Bank Provides Green Loans for China
MANILA, Phillippines — Some may have the opinion that People’s Republic of China is that it is practically the antithesis of green or clean. Events like the Beijing Olympics have given many citizens an impression of the Chinese people that often fails to recognize their internal yearning for the same clean air and blue skies we can’t imagine living without. In reality, Chinese citizens are practically screaming for fresh air and green energy innovations. In a country with a large amount of technical prowess, the people are ready for the future of energy.
Though we view demonstrations by groups like the Tea Party or Occupy as very powerful in our culture, Americans often do not get a true impression of how insignificant these movements are on a relative scale. Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank including foreign policy experts like NBC’s Brian Williams and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, has estimated that there are nearly 100,000 political demonstrations per year in China. Many of these protests are about regional and national politics, but some are also about the environment and energy policy, cropping up when new dams or coal plants are built.
Though it may seem like China isn’t adjusting to the green economy, it is actually getting very involved in mass-producing green tech, like solar cells. The reason it may sometimes seems like nothing changes in China is because the country is so big and your average American has so little knowledge of it, due to a combination of the country keeping information in and the American media focusing on other topics so we don’t change the channel.
Despite all of this, change is coming to China, albeit slowly. A small example of this can be found in a series of loans recently given to the quickly developing nation by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The bank approved $600 million in loans for green projects and wildland preservation in some of the country’s quickly expanding “smaller cities.” The ADB, based in the Philippines, models itself after the World Bank with the United States and Japan holding the most shares, giving them the most influence with China and India coming in next, with only half the shares of the two leaders.
The largest lump of funding, at $200 million, will be dedicated to the development of cogeneration plants, which convert agricultural waste and other plant-based materials into relatively clean energy. In America, these plants are known for using fuel from switch grass and byproducts of the timber industry. The project will provide power for millions of people in Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces, and a few others in the southern region, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 638,000 tons per yer.
A $150-million loan will fund new district heating systems in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, where temperatures get dangerously cold in the winter. The work will allow 270,000 households to give up their coal stoves, lowing the incidence of respiratory disease, especially among vulnerable populations like children and pregnant women.
The western province of Gansu will receive $100 million in infrastructure improvements that will encourage citizens to walk or ride bikes, by enhancing road safety. That work will also involve restoring a small wetlands, which will be marketed as a tourist attraction.
The final $150 million will fund a wastewater treatment plant, an upgrade to heating services, and expanded green public spaces in Liaoning Province, where several towns are expanding into cities at a faster rate than their infrastructure can safely support.