Earth to China

China’s developing, so deal with it. To the 13 million people in China without enough drinking water this spring, deal with it. To the 400,000 people prematurely dying from respiratory diseases due to air pollution in China each year, deal with it. To the tens of thousands of environmental migrants on the move because of a Chinese desert advancing at 1.900 square miles per year, deal with it. This is the response the Chinese government has given to increasing environmental concern from its citizens and the world at large.
Although officials in Beijing recognize the disastrous effects they are having on climate change, and the ramifications of such changes, they have chosen to ignore them, at least for the present. As Qin Dahe a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said, "Development is the first urgent task. It's a firm principle and, moreover, we need good and fast development. Only then will we be able to step by step solve the problem" of climate change. This outlook however, is proving catastrophic and cannot continue.
As Elizabeth Economy reports in her article, “China vs. Earth” in The Nation, A recent study on climate change “predicts up to a 37 percent decline in China's wheat, rice and corn yields in the second half of the century. Precipitation may decline by as much as 30 percent in three of China's seven major river regions: the Huai, Liao and Hai. The Yellow and Yangtze rivers, which support the richest agricultural regions of the country and derive much of their water from Tibetan glaciers, will initially experience floods and then drought as the glaciers melt” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/economy). With suggested outcomes like these, China cannot afford to sacrifice long term sustainability over short term growth. Instead, they must find development options that go hand in hand with creating a greener nation. This will prove profitable in the short term, especially with the growing international interest in foreign investment for green projects, and will ensure a sustainable future.