By Adam Murray
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted a message at the end of August accusing the Communist Party of China of ‘wilful disregard for air, land, and water quality’ stating that ‘the Chinese people deserve better’. (1)
Pompeo railed that China is responsible for 30% of the world’s plastic pollution. China produces 59.8 million tonnes of plastic pollution each year, but with a population of 1.4 billion citizens they have one of the lowest plastic pollution rates in the world per capita – 0.12 kilos per person.
Meanwhile the United States comes in 2nd in gross total – producing 37.8 million tonnes of plastic pollution each year. However with a US population of 328 million citizens that means the average US citizen produces 0.34 kilos of plastic trash per person. US citizens on average produce almost 300% more plastic pollution than the average Chinese citizen. (2)
It’s intellectually dishonest to accuse China of being more wasteful than the USA. China has 3 times more population than the USA but produces 3 times less plastic waste than the US per capita.
Pompeo also accused China of being the biggest marine polluter on earth. The USA produces less plastic pollution in gross total, but when it comes to plastic pollution that gets into waterways the USA actually leads China by 45,000 tonnes per year.
China recognises that it is the world’s user and producer of plastic products, and take their environmental responsibilities seriously; this year they have pledged to ban single use plastics for all 1.4 billion citizens by 2025. Starting in the big cities, new regulations will phase out nonbiodegradable single use plastics, eventually rolling these changes out to the towns, and finally the villages. (3) (4) (5)
Meanwhile in the USA less than a quarter of states have moved to ban single use plastics, and the most ambitious laws, drafted in California, only aim to reduce to 75% by 2030.
The USA and many other nations used to offset their own pollution by selling plastic and other waste to Chinese recycling businesses. At one point China was the destination for 70% of the world’s plastic waste, where it would be recycled into raw materials. A problem developed however as a lot of un-recyclable materials were being snuck into the shipments and illegally dumped in the countryside. It got so bad the Chinese government put their foot down in 2018, launching Operation National Sword – a national ban on importing other nations’ waste. (6)
Tacking plastic pollution within the Chinese nation is only one prong of the Chinese Green Revolution. China is making strides to move away from fossil fuels and have invested heavily in renewable energy. China currently tops the world’s leaderboard for solar and wind capacity. (7)
For years China has outspent the USA on investment in renewable energy, at one point spending 3 dollars for every 1 dollar spent by the US. Whilst the USA has narrowed that gap in 2020 China is investing 83.4 billion dollars in renewable energy compared to the USA’s 55.5 billion. (8)
China is also boosting their nuclear power capacity, sparing 90 million tonnes of coal from being burnt, preventing 280 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide from entering earth’s atmosphere. (9)
China has dedicated billions of Yuan to cleaning up waterways, and have designated 30% of coastal waters and 37% of coastline under a new initiative called the ‘China Environmental Red Line’.
Under the ‘China Environmental Red Line’ initiative a quarter of China’s landmass, roughly the size of France, will become conservation preserve. (10)
The US Environment Protection Agency itself previously found that China is working to “develop, implement, and enforce a solid environmental law framework”. The EPA collaborates with the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment, whilst US based non-profit the Natural Resources Defense Council work closely to support China, recognising the nation’s efforts to go protect the planet and life on earth.
In her book ‘Will China Save The Planet?’ climate activist, and Asia Correspondent for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Barbara Finamore writes that China recognises rapid advance from serfdom to modern industrialisation of the biggest national population on earth have made it one of the world’s biggest polluters in the modern day – but they have made the ambitious commitment to not only change their ways but to be a world leader in environmentalism.
In stark contrast, the Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faithfully serves is run by a climate change denier who has slashed environmental protections in favour of pursuing energy independence. As of May 2020 the US is slashing 100 environmental protections and giving industry carte blanche to pollute the environment in the name of profit. National Geographic is keeping a running tab of the damage. (11)
Trump has neutered the US Environmental Protection Agency. His first nominee to head the EPA was a Republican politician called Scott Pruitt who had sued the EPA 14 times and who had taken over 200,00 dollars in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. Pruitt had to resign due to an expenditure scandal. Trump had appointed Andrew Wheeler as the EPA Deputy Director, and upon Pruitt’s resignation Wheeler became Director of the EPA. Andrew Wheeler is a former fossil fuel industry lobbyist who has openly said that the EPA under Obama was ‘brainwashing children’. Trump appointed Rick Perry to head up the US Dept. of Energy, Perry had previously called for the Dept of Energy to be abolished.
Whilst China wrestles with environmental problems – the big 3 areas being water, air, and soil – they are clearly making strides forward and trying to strengthen environmentalism and protect the lives of people in China. In the USA it has been estimated that Trump’s assault on environmental protections will lead to 80,000 more people in the US dying every decade and will lead to respiratory problems for over 1 million people in the US. To further the death of irony Trump’s political pitch was that he was slashing environmental regulations as they were so restrictive ‘you cannot breathe’. (12)
Trump pulled the USA out of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, having campaigned on a platform of claiming man-made climate change is a ‘Chinese hoax’ designed to get the US to slow production.
A September 2020 study by the Lancet found that the USA bears 40% of the responsibility for climate breakdown. The entire global south by comparison bears 8% of the responsibility. (13)
The US military and their imperialist projection around the world is as big a polluter as 140 other countries combined. In 2017 the US military was buying over 260,000 barrels of oil a day, producing 25,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide burning that fuel. (14)
Irony continues to be deceased when one considers that even whilst President Trump and his administration downplay or outright deny climate change, US military bases around the world are fortifying themselves in anticipation of rising sea levels. (15)
Who is the greater danger to the global environment – China? Or the USA? You be the judge.