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	Calls for taxation regimes to reflect impacts on the environment by Europa news / UNEP European Union   June 2010   The European Commission, together with the UN Environmental Programme, has launched a major new report highlighting the need for a radical change in the way major economies are using scarce resources. The report provides science-based priorities for world environmental efforts, ranking products, materials and economic and lifestyle activities according to their environmental and resource impacts.   Major findings include the news that over half of all world food crops are now fed to animals, and that a doubling of wealth leads typically to an increase of environmental pressure by 60 to 80 per cent.   The report, put together by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, indicates that legislators and policymakers looking to make the most impact on the Earth’s well-being should use taxes and other incentives to encourage more eco-friendly agricultural practices and reduce the use of fossil fuels.   The EU Environment Commissioner said: "This report drives home the urgent need for a switch to a resource-efficient economy. It will be a titanic task, but one that is essential for our future prosperity and quality of life. If we really want to change the way we use resources, altering price signals through taxation is among the most efficient and effective approaches.."   “We can achieve both sustainability economic growth and environmental well-being,” said Angela Cropper, Deputy Executive Director of UNEP. “It starts by putting emphasis on those efforts that do the biggest good in reducing humanity’s harm of ecosystems. In that regard, this report makes an important contribution to thinking for policy-makers. And for individuals, it reinforces familiar advice: Put down the steak knife, flip off lights, insulate homes, turn down the thermostat or air conditioner, avoid air travel and park the car as much as possible -- these actions offer the biggest environmental ‘bang for the buck’ and make the greatest difference to Mother Earth.”   The report "Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production: Priority Products and Materials", is the latest in a series from the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management. Using life-cycle analyses, it catalogues the materials and energy required for production, consumption and disposal, and identifies the processes, products and materials most responsible for environmental harm around the globe.   At the top of the list are agricultural goods, particularly products from animals, which are fed more than half of all world crops. Fossil fuel users are also under fire, especially electrical utilities and other and energy-intensive industries, residential heating, and transportation. Materials with the greatest impact across their life cycle include plastics, iron, steel, and aluminium.   The Panel cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for reduction: climate change, habitat change, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, overexploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, household combustion of solid fuels, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.   Worryingly, the Panel produces an array of evidence to show that prosperity and humanity’s environmental impact grow in tandem, contrary to the popular belief that greater wealth leads to a lighter environmental footprint.   Regarding CO2, “a doubling of wealth leads typically to an increase of environmental pressure by 60 to 80 per cent, and in emerging economies this is sometimes even more,” the report says. Visit the related web page
	As Chinese consumer class rises fears for the climate effects by Keith Bradsher International Herald Tribune   June 2010   China is one of the biggest investors in wind turbines and other clean energy technology. And it has dictated tough new energy standards for lighting and gas mileage for cars.   But even as Beijing imposes a rigorous national energy campaign, the effort is being overwhelmed by the billionfold demands of Chinese consumers.   Chinese and Western energy experts worry that China’s energy challenge could become the world’s problem, dooming international efforts to place meaningful limits on global warming.   If China cannot meet its own energy-efficiency targets, the chances of avoiding widespread environmental damage from rising temperatures “are very close to zero,” said Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency in Paris.   Aspiring to a more Western standard of living, in many cases with the government’s encouragement, China’s population, 1.3 billion strong, is clamoring for more and bigger cars, for electricity-dependent home appliances and for more creature comforts like air-conditioned shopping malls.   As a result, China is actually becoming even less energy efficient. And because most of its energy is still produced by burning fossil fuels, China’s emission of carbon dioxide is growing worse. This past winter and spring showed the largest six-month increase in tonnage ever by a single country.   Until recently, projections by both the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration in Washington had assumed that, even without an international energy agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, China would achieve rapid improvements in energy efficiency through 2020.   But now China is struggling to limit emissions even to the “business as usual” levels that climate models assume if the world does little to address global warming.   “We really have an arduous task” even to reach China’s existing energy-efficiency goals, said Gao Shixian, an energy official at the National Development and Reform Commission, in a speech at the Clean Energy Expo China in late June in Beijing.   China’s goal has been to reduce energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20 percent this year compared with 2005, and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 compared with 2005.   But even if China can make the promised improvements, the International Energy Agency now projects that China’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases will grow more than the rest of the world’s combined increase by 2020. China, with one-fifth of the world’s population, is now on track to represent more than a quarter of humanity’s energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions.   Industry by industry, energy demand in China is increasing so fast that the broader efficiency targets are becoming harder to hit.   While China has imposed lighting efficiency standards on new buildings and is drafting similar standards for household appliances, construction of apartment and office buildings proceeds at a frenzied pace. And rural sales of refrigerators, washing machines and other large household appliances more than doubled in the past year in response to government subsidies aimed at helping 700 million peasants afford modern amenities.   As the economy becomes more reliant on domestic demand instead of exports, growth is shifting toward energy-hungry steel and cement production and away from light industries like toys and apparel.   Chinese cars get 40 percent better gas mileage on average than American cars because they tend to be much smaller and have weaker engines. And China is drafting regulations that would require cars within each size category to improve their mileage by 18 percent over the next five years. But China’s auto market soared 48 percent in 2009, surpassing the American market for the first time, and car sales are rising almost as rapidly again this year.   Chinese regulations still mandate that the air-conditioning in most places be set no cooler than 79 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. But upscale shopping malls have long been exempt from the thermostat controls and have maintained much cooler temperatures through the summers. Now, as the consumer economy takes root, those malls are proliferating in cities across China.   Premier Wen has acknowledged that efficiency gains have started to reverse and actually deteriorated by 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. He cited a lack of controls on energy-intensive industries.   David Fridley, a specialist in China’s energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said manufacturing makes up three times as much of the Chinese economy as it does the American economy, and is energy-intensive. Visit the related web page
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