Chinese walker

China%26rsquo;s National Audit Office (NAO) recently published a report on the last seven years of efforts to deal with pollution in the Liao, Hai and Huai rivers and the Tai, Chao and Dianchi lakes, known collectively as the %26ldquo;three rivers and three lakes%26rdquo;. According to the report, 91 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) in government investment and bank loans was spent between 2001 and 2007 on 8,201 separate water-pollution projects, including environmental infrastructure in urban areas in the river and lake basins, ecological construction and general improvements. Yet the water quality remains very poor.

Almost 100 billion yuan were spent and 515 million yuan (US$75 million) were wasted on false reports and embezzlement. The ecological crisis, the public suffering and the constantly changing plans for megacities along these rivers and lakes all make one fear for the future of China%26rsquo;s environment and its cities.

I started researching the pollution of Dianchi Lake, in Yunnan province, as an investigative journalist and later completed a doctoral thesis on the matter, looking at the lake from an ecological and anthropological perspective. I focus on the paradoxes and conceptual risks at the heart of how China handles the ecological crisis %26ndash; in particular, the costs of foresight. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck was the first to propose the concept of the risk society, where decisions increasingly produce unforeseen future hazards. These hazards proliferate and can eventually overwhelm safety systems. A nation may fall into crisis due to a loss of foresight.

The NAO said that management of the rivers and lakes had failed because of inadequacies in these areas: environmental examination and approval; environmental compensation; water pollution statistics; assessment indices; implementation of pollution control plans; enforcement of environmental law; and treatment of urban waste-water. It also pointed to a lack of environmental concern in economic development zones.

But none of these are the crux of the issue. Faced with an unprecedented environmental crisis, the real danger arises from a contradiction between awareness and systems. The systems that exist for managing and investing in the environment perpetuate the pollution.

For instance, the authorities in charge of Dianchi Lake decided to bring water in from the Jinsha River to help control pollution in the lake and water shortages in the city of Kunming. By 2010, Kunming%26rsquo;s population will reach nearly 3.5 million, by 2020 almost five million; the urban area will expand from 201.5 to 470 square kilometres. Meanwhile, Yunnan%26rsquo;s government is working on creating a megacity, one part of which is the idea of a third land bridge between Asia and Europe. This %26ldquo;bridge%26rdquo; would run from China%26rsquo;s eastern port city of Shenzhen, through Kunming to Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. It would end up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, after passing through 21 different cities %26ndash; a distance of around 15,000 kilometres (3,000 kilometres shorter than the sea route).

Yunnan %26ndash; a water-poor, inland province, with a rich yet fragile ecology %26ndash; has not yet developed an effective or intelligent environmental management system. Nor have policy-makers thought about how to create sustainable cities for the province, preferring to simply propose expansion. Hence long-term plans about land bridges and megacities are unpersuasive.

In dealing with pollution, solving social issues created by urbanisation and searching for sustainable modes of development, there is still a tendency to focus on technological fixes. But these do not clarify our plans for the future of cities or necessarily make them more scientific or advanced %26ndash; in fact, they often continue to create problems.

This lack of foresight means that many areas in need of assistance have become host to manoeuvring by various power groups. There is a tendency to ignore future dangers and confuse their relationships to current pollution problems. In many cases of dealing with pollution, the influence of power is becoming more complex, and the allocation of resources and interests is changing.

A large-scale plan to build a city and scenic area surrounding Dianchi Lake is already underway. Historic villages and semi-urban areas are being flattened. Under that kind of %26ldquo;long-term%26rdquo; guidance, both natural and social sciences need to provide research and analysis. The combination of technology and power in urbanisation will no doubt lead to controversial projects, such as waste incineration, the transportation of water and the construction of clusters of cities.

Dianchi Lake has been given many names through history, from the %26ldquo;Pearl of the Plateau%26rdquo;, to the %26ldquo;Sick Lake%26rdquo; and the %26ldquo;Geneva of the East%26rdquo;. The question is: which one will prove true in the future?

Zhou Lei is a postgraduate anthropology student at Yunnan University and Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics.

Homepage image from Wikipedia

China%26rsquo;s National Audit Office (NAO) recently published a report on the last seven years of efforts to deal with pollution in the Liao, Hai and Huai rivers and the Tai, Chao and Dianchi lakes, known collectively as the %26ldquo;three rivers and three lakes%26rdquo;. According to the report, 91 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) in government investment and bank loans was spent between 2001 and 2007 on 8,201 separate water-pollution projects, including environmental infrastructure in urban areas in the river and lake basins, ecological construction and general improvements. Yet the water quality remains very poor.

Almost 100 billion yuan were spent and 515 million yuan (US$75 million) were wasted on false reports and embezzlement. The ecological crisis, the public suffering and the constantly changing plans for megacities along these rivers and lakes all make one fear for the future of China%26rsquo;s environment and its cities.

I started researching the pollution of Dianchi Lake, in Yunnan province, as an investigative journalist and later completed a doctoral thesis on the matter, looking at the lake from an ecological and anthropological perspective. I focus on the paradoxes and conceptual risks at the heart of how China handles the ecological crisis %26ndash; in particular, the costs of foresight. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck was the first to propose the concept of the risk society, where decisions increasingly produce unforeseen future hazards. These hazards proliferate and can eventually overwhelm safety systems. A nation may fall into crisis due to a loss of foresight.

The NAO said that management of the rivers and lakes had failed because of inadequacies in these areas: environmental examination and approval; environmental compensation; water pollution statistics; assessment indices; implementation of pollution control plans; enforcement of environmental law; and treatment of urban waste-water. It also pointed to a lack of environmental concern in economic development zones.

But none of these are the crux of the issue. Faced with an unprecedented environmental crisis, the real danger arises from a contradiction between awareness and systems. The systems that exist for managing and investing in the environment perpetuate the pollution.

For instance, the authorities in charge of Dianchi Lake decided to bring water in from the Jinsha River to help control pollution in the lake and water shortages in the city of Kunming. By 2010, Kunming%26rsquo;s population will reach nearly 3.5 million, by 2020 almost five million; the urban area will expand from 201.5 to 470 square kilometres. Meanwhile, Yunnan%26rsquo;s government is working on creating a megacity, one part of which is the idea of a third land bridge between Asia and Europe. This %26ldquo;bridge%26rdquo; would run from China%26rsquo;s eastern port city of Shenzhen, through Kunming to Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. It would end up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, after passing through 21 different cities %26ndash; a distance of around 15,000 kilometres (3,000 kilometres shorter than the sea route).

Yunnan %26ndash; a water-poor, inland province, with a rich yet fragile ecology %26ndash; has not yet developed an effective or intelligent environmental management system. Nor have policy-makers thought about how to create sustainable cities for the province, preferring to simply propose expansion. Hence long-term plans about land bridges and megacities are unpersuasive.

In dealing with pollution, solving social issues created by urbanisation and searching for sustainable modes of development, there is still a tendency to focus on technological fixes. But these do not clarify our plans for the future of cities or necessarily make them more scientific or advanced %26ndash; in fact, they often continue to create problems.

This lack of foresight means that many areas in need of assistance have become host to manoeuvring by various power groups. There is a tendency to ignore future dangers and confuse their relationships to current pollution problems. In many cases of dealing with pollution, the influence of power is becoming more complex, and the allocation of resources and interests is changing.

A large-scale plan to build a city and scenic area surrounding Dianchi Lake is already underway. Historic villages and semi-urban areas are being flattened. Under that kind of %26ldquo;long-term%26rdquo; guidance, both natural and social sciences need to provide research and analysis. The combination of technology and power in urbanisation will no doubt lead to controversial projects, such as waste incineration, the transportation of water and the construction of clusters of cities.

Dianchi Lake has been given many names through history, from the %26ldquo;Pearl of the Plateau%26rdquo;, to the %26ldquo;Sick Lake%26rdquo; and the %26ldquo;Geneva of the East%26rdquo;. The question is: which one will prove true in the future?

Zhou Lei is a postgraduate anthropology student at Yunnan University and Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics.

Homepage image from Wikipedia

The quantity and quality of available water play a crucial role in the politics of central-south Asia. Access to clean drinking water is a major, though largely unmet, objective and poor management lies at the heart of many problems.

Many areas are already experiencing physical water shortages %26ndash; recent studies estimate per capita water availability in the densely-populated Indus basin at around 1,000 cubic metres per year %26ndash; and climate change will only exacerbate this.

The region%26rsquo;s water challenges do not inevitably lead to armed conflict. Unalleviated, however, they threaten to undermine human security and bring different communities into dispute. Cooperative approaches have been sparse and institutional structures remain fragmented. Yet cooperation will be critical for the region to meet its water challenges in the years and decades ahead.

In Afghanistan, the livelihoods of at least 80% of the population are based on agriculture and related occupations. The fertile plains of the Amu Darya basin, account for about 40% of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s irrigated lands. But poorly constructed canals translate into water losses as high as 70%. And droughts and dry years since 1999 have substantially reduced cultivated areas in the south and east.

Moreover, three decades of armed conflict have displaced a large portion of the population, impeded access to farmland, and destroyed irrigation systems. Buffeted by recurring drought and floods, and the population%26rsquo;s desperate coping strategies, the net result has been a severe degradation of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s natural environment and its water and farming infrastructure. According to Oxfam UK, overall agricultural produce has fallen by half in recent years and the loss of rural livelihoods has triggered migration to cities.

Millions of Afghans are either seasonally or chronically food insecure. As well as hunger, these desperate conditions have triggered local conflicts. Water contamination has become a severe public health threat, owing to poor waste management practices and a lack of modern sanitation; a 2003 United Nations assessment concluded no more than 12 to 23% of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s urban population has access to safe water.

In the wider region, the nations sharing the Amu Darya are locked into seemingly irreconcilable sets of interests. Tajikistan and Afghanistan look to the Amu Darya for hydropower as well as irrigation while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan depend heavily on the river to irrigate their cotton, rice, and wheat fields.

Downstream, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have similar economic interests, yet their relationship is nonetheless conflictive. Tensions over shared irrigation systems near Tuyamuyun Reservoir could be further inflamed by Turkmenistan’s plans to build an artificial lake in the Karakum desert by 2010.

Upstream, Tajikistan releases reservoir water in the winter months to generate hydropower for heating, frequently causing downstream flooding and damage to infrastructure. In the summer months, it builds up its reservoirs %26mdash; at precisely the time when the irrigation needs of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are most acute.

All these countries plan to increase water extraction, which may exacerbate tensions. Tajikistani plans to complete unfinished Soviet-era hydropower projects on the Vakhsh River, for example, are worrying Uzbekistan, not only because of the potential impact on summer irrigation water flows, but also because it stands to lose income (and leverage) from selling natural gas to its neighbour.

In Pakistan and India, extensive irrigation is also placing Indus basin water resources under heavy stress, with about 90% of the available flow utilised. Overpumping and inefficient irrigation techniques have led to sharply declining groundwater levels, loss of wetlands and salinisation of agricultural lands. Future sea-level rise will place coastal areas at increasing risk of inundation and water availability will decline dramatically as a result of climate change and population growth; Pakistan%26rsquo;s per capita water availability is forecast to fall to a critically low level of just 800 cubic metres annually by 2020.

Already, an estimated 40 million to 55 million Pakistanis do not have access to safe drinking water, yet the government spends 47 times as much on the military budget as on water and sanitation. According to a Unesco report, only 2% of Pakistan%26rsquo;s cities have wastewater treatment facilities and less than 30% of wastewater receives treatment in these cities. Water pollution is the leading cause of death in Pakistan.

Rising water demand in the region is causing trans-border issues as well as internal conflicts. Pakistan has an important agreement with India, the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, which divides the waters of the Indus and its eastern tributaries. However, a number of contentious projects undertaken by India in Kashmir %26mdash; including the Baglihar Hydroelecric Dam, the Kishanganga Hydroelectric project and the Tulbul Navigation project %26mdash; have served as reminders that water disputes between the two neighbours are never far from the surface. It is increasingly important for India and Pakistan to improve their water management and ensure diplomacy, rather than threat of force, governs water relations.

Climate change will dramatically raise the challenges in central and south Asia. By the middle of the century, increasing temperatures and growing water stress may lead to a 30% reduction in crop yields. In central Asia, reduced rainfall and runoff will cause increased heat stress, drought and desertification and lead to increasing migration. Yet no mitigation and adaptation strategies are in place.

The melting of the Hindu Kush-Karakorum-Himalaya glaciers will also have serious consequences for hundreds of millions of people. The warming trend in these mountain ranges has been much greater than the global average and two thirds of the Himalayan glaciers are reported to be shrinking. Over time, this will reduce downstream runoff and compromise hydropower generation, decreasing production of foodstuffs and commodities like cotton. In turn, this may increase poverty and social disparities.

Significant changes to monsoon patterns are also expected. Much of south, east, and south-east Asia may see increased intensity of these storms by the century%26rsquo;s end, while most parts of Pakistan and south-eastern Afghanistan are expected to see a 20% reduction in rainfall. Destructive storm surges and greater salt-water intrusion in low-lying coastal areas could drive migration from urban centres such as Karachi and flooding is expected to increase across the Himalayas, as well as northern Pakistan and India.

International donor support is needed to fund infrastructure maintenance, improvements in water efficiency, and diversification toward more drought-resistant crops, in part by reprioritising existing funds. In Afghanistan, for instance, Oxfam observes that donors have spent less than US$300 million to $400 million directly on agricultural projects over the last six years %26ndash; a fraction of overall assistance to the country.

The governance system for central Asia%26rsquo;s water that emerged in the post-Soviet era remains largely dysfunctional, limited by conflicting interests, mutual suspicions and a reluctance to cooperate. However, the UN Economic Commission for Europe has intensified its engagement in central Asia over the past few years, with a programme to strengthen cooperation among members. Its Water Convention also provides a legal framework for trans-boundary water cooperation, though Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are so far the only regional signatories. Other organisations, including the Environment and Security Initiative and the East-West Institute are also running programmes to boost regional collaboration.

As great as the challenges are, there are multiple avenues for addressing them. One of the most pressing needs is greater efficiency in water use. By 2015, Afghanistan%26rsquo;s Ministry of Energy and Water hopes to boost efficiency by 45%, while improvements in yields for rain-fed cereal crops in Pakistan could help relieve overall water pressures. Their neighbours can and must similarly boost water productivity. Better watershed management, rainwater harvesting, urban water conservation, investments in sanitation, and more integrated planning are vitally important.

The countries of the region have little influence over global greenhouse emissions trajectories, and hence will need to focus principally on adaptation measures. It is essential to build environmental, social, economic, and political resilience, as well as improve institutional capacities to cope with growing water scarcity and climate impacts. Water cooperation across national boundaries offers important benefits but may not be realised without disinterested, innovative third-party facilitation.

Michael Renner is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC and senior advisor to the Institute for Environmental Security in Brussels.

A full version of this report was first published by the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre.

Homepage image from IRIN

The north China winter drought of 2008 and 2009, which China%26rsquo;s National Me%26shy;teorological Centre classified as an %26ldquo;extreme weather event%26rdquo; attributable to climate change, illustrates the challenges to China%26rsquo;s food security posed by worsening water shortage.

This drought was the worst in 30 years and affected China%26rsquo;s principal wheat-growing areas, damaging several hundred square kilometres of farmland. Reports indicated that about 40% of China%26rsquo;s winter wheat crop would be affected and that the drought was expected to de%26shy;crease the wheat harvest by 5% nationally and by 20% in areas such as Henan province, east-central China.

The scale of such effects has led many commentators to warn that climate-related drought in north China could threaten the country%26rsquo;s food security. Political factors dictate that food security is an especially sensitive issue in China as the government is anxious to insulate the large population of rural poor from food price shocks.

While it is unclear whether or not climate change will actually threaten China%26rsquo;s total domestic food supply, the government cannot afford to ignore extreme weather events, which increase pressure on the country%26rsquo;s military and paramilitary insti%26shy;tutions to develop disaster management and assistance capabilities.

The drought provides an illustration of the increased need for such operations. The paramilitary People%26rsquo;s Armed Police (PAP) mobilised some 2,400 troops over eight provinces. Ad%26shy;ditionally, assets from the People%26rsquo;s Liberation Army and Air Force were called into service. With the predicted increase in extreme weather events, China%26rsquo;s military will be compelled to incorporate these domestic disaster response and assistance capabilities more closely into its operational planning strategies.

Interestingly, this does not seem to have happened yet; China%26rsquo;s recent law governing the PAP makes only brief mention of disaster-relief activities, focusing instead on the force%26rsquo;s inter%26shy;nal security role. In addition to posing challenges to the country%26rsquo;s military, adaptation to water-related climate impacts will impose serious economic costs upon China. North-west China%26rsquo;s Xinjiang province, for example, is building 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater from the Hi%26shy;malayan shrinking glaciers in an attempt to address concerns about long-term water availability. The 10-year project is expected to cost 200 million yuan (US$29.3m) annually for at least the next three years, a considerable sum for one of China%26rsquo;s poorest areas.

Water-storage costs also vary widely between regions. The cost of capturing 120 billion cubic metres of water is 30.7 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) in the southern Xi River area, for example, and less than 14 billion (US$2 billion) in the cen%26shy;tral Yangtze River. Most noticeably, it will become increasingly difficult and expensive to enhance water storage capacity through measures such as reservoirs and catchments in water-stressed areas like north China, simply because water shortages will be so severe.

As one commentator has noted, climate change is an %26ldquo;engine of destabilisation%26rdquo;. This characterisation seems particularly appropriate with respect to China. Water-related climate impacts will be severe in several areas within the country, with the result that China%26rsquo;s military, governmental insti%26shy;tutions and national resources will be increasingly burdened by climate change and water issues. As a result, the government has been compelled to devote more atten%26shy;tion to these issues, a trend which is only likely to accelerate.

Concern for resource security issues does appear to drive Chinese policymaking to at least some extent. In mid-2008, state media reported that %26ldquo;With food and wa%26shy;ter security becoming great concerns around the world, China will take measures to ensure agricultural water use and promote its plan to increase food production,%26rdquo; including raising the price of water.

China further appears to take the issue of water availability in the Himalayas seriously, flying several cloud-seeding sorties a month to increase rainfall and water availability on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Perhaps the clearest statement of the government%26rsquo;s linkage of water and security issues, how%26shy;ever, is the National Framework for Medium to Long-Term Food Security, released in 2008, which emphasises water-saving agriculture.

Water-related climate change impacts will strain the capacity of Chinese institutions and policy frameworks. This is partic%26shy;ularly evident with respect to the military%26rsquo;s natural disaster response capabilities and transboundary water-management policy, as well as with domestic agricultur%26shy;al, emergency-management and water-management policies.

The Chinese govern%26shy;ment, perhaps with the increased aid of international and civil society actors, will be pressed to improve its conceptual, planning and implementation capacities in each of these policy areas. China will be forced to devote large economic resources to ad%26shy;aptation, including the construction of flood defences, reservoirs and water-distri%26shy;bution systems, if it is to escape the worst water-related climate-change impacts. At a time when China%26rsquo;s development priorities demand investment in so many areas, this increasing burden is almost certain to increase political tensions between provinces and governmental institutions.

Nonetheless, these issues in fact point a way forward for improving international cooperation on climate change. First, water-related security issues present a particu%26shy;larly good opportunity to broaden and deepen bilateral and regional cooperation on climate change. Acute institutional vulnerabilities, such as increased strain on emer%26shy;gency management and disaster-response capabilities in China, present opportuni%26shy;ties for international technical assistance and cooperation.

Moreover, adaptation assistance under the new climate regime can be focused to address strategic concerns such as food security. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched a programme in cooperation with the Bill %26amp; Melinda Gates Foun%26shy;dation to develop new rice varieties capable of surviving various climate change-related stresses. The US$35 million (239 million yuan) project will focus on enabling farmers in south Asia to obtain higher rice yields even in the face of climate change, with fewer inputs of fertiliser and irrigated water. Similar models could be explored, possibly with a greater degree of co-financing, in China.

Finally, climate change cooperation should be seen not only as an ecological im%26shy;perative, but also a strategic one. As the Council on Foreign Relations has noted, international climate negotiations have a clear national-security dimension, in as%26shy; much as the international community has an interest in integrating nations like Chi%26shy;na and India into a %26ldquo;rules-based global order%26rdquo; through participation in climate ne%26shy;gotiations.

This interest is heightened when the security ramifications of climate change are considered. Particularly when applied to the regions likely to become flashpoints in a changing climate, the strategic approach can help to guide policymakers towards adopting long-term, systemic approaches to addressing climate change.

Given the severity of climate change for both China and the world at large, it is welcome news that Beijing increasingly sees reducing its own emissions as a matter of national interest. But getting a better idea of what is at stake can provide valuable insights to guide the progress of global climate cooperation.

Framing climate change as a strategic security issue helps to parse its manifold repercussions, which stretch from instability in China%26rsquo;s borderlands to pressures on local government coffers. It also provides added perspective on how large climate change will loom in the future of both China and the world, unless aggressive steps are taken to prevent it.

Scott Moore is a graduate student at the University of Oxford%26rsquo;s Environmental Change Institute and previously held a Fulbright Fellowship at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Peking University.

An earlier version of this article was published in China Security in 2009 as %26ldquo;Climate Change, Water, and China%26rsquo;s National Interest%26rdquo;, Vol.5, No.3. It is used here with permission.

Homepage image from the Wuyang government shows soldiers helping to irrigate fields in Henan province.

The quantity and quality of available water play a crucial role in the politics of central-south Asia. Access to clean drinking water is a major, though largely unmet, objective and poor management lies at the heart of many problems.

Many areas are already experiencing physical water shortages %26ndash; recent studies estimate per capita water availability in the densely-populated Indus basin at around 1,000 cubic metres per year %26ndash; and climate change will only exacerbate this.

The region%26rsquo;s water challenges do not inevitably lead to armed conflict. Unalleviated, however, they threaten to undermine human security and bring different communities into dispute. Cooperative approaches have been sparse and institutional structures remain fragmented. Yet cooperation will be critical for the region to meet its water challenges in the years and decades ahead.

In Afghanistan, the livelihoods of at least 80% of the population are based on agriculture and related occupations. The fertile plains of the Amu Darya basin, account for about 40% of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s irrigated lands. But poorly constructed canals translate into water losses as high as 70%. And droughts and dry years since 1999 have substantially reduced cultivated areas in the south and east.

Moreover, three decades of armed conflict have displaced a large portion of the population, impeded access to farmland, and destroyed irrigation systems. Buffeted by recurring drought and floods, and the population%26rsquo;s desperate coping strategies, the net result has been a severe degradation of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s natural environment and its water and farming infrastructure. According to Oxfam UK, overall agricultural produce has fallen by half in recent years and the loss of rural livelihoods has triggered migration to cities.

Millions of Afghans are either seasonally or chronically food insecure. As well as hunger, these desperate conditions have triggered local conflicts. Water contamination has become a severe public health threat, owing to poor waste management practices and a lack of modern sanitation; a 2003 United Nations assessment concluded no more than 12 to 23% of Afghanistan%26rsquo;s urban population has access to safe water.

In the wider region, the nations sharing the Amu Darya are locked into seemingly irreconcilable sets of interests. Tajikistan and Afghanistan look to the Amu Darya for hydropower as well as irrigation while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan depend heavily on the river to irrigate their cotton, rice, and wheat fields.

Downstream, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have similar economic interests, yet their relationship is nonetheless conflictive. Tensions over shared irrigation systems near Tuyamuyun Reservoir could be further inflamed by Turkmenistan’s plans to build an artificial lake in the Karakum desert by 2010.

Upstream, Tajikistan releases reservoir water in the winter months to generate hydropower for heating, frequently causing downstream flooding and damage to infrastructure. In the summer months, it builds up its reservoirs %26mdash; at precisely the time when the irrigation needs of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are most acute.

All these countries plan to increase water extraction, which may exacerbate tensions. Tajikistani plans to complete unfinished Soviet-era hydropower projects on the Vakhsh River, for example, are worrying Uzbekistan, not only because of the potential impact on summer irrigation water flows, but also because it stands to lose income (and leverage) from selling natural gas to its neighbour.

In Pakistan and India, extensive irrigation is also placing Indus basin water resources under heavy stress, with about 90% of the available flow utilised. Overpumping and inefficient irrigation techniques have led to sharply declining groundwater levels, loss of wetlands and salinisation of agricultural lands. Future sea-level rise will place coastal areas at increasing risk of inundation and water availability will decline dramatically as a result of climate change and population growth; Pakistan%26rsquo;s per capita water availability is forecast to fall to a critically low level of just 800 cubic metres annually by 2020.

Already, an estimated 40 million to 55 million Pakistanis do not have access to safe drinking water, yet the government spends 47 times as much on the military budget as on water and sanitation. According to a Unesco report, only 2% of Pakistan%26rsquo;s cities have wastewater treatment facilities and less than 30% of wastewater receives treatment in these cities. Water pollution is the leading cause of death in Pakistan.

Rising water demand in the region is causing trans-border issues as well as internal conflicts. Pakistan has an important agreement with India, the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, which divides the waters of the Indus and its eastern tributaries. However, a number of contentious projects undertaken by India in Kashmir %26mdash; including the Baglihar Hydroelecric Dam, the Kishanganga Hydroelectric project and the Tulbul Navigation project %26mdash; have served as reminders that water disputes between the two neighbours are never far from the surface. It is increasingly important for India and Pakistan to improve their water management and ensure diplomacy, rather than threat of force, governs water relations.

Climate change will dramatically raise the challenges in central and south Asia. By the middle of the century, increasing temperatures and growing water stress may lead to a 30% reduction in crop yields. In central Asia, reduced rainfall and runoff will cause increased heat stress, drought and desertification and lead to increasing migration. Yet no mitigation and adaptation strategies are in place.

The melting of the Hindu Kush-Karakorum-Himalaya glaciers will also have serious consequences for hundreds of millions of people. The warming trend in these mountain ranges has been much greater than the global average and two thirds of the Himalayan glaciers are reported to be shrinking. Over time, this will reduce downstream runoff and compromise hydropower generation, decreasing production of foodstuffs and commodities like cotton. In turn, this may increase poverty and social disparities.

Significant changes to monsoon patterns are also expected. Much of south, east, and south-east Asia may see increased intensity of these storms by the century%26rsquo;s end, while most parts of Pakistan and south-eastern Afghanistan are expected to see a 20% reduction in rainfall. Destructive storm surges and greater salt-water intrusion in low-lying coastal areas could drive migration from urban centres such as Karachi and flooding is expected to increase across the Himalayas, as well as northern Pakistan and India.

International donor support is needed to fund infrastructure maintenance, improvements in water efficiency, and diversification toward more drought-resistant crops, in part by reprioritising existing funds. In Afghanistan, for instance, Oxfam observes that donors have spent less than US$300 million to $400 million directly on agricultural projects over the last six years %26ndash; a fraction of overall assistance to the country.

The governance system for central Asia%26rsquo;s water that emerged in the post-Soviet era remains largely dysfunctional, limited by conflicting interests, mutual suspicions and a reluctance to cooperate. However, the UN Economic Commission for Europe has intensified its engagement in central Asia over the past few years, with a programme to strengthen cooperation among members. Its Water Convention also provides a legal framework for trans-boundary water cooperation, though Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are so far the only regional signatories. Other organisations, including the Environment and Security Initiative and the East-West Institute are also running programmes to boost regional collaboration.

As great as the challenges are, there are multiple avenues for addressing them. One of the most pressing needs is greater efficiency in water use. By 2015, Afghanistan%26rsquo;s Ministry of Energy and Water hopes to boost efficiency by 45%, while improvements in yields for rain-fed cereal crops in Pakistan could help relieve overall water pressures. Their neighbours can and must similarly boost water productivity. Better watershed management, rainwater harvesting, urban water conservation, investments in sanitation, and more integrated planning are vitally important.

The countries of the region have little influence over global greenhouse emissions trajectories, and hence will need to focus principally on adaptation measures. It is essential to build environmental, social, economic, and political resilience, as well as improve institutional capacities to cope with growing water scarcity and climate impacts. Water cooperation across national boundaries offers important benefits but may not be realised without disinterested, innovative third-party facilitation.

Michael Renner is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC and senior advisor to the Institute for Environmental Security in Brussels.

A full version of this report was first published by the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre.

Homepage image from IRIN

On returning from the climate conference at Copenhagen, the Vanke Group chairman, Wang Shi, posted a picture of himself pushing an old bike through the streets of the city on his blog. On December 7, the head of the largest property company in China %26ndash; who climbs an 8,000-metre high mountain every year %26ndash; had joined a group of Chinese businessmen on a week-long cycling tour around the city, after which he announced the saving of 115 kilograms of carbon.

The trip was quickly branded a mere stunt. But Wang did not seem to mind, saying that, unlike actors, the businessmen were playing themselves and that he hoped to see more, and better, such events in the future. Afterwards, he and his companions made numerous appearances in the Chinese media, talking about Copenhagen and advocating low-carbon ideas.

On December 5, Wang and Feng Lun, chairman of Beijing Vantone Real Estate, were chosen to board the %26ldquo;Climate Express%26rdquo;, a special train from Brussels to Copenhagen organised by the United Nations Environment Program, the International Union of Railways and the World Wildlife Fund. Another group of %26ldquo;green entrepreneurs%26rdquo;, including Marjorie Yang, chairwoman of textile manufacturer Esquel Group; Zhang Yue, chairman of Broad Air-conditioning; Zhang Zaidong, chairman of Beijing Fengshang Real Estate; Song Jun, president of hotel and travel investment firm Beijing Jiuhan Tiancheng and Huang Ming, chairman of Himin Solar Energy Group travelled north from Germany with Lu Zhi, Peking University professor and head of the Shanshui Conservation Centre. They met with Deutsche Bank%26rsquo;s climate finance team in Frankfurt, visited Europe%26rsquo;s solar-power %26ldquo;capital%26rdquo;, Freiburg, and then joined the property group in Copenhagen.

This was the first time Chinese entrepreneurs had attended a UN climate-change conference as observers and a rare high-profile appearance at an international climate-change event. Hopes were high for these enlightened businessmen, both in China and overseas. So what did they actually do?

At a small ceremony to mark the start of the trip held at Beijing%26rsquo;s exclusive Chang%26rsquo;an Club, they said they wanted to put forward the Chinese business world%26rsquo;s stance on climate change, and learn about the business risks and opportunities it will bring. On December 8, they set out this stance at their first appearance in Copenhagen. This took place away from the Bella Center, the main conference facility, at the five-star Radisson hotel, where Chinese premier Wen Jiabao would later stay. Unfortunately very few foreign reporters were present and almost all the attendees were Chinese. So why, those present wondered, couldn%26rsquo;t they just have held the press conference in China?

On December 11, these business leaders were not present at the Business Day event, hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

The WBCSD has 200 members, including Shell, Duke Energy, E.ON, BP and Rio Tinto. At Copenhagen the WBCSD advocated a global carbon market and a voluntary industrial code, covering industry, agricultural oil use, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage. The ICC, a similar organisation whose members include several major polluters such as Areva, Exxon Mobil and Vattenfall, continued to tell political leaders that business is part of the solution and that economic growth and free trade should be given priority.

The reason the Chinese group was absent was simpler than many thought. The head of the delegation, Wang Shi, had already left Copenhagen due to a prior engagement and the other members, for the most part having poor English and little experience of international events, were not too keen to attend %26ndash; and so they didn%26rsquo;t.

As head of one of the world%26rsquo;s largest property firms, Wang Shi was undoubtedly the most prominent member of the delegation. In 2007, Vanke started to use reusable steel frames in buildings, rather than the traditional wood. Over the past three years, this method has been applied to 600,000 square metres of building space and, after Copenhagen, Wang set a new target of two million square metres. His ambitions do not stop there, however. Wang wants to lead China%26rsquo;s property sector in making a contribution of more than 10% to China%26rsquo;s 2020 emissions target.

Wang told all of this to the Wall Street Journal and Daily Telegraph newspapers while he was on the Climate Express, to widespread acclaim. And so his early departure, to a certain extent, reduced the voice of Chinese business at Copenhagen. More disappointing was the fact that, although the Business Day was on the agenda provided at the pre-departure press conference and was widely reported in both Chinese and western media, not a single Chinese businessperson was seen at the actual event.

However, the Business Day, which brought together chief executives of giant multinationals, was also lacking attendees from South Africa, Brazil and India. Moreover, those who did attend did not gain much. As Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change told them, the negotiations going on at the Bella Center were inter-governmental and the participants temporarily had to put business to one side.

The delegation was more influenced by events not on the agenda; namely, the civil society activities they attended as private individuals, such as marches organised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Song Jun of the Jiuhan Tiancheng, commented that the range of protests by NGO members gave him more to think about than the disorganised negotiations and dull reports and made him more determined than ever to keep his business on a green path. This entrepeneur, often criticised for being too idealistic, has always tried to persuade more people to accept traditional Chinese ideas of conservation, calling for a limit on human demands rather than technical solutions to environmental and climate issues.

In 2002, Song started investing in the Moonlight Lake eco-tourism project in the deserts of Inner Mongolia, in northern China. But it is hard to stick to environmental ideals in today%26rsquo;s China and he has suffered a number of financial setbacks, only making a profit after five or six years. Next he plans to implement his new grasslands conservation plan in Xilin Gol, which aims to bring back herders forced to leave by environmental problems. The plan won support from Wang Shi and Zhang Zaidong at Copenhagen %26ndash; perhaps the most concrete result Song got from the summit.

Regardless, many people were left disappointed by the performance of these entrepreneurs at Copenhagen. Like the Chinese government, the Chinese business world has, over the last few years, been striving to improve communications and keep up with the global response to climate change and environmental protection. But getting that message across fully and accurately still needs work.

However, some are doing better than others. The story of how Zhang Yue of Broad Air-conditioning gave up his private jet is well known. And Broad’s non-electric air-conditioners were the focus of the only corporate case study in a report presented to G8 leaders by former UK prime minister Tony Blair in 2008. Zhang came and went at Copenhagen, clutching his own document, Measures to Reduce CO2 Emissions. He believes that there is huge potential for emissions reductions to be made by the Chinese public, though nobody knows how he has worked this out.

Many are also familiar with the story of Huang Ming%26rsquo;s solar empire and he was one of the delegation%26rsquo;s most active speakers. He also organised a football match to urge countries not to pass the buck on climate change and, on returning to China, called for COP18, the UN-sponsored climate summit scheduled for 2012, to be held in China. Shi Zhengrong of solar firm Suntech Power is even better known internationally. In May 2009, he was the only Chinese entrepreneur from the private sector to appear at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Unfortunately he was not able to be present at COP15.

But, for these business personalities, whether they come across well or badly is not the important thing. Wang Shi, Zhang Yue and Song Jun are more concerned about the weak message sent out by Copenhagen. Without a clear, strong and long signal, it is hard for businesses to make investment decisions %26ndash; even for these pioneers who have not hestitated in going with the green flow.

Feng Jie is a journalist at Southern Weekend and was formerly a reporter at the China Economic Herald.

Homepage image from hudong.com shows (left to right) Song Jun, Feng Lun, Wang Shi, Zhang Yue and Zhang Zaidong.

After their father died 15 years ago, Mike Smith%26rsquo;s six siblings wanted nothing to do with the tract of land the old man had gradually acquired from his income as a pipeline welder. The land, 365 acres %26ndash; 148 hectares — of it, lay in a quiet and sparsely populated corner of Louisiana: nothing but pine trees for miles around. In a county so poor that about a fifth of the population lives below the poverty line, the bequest wasn%26rsquo;t good for much.

But for Smith, a tall, slim man of 61 with a kindly face, DeSoto parish was home. %26ldquo;That%26rsquo;s where my roots are. I wanted the land,%26rdquo; he says. Smith paid US$300 an acre (less than half a hectare) %26ndash;$109,500 in total %26ndash; to his siblings. And while he kept his home in Shreveport, 65 kilometres to the north, he travelled down to DeSoto regularly to walk his acres, or hunt squirrel and deer. His plan was to sell the trees for lumber one day, and use the income to fund his retirement. Until then, he would pass the years frugally, making a living as a property valuer and sharing his 50-year-old house with two dogs and a cat.

All the while, the DeSoto county seat, Mansfield, home to 5,500 people, withered. With only coal and timber to support it, the parish could not even repair its roads. Across from the courthouse are telltale signs of the desperation that began to claw at the area %26ndash; the dusty, vacant windows of the hardware shop and cinema, and beyond them the Community Bank of Louisiana. It opened its doors in 1901 but is now so run down that the visitor struggles to make out what colour the wallpaper would once have been. The phones are from another age and an old standard lamp in an upstairs office blinks fitfully into life and then goes dark again.

%26ldquo;When I came in, the town was dead. There was no sign of economic growth here,%26rdquo; remembers Curtis McCoy, mayor for the past seven years.

All that changed in 2008, when oil and gas companies began knocking on doors, offering locals a couple of hundred dollars an acre if they would lease their land for prospecting. Some, like Jim May, executive director of the DeSoto Chamber of Commerce, jumped at the offer and signed a three-year lease on his 100 acres for a total of $25,000. Nobody had shown any interest in the land in decades, he reasoned. Six months later, the gold rush was at its height and prices leapt to $25,000 or even $30,000 an acre. %26ldquo;I lost $2.5 million,%26rdquo; says May with a wistful smile.

%26ldquo;People went to bed one night and woke up the next morning to find themselves rich,%26rdquo; says McCoy. That included Mike Smith, whose land was so sought after that in May 2008, PetroHawk Energy, a small, independent oil and gas company, handed him a $1.4-million signing bonus in return for permission to drill for natural gas on his late father%26rsquo;s property. %26ldquo;It changed my whole life,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;I don%26rsquo;t have to cut my trees anymore.%26rdquo;

Smith is sitting behind the wheel of a new gold Cadillac, parked outside this year%26rsquo;s Haynesville Shale Expo in Shreveport, an event that has attracted 5,000 people, most of them landowners who missed the leasing frenzy and are eager to see whether they still have time to cash in. It was Smith%26rsquo;s dream since he was a boy to own a new Cadillac, like the one his father always made sure his mother drove. He paid $52,000 cash for the car. %26ldquo;That was the first investment. It kind of hurt a little bit,%26rdquo; he smiles. A small wooden cross dangles from the rear-view mirror.

. . .

The prize that drew companies such as PetroHawk to Smith%26rsquo;s impoverished corner of Louisiana is known as shale gas. Smith%26rsquo;s acres sit on top of the Haynesville Shale, named after the town near which the prospect was discovered %26ndash; a seam of black rock between 150 and 300 feet thick (45 to 90 metres thick) that lies hundreds of metres underground and extends across 3,400 square miles (8,800 square kilometers) of Louisiana and Texas. Trapped inside this rock are vast quantities of natural gas %26ndash; estimated at between 112 and 245 trillion cubic feet (roughly between three and seven trillion cubic metres). At the upper end of this range, Haynesville gas could meet the energy needs of the United States for about 12 years.

This isn%26rsquo;t the most extensive prospect of its kind in the United States; that distinction belongs to the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and neighbouring states, which is reckoned to cover 65,000 square miles (nearly 170,000 square kilometres), an area larger than Greece. But based on the wells drilled so far, the Haynesville may well turn out to be one of the most productive. %26ldquo;It was the Haynesville that turned the tide on how big shale could be for US supply,%26rdquo; says Jeff Fisher, senior vice-president of production at another US company, Chesapeake Energy.

Indeed, the impact is expected to extend well beyond America%26rsquo;s borders. Industry consultants at PFC Energy in Washington, DC, believe that developing supplies trapped in shale deposits could more than quadruple the world%26rsquo;s known gas reserves. %26ldquo;This is a transformational event,%26rdquo; says its chairman, Robin West. His consultancy puts global reserves of natural gas from %26ldquo;unconventional%26rdquo; sources such as shale beds at 3,250 trillion cubic feet (92 trillion cubic metres), a total based on 1997 geological estimates that he believes will rise as the techniques available to extract the gas improve. By comparison, global reserves of natural gas from %26ldquo;conventional%26rdquo; sources total 620 trillion cubic feet (17.5 trillion cubic metres). Not all of these shale reserves will ever be tapped, but the technology to do so is available and, for the first time, companies are putting it to use.

To extract gas from shale involves drilling down, sometimes thousands of metres, and then sideways as much as 4,500 feet (1,370 metres). Once a well has been drilled, water with fine grains of sand is pumped through at high pressure; this fractures the shale and leaves behind the grains of sand, which prop open the fissures in the rock and allow the gas to escape.

Using this technique, Devon Energy, an Oklahoma-based oil and gas independent, sank a well last autumn in the Texas portion of the Haynesville shale (until then thought to be a low point in the %26ldquo;play%26rdquo;) that produced a flow rate of more than 30 million cubic feet (850,000 cubic metres) of gas per day, the highest ever from that area. This result led others to redraw the borders of the gas field, suggesting it was even more extensive than originally believed. %26ldquo;No one, us included, knows how that play is going to evolve,%26rdquo; says Larry Nichols, Devon%26rsquo;s chief executive. %26ldquo;We did not anticipate it would grow this much. Now we realise there are more opportunities for onshore growth than we ever thought would be possible.%26rdquo;

This realisation marks a volte-face for America%26rsquo;s oil and gas companies. By the 1970s, the majors had decided that onshore reserves of oil and gas in the United States had been tapped, so they sold much of their acreage in order to focus on offshore and international exploration. This left the independent explorers, which drill 90% of onshore wells in the country, to pursue what was left. %26ldquo;For years we have known that the United States holds vast quantities of so-called tight gas or shale gas %26ndash; natural gas locked in formations denser than concrete,%26rdquo; Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil%26rsquo;s chief executive, said in October. %26ldquo;But we did not have the technology to extract this so-called tight gas in a cost-effective way. Until now.%26rdquo;

Credit for that breakthrough goes to George Mitchell, who at 90 is among the last of the original wildcatters still alive. His breed of oilmen spent their lives searching for the next Spindletop %26ndash; the Texas oil well that in 1901 spouted a thick, black geyser, marking the birth of the US oil industry. Duke R Ligon was senior vice-president at Devon Energy when, in 2002, Mitchell was preparing to sell his company to Devon and retire a billionaire. Few people realised it at the time, but Mitchell had already laid the groundwork for the shale boom by pioneering an effective and economic way to extract the gas. %26ldquo;You had to laugh in the negotiations because, according to him, everything was Spindletop,%26rdquo; Ligon recalls. He pauses, then adds: %26ldquo;He happened to be right.%26rdquo;

The technology and expertise developed by Mitchell Energy and refined by Devon has transformed the industry. In the past three years, estimates of US gas reserves have grown from 30 to 100 years%26rsquo; supply at today%26rsquo;s rates of consumption. %26ldquo;We did all the work,%26rdquo; Mitchell says. %26ldquo;The majors didn%26rsquo;t do it; the independents did it. Now the majors are angling all around.%26rdquo;

Exxon, the biggest of them all, has built up positions in the Marcellus Shale and other fields across Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, and in December it took over XTO Energy, a US independent, in a $41-billion deal that will further increase its exposure to onshore US natural gas. Exxon is also looking at making shale an international proposition and has holdings in Canada, Germany, Hungary and Poland.

And all the while competitors from around the world are lining up, hoping to learn from the pioneering US independents and take that expertise with them wherever they can.

NEXT: What lies ahead?

Sheila McNulty is the Financial Times%26rsquo;s US energy correspondent.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010

http://www.ft.com/home/uk

Homepage image from US Energy Information Administration

Over the last two decades, awareness has grown that carbon capture and storage (CCS) could be an important technology in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; more than 20 large-scale demonstration projects are now in the pipeline. According a 2009 report from the International Energy Agency, CCS in the power and industrial sectors is likely to represent 10% of total emissions reductions by 2030.

As most major economies have already made a commitment to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, ideally no new fossil-fuel power plants, oil-refinery and steel plants or cement kilns would be permitted unless they were built with full-scale CCS facilities. Widespread deployment of large-scale CCS is, however, facing two major challenges: a lack of experience in building and operating commercial-scale integrated CCS projects and insufficient financial incentives to provide a fair return for investors. Before these challenges can be addressed, new fossil-fuel combustion plants in the next decade should be designed and built using the carbon capture ready (CCR) approach in order to ease retrofitting of CCS in the future.

Some stakeholders are concerned that CCS technologies are not yet proven because of a lack of industrial projects. This view is not entirely correct. More than 100 industrial CCS projects are being developed and about 20 are currently in operation, including the Statoil-Sleipner one million-tonne per year storage project in Norway, the 30 megawatt Vatternfall-Schwarze Pumpe pilot plant in Germany and the Huaneng-Gaobeidian 3000-tonne per year post-combustion capture pilot in China. A few projects have been running for more than 10 years.

The real issue is a lack of large-scale schemes. According to the United Kingdom%26rsquo;s Stern Review, capturing carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel power stations is essential to delivering steep cuts in emissions. But no existing CCS project is yet capturing carbon dioxide from power stations at a rate of more than one million tonnes per year.

The European Union hopes to have at least 10 demonstration projects up and running by 2015 and is preparing a knowledge-sharing framework for CCS, though the timetable appears to be slipping. The US energy secretary Steven Chu has announced a similarly ambitious target: the United States could have 10 to 12 commercial demonstration projects operational by 2016 and ready for a wider commercial deployment by 2019. The Australian government, meanwhile, is providing 100 million Australian dollars (US$90 million) per year for a Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) to support demonstration projects worldwide. And, while the Chinese government has not yet aggressively supported CCS demonstration projects, large state-owned energy companies such as Huaneng Group, GreenGen and Shenhua have proposed a number of large-scale schemes. Several bilateral and multilateral initiatives have also been established in order to accelerate the sharing of risk, funding and knowledge, including the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, the FutureGen Alliance, and the UK-EU-China Near Zero Emissions Coal (NZEC) initiative plus the GCCSI.

Examples of three types of capture technology %26ndash; post-combustion, pre-combustion, and separation from industrial process %26ndash; are in commercial use for non-CCS applications. A fourth, oxy-fuel, is still in the pilot demonstration phase. However, more research and demonstration are needed to make %26ldquo;capture%26rdquo; economically feasible and technically proven at the scale, and under the conditions, required for CCS-relevant applications.

Once the carbon dioxide is captured, it has to be transported to a suitable and secure storage site %26ndash; a pipeline is the most economic way to do this %26ndash; and can then be injected into deep geological formations for storage. The oil and gas industry has experience injecting large quantities of carbon dioxide into saline formations and oil and gas fields and the technology is reasonably mature. Thus most CCS technologies are ready to deploy and have established suppliers. The priorities in their development are achieving cost reductions and demonstrating full-system integration.

So what are the costs? According to a study by energy consultancy P%26ouml;yry for the UK government, the abatement cost for carbon capture in 2015 is likely to be US$41 (280 yuan) to US$57 (389 yuan) per tonne of carbon dioxide for capturing from coal or natural-gas power stations, and the cost for storing and monitoring carbon dioxide in saline aquifer US$1.60 (10.9 yuan) to US$3.20 (21.8 yuan) per tonne of carbon dioxide. A special report on CCS from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests the cost of transportation is US$1 (6.8 yuan) to US$6 (41 yuan) per tonne for a 250 kilometre pipeline carrying five-million tonnes per year but the actual number is sensitive to location and land cost.

According to a study by consultant McKinsey %26amp; Company published in 2008, the total cost of initial CCS demonstration projects between 2012 and 2015 is likely be around US$84 (574 yuan) to US$127 (867 yuan) per tonne of carbon dioxide and reduce to US$49 (335 yuan) to US$70 (478 yuan) per tonne abated shortly after 2020. However, if a discount rate is applied to reflect the uncertainties in CCS investment, the cost goes up by US$13 (89 yuan) to US$15 (102 yuan) per tonne.

CCS in developing countries may have a cost advantage. The NZEC project and China-EU collaboration, COACH, suggest the full CCS costs could be US$35 (239 yuan) to US$42 (287 yuan) per tonne of carbon dioxide abated in large scale projects. However, this advantage may be much reduced in 2020 as labour costs, capital costs and currency value tend to rise faster in developing countries. An established CCS methodology in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) could potentially provide a substantial amount of financial support to kick-start early CCS demonstration projects in the developing world. However, support solely from CDM is not enough. Since carbon abatement costs in demonstration projects are much higher than the current market price of certified emissions reductions (CER), additional financial incentives from the public sector are likely to be the main driver for CCS demonstration projects around the world in the next decade.

The vast majority of global stakeholders share a consensus that CCS is an important technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, among the lay public, renewable and efficient appliances are perceived to be slightly more positive than CCS. The lack of awareness and information among policymakers and the general population has become a barrier in deploying CCS at scale.

The energy penalty is one limitation of CCS. Capturing and compressing carbon dioxide may increase the fuel needs of coal-fired power plants by more than 25%. Interestingly, most stakeholder consultations carried out in major developed economies have concluded that development of CCS will enhance energy security because a number of people in developed countries believe coal plants will not be permitted in the absence of CCS in the near future. However, Chinese stakeholders tend to frame CCS technologies as a threat to national energy security because they believe they could result in a higher import rate for coal. Some are also concerned about operational safety issues and coal-mining accidents.

Before CCS becomes economically feasible, power stations will continue to be built and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to an IEA estimate, coal-fired generation is likely to grow by 2.5 times in China and 3.5 times in India during between 2007 and 2030. Modifications to make new plants carbon-capture ready are important for easing the retrofit of CCS. Developers of capture-ready plants should take responsibility for ensuring that all known factors in their control that would prevent installation and operation of carbon-dioxide capture have been identified and eliminated.

For pulverised-coal power plants, the carbon-capture ready investment is modest; less than 1% of the original fixed-capital expense, according to IEA estimates. However, it could reduce the possibility of early closure by 7% to 10% and increase the possibility of retrofitting by 5% to 7%, according to a 2009 study by the UK-China Chinese Advanced Power Plants Carbon Capture Option (CAPPCCO). A survey of 103 power plants in China by CAPPCO indicated nearly half of Chinese coal-fired power plants, none of which were built to be capture ready, would be unviable for retrofit.

The success of CCS will depend on a series of factors being realised. First, sufficient financial and political supports, plus explicit early-mover benefits, are needed to create an acceptable investment environment for demonstration projects. Second, such projects must prove the reliability and safety of CCS technologies and find efficient financial and operational models. Third, substantial cost reductions need to be achieved through technological innovation and the carbon price must become stable and high enough to justify CCS investment. And fourth, a more effective communication framework is necessary to improve the understanding of CCS among policymakers, energy entrepreneurs and the lay public.

Finally, once CCS becomes economically feasible, it should be possible to implement the technologies in every new fossil fuel plant and to retrofit some existing plants %26ndash; with priority for those that were built to be carbon capture ready.

Li Jia is chief executive of LinksChina Investment Advisory Limited, founder of CaptureReady.com and a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering at Imperial College, London. Xi Liang is a research associate in the Electricity Policy Research Group at the University of Cambridge.

Hompage image from Vattenfall shows its Schwarze Pumpe oxyfuel pilot plant in Spremberg, Germany.

To avoid the worst consequences of global warming, the world must limit average temperature increases to two degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Several recent studies have found that the warming we are already committed to will exceed that limit even if emissions growth were to stop completely.

Achieving the urgently needed emissions reductions will require efforts beyond first-resort measures such as increasing energy efficiency, scaling up renewable-energy use, and enhancing natural carbon sinks. Given the world%26rsquo;s current heavy reliance on fossil fuels, some countries, such as China and the United States, need to pursue a wide range of carbon-mitigation strategies that should include carbon capture and storage (CCS).

All three components of CCS technology %26ndash; capture, transport, and sequestration %26ndash; are commercially mature but have mainly been used for other purposes rather than CCS. Very few integrated large-scale projects are in operation today due to the lack of explicit national climate policies to limit carbon-dioxide emissions. For the technology to contribute to meaningful emissions reductions, integrated commercial projects are urgently needed to gain operational experience and drive down costs. Sequestering high-purity carbon-dioxide waste streams from certain industrial facilities reduces the cost of a CCS demonstration project and thus presents a %26ldquo;low-hanging fruit%26rdquo; opportunity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that CCS is capable of contributing 15% to 55% of worldwide cumulative carbon-emission reductions until the year 2100.

CCS is of particular importance for China. Although the country has made significant strides in expanding capacities in hydro, wind, solar and nuclear power, it still meets 70% of its energy needs through coal. By 2020, China is projected to have four times the hydropower capacity and double the wind and solar-power capacity of the United States but these renewable sources will remain small in comparison to coal consumption.

Chinese researcher Kejun Jiang and colleagues project that, even assuming concerted action to restrict the development of energy-intensive industries, taxation policies to encourage energy efficiency and conservation, strong government support for renewable and nuclear-energy development and high efficiency standards in industrial production, coal will continue to meet more than half of China%26rsquo;s energy demand until 2030. Under this aggressive policy scenario, China%26rsquo;s coal consumption could peak around 2020 and then slightly decrease through 2050. Even if coal consumption decreases, China%26rsquo;s carbon-dioxide emissions from all fossil fuels would not decrease without CCS, but would only level off.

China has promising geological-storage potential. Chinese and US researchers have identified over 1,600 large carbon dioxide point sources, 91% of which are located 160 kilometres or less from potential geological sinks and more than half of which are located directly above a candidate formation.

There are at least 130 megatonnes of high-purity carbon dioxide emitted each year from 185 large-scale ammonia, hydrogen, and ethylene-oxide production facilities, according to Xiaochun Li and Ning Wei of the Chinese Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics (ISRM). Three-quarters of those high purity carbon-dioxide streams are situated within 80 kilometres of a candidate sink. Such streams could total as much as 208 megatonnes per year in China once all planned ammonia, methanol, and liquid-hydrocarbon production facilities come online, according to research by Zhong Zheng, Eric Larson and others, who have told the NRDC about their work. Because the state where carbon dioxide is separated from a gas mixture is skipped, the costs of CCS for several of these sources can range from US$10 (68 yuan) to US$20 (137 yuan) per metric tonne of carbon dioxide avoided, lower than typical estimates for power plants, these researchers say.

Initial basin-scale assessments, performed and published jointly by Li and Wei of ISRM with the US Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), suggest that China%26rsquo;s theoretical sequestration capacity in deep saline formations amounts to 3,066 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide %26ndash; more than 450 times China%26rsquo;s total carbon dioxide emissions in 2005. The practical capacity and matched capacity, however, are expected to be much smaller than the theoretical potential when more factors are taken into account, such as injectivity %26ndash; the rate and pressure the carbon dioxide can be pumped into the target without fracturing the formation %26ndash; the effectiveness of carbon dioxide trapping mechanisms, cap-rock tightness, reservoir size, risk from faults, regulations, infrastructure constraints and economics.

Even though China%26rsquo;s sedimentary basins are large in number, they are also among the most complicated in the world and are characterised by numerous small-scale faults and strong faulting activity. These features have led to the formation of complex geological traps, which indicate that detailed, localised studies and site characterisation will be crucial to ensuring the successful application of CCS.

China%26rsquo;s capacity for carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and enhanced gas recovery (EGR) is estimated to be up to 10 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. While the assessments of oil and gas fields were also conducted at the basin level, the researchers used available field-location information to get greater storage-zone resolution. Unlike deep saline aquifers, oil and gas fields generally have more accurate and detailed geological information. According to ISRM-PNNL joint studies, two-fifths of the large carbon dioxide point sources in China are located within 80 kilometres of an oil or gas field and the estimated incremental oil production by EOR in China%26rsquo;s 16 major onshore and three offshore oil basins could technically reach up to seven billion barrels %26ndash; two and half times China%26rsquo;s current annual oil consumption.

There are a number of near-term opportunities for CCS demonstration in China, including various oil and gas basins that show promising EOR and EGR opportunities from using high-purity carbon dioxide sources or combined waste gas streams. A number of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) projects that are either under construction or in the planning stage have also expressed an intention to conduct a pilot CCS project, as has the Shenhua direct coal-liquefaction plant in Inner Mongolia, northern China.

A number of ammonia plants that are located 50 kilometres to150 kilometres from the oilfields of the Jianghan Basin, in south-central China, collectively emit over four million tonnes of high-purity carbon dioxide per year from manufacturing fertilisers. The combined benefits of short distances between sources and sinks and high potential EOR revenues make the Jianghan area a promising near-term CCS candidate.

The crude natural gas produced at the Jiangyou gas field in western China, contains acid gas %26ndash; carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide %26ndash; which needs to be removed from the gas product anyway. And the city of Jiangyou, located less than 25 kilometres away, has several large industrial point sources of low-concentration carbon dioxide. Therefore, one opportunity for low-cost CCS demonstration would be using the acid gas mixed with the industrial low-concentration carbon dioxide, without capture, for EGR.

China%26rsquo;s largest coal producer, the Shenhua Group, has a joint US-China project that aims to collect high-purity carbon dioxide from a direct coal-liquefaction facility in the Ordos Basin of Inner Mongolia and is slated to reach operational status in 2010 or 2011, with an aim to eventually sequester 2.9 megatonnes of pure carbon dioxide per year, most likely in a nearby saline aquifer.

The GreenGen project, mentioned in Li Jia and Xi Liang%26rsquo;s chinadialogue article on the economics of CCS, is led by China%26rsquo;s largest power producer, the Huaneng Group and will be China%26rsquo;s first commercial-scale IGCC facility, with plans to capture 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year starting in 2012-2013, with a higher target set for 2017. This 250-megawatt IGCC plant is currently under construction in the Bohai Basin in Tianjin, north-eastern China.

The China Power Investment Corporation has proposed an IGCC facility in Langfang, near Beijing, that would capture 8% of the carbon dioxide from the syngas %26ndash; a gas mixture containing varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen %26ndash; produced by two 488-megawatt IGCC units. An oilfield is only one kilometre away from the facility site, making sequestration through EOR a prime possibility for this project. The project is awaiting the government%26rsquo;s final approval.

In addition, two other large IGCC projects have been proposed and are seeking government approval, one in Dongguan in Guangdong Province, south-eastern China and the other in Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province, eastern China. The Dongguan project would build four 200-megawatt IGCC units and would be situated 100 kilometres from two depleted oilfields, while the Lianyungan project would eventually build 1200 megawatts of IGCC capacity and 1300 megawatts of ultra-supercritical capacity and would be situated in a coastal city 200 kilometres north of the Subei oilfield. Both projects have expressed an interest in combined CCS and EOR.

An earlier version of this article was published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, as %26ldquo;Identifying near-term opportunities for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in China%26rdquo;. It is a summary of a full report, co-authored by Jingjing Qian, George Peridas, Jason Chen and Yueming Qiu, Julio Friedmann, Xiaochun Li, Ning Wei, S Ming Sung, Mike Fowler, Deborah Seligsohn, Yue Liu, Sarah Forbes, Dongjie Zhang and Lifeng Zhao.

NEXT: The value of international cooperation

Homepage image from Huaneng shows its planned IGGC plant in Tianjin, north China.

Last December, 160,000 residents living along the Qingzhang River in Hebei, north-east China petitioned local government over the construction of a new hydropower station in neighbouring province Shanxi, complaining that it was cover for a new reservoir. They wanted the authorities to call an immediate halt to the project, saying that the Qingzhang River %26ndash; the lifeblood of the county and its 400,000 inhabitants %26ndash; would, otherwise, be cut off.

The Qingzhang is part of the Hai River system. It rises in Shanxi, then flows through Hebei and Henan and its waters are shared between the upper and lower reaches. Since the 1950s, various water-storage projects have been constructed in Shanxi. In the two decades leading up to 1965, the river%26rsquo;s annual average flow was 1.96 billion cubic metres. But, from 1980 to 2000, it was only 356 million cubic metres %26ndash; huge quantities of water were being retained upstream.

Meanwhile, Hebei has been busy building its own reservoirs. Since 1949, more than 1,000 reservoirs of different sizes have been constructed %26ldquo;for flood protection%26rdquo;. This took reservoir capacity across the province to 10 billion cubic metres of water, 6 billion of which could be supplied to cities. But a mixture of economic growth, a rising population and years of drought left parts of Hebei suffering from water shortages. And so reservoirs originally intended to prevent flooding were gradually used to supply water to the cities.

Hebei has another grievance. Even during times of extreme water shortage, it is obliged to provide a constant flow to Beijing to ensure the capital%26rsquo;s water security. The Hebei to Beijing section of the South-North Water Transfer Project has already been completed. Should Beijing suffer a water crisis, Hebei%26rsquo;s four major reservoirs %26ndash; Wangkuai, Xidayang, Gangnan and Huangbizhuang %26ndash; will be expected, come what may, to turn on the taps. When water levels at Beijing%26rsquo;s Miyun reservoir fall below one billion cubic metres, the Hebao and Yunzhou reservoirs, over the border in Hebei, are also forced to provide water %26ndash; even if they themselves are nearly dry.

But even Hebei and Shanxi are not enough to satisfy the capital. In the 1950s, Beijing built the four billion cubic metre Guanting reservoir on the Yongding River, a tributary of the Hai River in north-east China. But, by 2009, water levels were hovering around the 100 million cubic-metre mark. Water expert and leader of Beijing-based NGO, Green SOS, Wang Jian, blames the 270 reservoirs built upstream for the low levels.

Currently, local governments are fighting to hold onto any water that passes through their borders. Hebei is also vexed about a project planned in Shaanxi, central China, that will divert water from the stretch of the Han River in the south of the province, through the Qinling mountains and into the Wei River, where it will raise water levels and reduce pollution. With such large quantities of water being taken at the upper reaches %26ndash; and another 10 billion cubic metres from the middle reaches earmarked for Beijing %26ndash; nobody can predict what kind of conflict will arise.

Per capita water resources in the north of China are inadequate, giving rise to protectionism and hoarding. But south of the Huai River, where flows are plentiful, a different kind of water war is under way. Hydroelectric firms want to turn water into electricity. For them, it is %26ldquo;liquid oil%26rdquo;, but all the hydropower stations and water distribution hubs they are putting in place will end up destroying the rivers%26rsquo; ecosystems.

China%26rsquo;s major waterways flow down from the Tibetan Plateau, with differences in altitude providing the potential for energy generation. So power firms are particularly smitten with the hydropower possibilities in the south-west of the country. After the year 2000, investment in hydropower was liberalised, leaving both major power firms and smaller private companies free to build hydropower stations.

Within a few years, tributaries of the Jinsha, Yalong, Dadu, Lancang and Nu rivers had been developed; as soon as water left one power station, it flowed right into the next. The actual rivers themselves are also unlikely to escape their fate; there are plans for numerous dams on almost all of them. And while the public is paying attention to the hydropower fever that has taken hold in the south-west, similar developments are taking place on some rivers in the east. The counties of Jinzhai, Yuexi and Huoshan in the Dabie mountains of Anhui province, eastern China, all have plans to %26ldquo;enrich the people%26rdquo; and %26ldquo;boost the economy%26rdquo; through small-scale hydropower projects.

The first hydropower station on the Jinhua, or Wu River, system, the largest southern tributary of the Yangtze, was built in 1950, at Huhai on the Qiantang tributary. By 2005, 183 stations had been built, generating more than 61,000 kilowatts of electricity. Fujian%26rsquo;s Min River, in the south-eastern corner of China, was not far behind. Figures from 2004 indicate the river had 29 large or medium-sized hydropower stations and a large number of smaller stations. The city of Nanping, in central Fujian, was alone home to 183 stations that were completed, under construction or in the pipeline. Environmental assessments or approvals had not been obtained for the majority of these.

The density of hydroelectric development is shocking: the water outlet from one station feeds directly into the dam of the next. On the Min River, the outlet for the Shuikou station flows into the dam for the Shaxi station, while the outlet for Shaxi flows into the dam for the Xiayang station. And so it goes on. As a result, these stretches of river are left without flowing water %26ndash; they and their tributaries become a series of lakes.

On December 12 last year, the State Council issued an environmental and economic plan for the Poyang lake region, indicating the area had become a part of national-level strategy. This plan includes the construction of a water-distribution hub, roughly where Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River meet, to control the level of the lake. When the lake is full, water will be returned to the river and, when levels are low, water from the Yangtze will be fed in. The level of the lake will not, therefore, fluctuate so much across the seasons.

Almost the entire global population of 3,000 white cranes spends the winter at Poyang Lake. %26ldquo;For a long time, the white cranes have found the habitat and food that they need at Poyang,%26rdquo; says wetlands expert Lei Guangchun. %26ldquo;If the water level during the winter suddenly increases, they and other wintering birds won%26rsquo;t be able to forage and populations will plummet.%26rdquo;

The idea of a lock controlling the water level also worries dolphin experts. Wang Ding, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences%26rsquo; Wuhan-based Institute of Hydrobiology, says that, like the already extinct baiji, or Yangtze River Dolphin, the originally populous finless porpoise could also be lost. There may already be fewer than 2,000 finless porpoises in the wild, divided into two main populations %26ndash; one in the Yangtze River and one in Poyang Lake. Bridges over the entrance to the lake and frequent shipping have already virtually cut these two groups off from each other and there is an emerging consensus that this is resulting in genetic degradation. This %26ldquo;ecological lock%26rdquo; will completely remove any chance of genetic mingling and means that, in the not too distant future, the finless porpoise could follow the baiji into oblivion.

Ma Jun, a well-known environmentalist, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs and chinadialogue author says: %26ldquo;Full-on building of reservoirs and hydroelectric stations are not only the spark for frequent water conflict but also cause loss of ecological function by breaking the rivers down into sections. We need to let the rivers flow and keep their ecosystems healthy. We need to let people live in harmony. The best way to do that is to reduce the exploitation of rivers and let them recover.%26rdquo;

Feng Yongfeng is a technology journalist at Guangming Daily.

Homepage image from Wetland China shows white cranes at Poyang Lake, south-east China.