006-10 Five Year Plan, and call for energy consumption per unit of GDP to be cut by 20%, while pollution emissions should fall 10%.
Details of Europe Environment Article
The European Commission has called for a new “industrial revolution” as it unveiled a wide-ranging set of proposals on energy and climate issues.
The EU’s civil service wants more investment in renewable energy, arguing that the old fuels have a political as well as clear environmental cost.
The need has been given greater urgency by Russia’s oil row with Belarus, which has hit EU states Germany and Poland.
The report demands that at least 20% of energy comes from renewables by 2020.
Without such investment and energy efficiency measures, the report predicts that EU energy imports will rise from 50% of consumption to 65% by 2030, requiring increased reliance on potentially unpredictable sources.
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