Climate-change trend: ‘Weather-weather only’

China and parts of Asia are being blamed by the West for the climate change the world is undergoing.

The Philippines itself seems to be part of the blame. Environmental pollution is nothing new in this country.

Mining firms, flour mills, textile plants, the transportation sector and the power providers are among the industries that have polluted the Philippines for the longest time.

Now, the West is alarmed, forgetting conveniently that it was its own making that the world is in danger of inhaling bad air coming from the East.

But, according to Chen Feng, chairman of China Hainan Airlines, the industrialization in the West, particularly in the United Kingdom more than 100 years ago, created the present problem.

He says Chinese citizens are now paying a high price for the pollution caused by the iron and steel industries established in China by European and American companies.

Why should the West be alarmed by the pollution in Asia when the United States itself is the biggest polluter in this world?

It’s plain hypocrisy, declares Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Malaysia’s second minister of finance. He was commenting on a recent Dutch government-funded study that showed that China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, producing the highest level of carbon dioxide emissions in 2006.

They and other notables from the world over gathered in Singapore last week to discuss, among other things, the environmental concerns of industrialized countries.

Nor says that singling out China was pointless. “It’s wrong, there should not be hypocrisy,” he adds.

Chen recalls having watched a television documentary on the destruction of Beijing’s Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace) by fire 146 years ago when Anglo-French forces stormed the building.

Denouncing the French as “bandits” for their role in the destruction, Chen says he supports the need for collective global action in tackling the serious environmental problem.

Many agree that the West should stop the hypocritical blame game and work collectively with developing countries to fix the global warming problems.

Nor points out that factories in China contributing to the pollution are mostly owned by American and European multinational companies that are benefiting from China’s cheap labor resources.

China and other developing countries have little choice but to continue to welcome foreign investments.

On the other hand, the Malaysian minister adds that “we can’t slow down because we’ve got plenty of poverty. The growth momentum has to be kept up; sustainable growth emphasis must be growth.”

While agreeing that the West and the East are “all in this together,” Ralph Peterson, chairman and chief executive officer, CH2M Hill Companies in the US, says the manner in which Asian countries are consuming energy is serious cause for concern.

He cites statistics that showed that while the Association of Southeast Asian Nations account for 11 percent of the global output, they use 21 percent of its energy.

Masatoshi Wakabayashi, minister of the environment of Japan, says there is a need for a new global mechanism to achieve the Group of Eight (G8) objective of reducing greenhouse emissions by half in 2050.

He believes that the initiative of the US to call a meeting of major gas-emitting countries was a “very significant” step forward in the global effort on environmental protection.  

E-mail: raulbvalino@yahoo.com.ph.

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China and parts of Asia are being blamed by the West for the climate change the world is undergoing.

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