Tiempo Climate Newswatch

China has fallen short of the environmental targets for 2006 set in its current five-year plan, according to China Daily. "From a nationwide perspective, it is certain that last year's energy consumption reduction goal could not be achieved," reported Han Wenke, head of China's Energy Research Institute. Energy consumption per unit of GDP rose by 0.8 per cent during the first half of 2006, against a target for the year of a four per cent reduction. The Chinese government, describing 2006 as a "grim year" for the environmental situation, blamed the lack of progress on the nation's industrial structure and a lack of supportive policies. "The State Environmental Protection Administration is being given more power and is starting to flex its muscles in what is the early stages of a political shift away from the big polluting industries towards a more clean and green mentality," says Anthony Wilkinson of Clean Resources Asia.

According to Edwin Lau of Friends of the Earth in Hong Kong, "economic growth in China is still on the top of the country's agenda and that drives a lot of new development, new infrastructure, new companies emerging, and car growth - all this will somehow offset what measures they have put in to be more energy efficient or reduce the total amount of energy used by the country." Ailun Yang of Greenpeace China considers that, despite setbacks, the government is committed to environmental protection. "We do see that right now targets for energy efficiency and also for environmental protection are seen as important political performance criteria as well." she says. "This old model of 'pollute first and then pay back', this doesn't work. It's not like before - if you can show a good record of economic development you can get away with it. Right now, you also have to show your record in environmental protection." The government has announced plans to expand the influence of environmental news and other forms of propaganda and education. "Publishing companies and film studios are urged to produce books and movies about environmental protection of good quality to help improving public awareness," states a new official guideline that sets targets on environmental education and awareness for 2010.

The minute hand of the Doomsday Clock has moved closer to midnight than at any time since the end of the Cold War. It now stands at five minutes to the hour, two minutes forward from the most recent assessment. The Doomsday Clock, updated each year by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), represents concerns about the nuclear threat and other challenges to global security. This year is the first time that global warming, cited as a threat second only to nuclear weapons, has contributed to the assessment. "When we think about what technologies besides nuclear weapons could produce such devastation to the planet, we quickly come to carbon-emitting technologies," said Kennette Benedict of BAS.

The main concern over recent years has been increasing nuclear instability. More nations have been pursuing nuclear aspirations, international trafficking in nuclear materials continues and the American and Russian arsenals remain substantial. "We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age," the BAS warns. "Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices." The expansion of civil nuclear power generation in response to the threat of global warming could increase the availability of weapons materials, according to the BAS assessment. "While nuclear energy production does not produce carbon dioxide," says the BAS statement, "it does raise other significant concerns, such as the health and environmental hazards of nuclear waste, the production of nuclear materials that can be diverted to the production of weapons, and the safety and security of the plants themselves. As such, any contemplation of the expansion of nuclear power must be predicated upon a thorough assessment of the technological and legislative safeguards required to curb these risks."

Asia-Pacific leaders have agreed a clean energy pact that will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and promote cleaner technologies. The ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with New Zealand, Australia, China, India, Japan and Korea, signed the agreement after a summit in Cebu in the Philippines. The agreement covers mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and improving the environmental performance of fossil fuel use. Dependence on conventional fuels will be reduced through intensified energy efficiency and conservation programmes, hydropower, expansion of renewable energy systems and biofuel production/utilization, and, if nations choose, nuclear power. Finally, parties will encourage markets geared towards providing affordable energy and will increase energy investment through greater private sector involvement. At the meeting, Australia and China established a Joint Coordination Group on Clean Coal Technology through which knowledge will be shared and joint projects implemented.

Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, has proposed a high-level global summit, backed by the United Nations, to plan future action on the climate issue. As climate change "affects energy, energy security, economic issues [and] development issues, it really needs to be taken to the level of heads of State and heads of government," he said. De Boer called on United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to act as an advocate. "I feel that the Secretary-General of the United Nations is in an excellent position to mobilize that kind of leadership and to help to move the process forward." After a meeting with the Secretary-General, de Boer reported that the Secretary-General "indicated that he was aware of this idea and said that he would be exploring in his meetings how to take the process forward." Climate change is set to be a major issue on the agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.