State of the World 2006
WorldWatch Institute
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2006, 244pp.)

“He who takes no thought about what is distant shall find sorrow near at hand”- Confucius

Each January for the last 23 years the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC has offered a report on the ecological challenges facing the world and the inadequate responses of governments and people alike. Since the build up to the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, there have been calls for a wiser use of resources, for the harmonious coexistence of humankind and nature. The practice has always fallen short of the scientific knowledge at hand. Poverty is still the great destroyer of the environment. The often-cited ‘political will’ has been lacking, and political leadership on ecological issues has been weak. As the editors warn “Humanity is now on a collision course with the world’s ecosystems and resources. In the coming decades, we will either find ways of meeting human needs based on new technologies, policies, and cultural values, or the global economy will begin to collapse.”

In this Worldwatch Report, China and India are analysed in particular, as recently there has been a good deal of attention paid to the economic growth of China and India, on the need for oil to continue their economic growth and on the political impact of their economic strength.

As the editors write “The nearly simultaneous arrival of China and India to places of prominence on the world stage represents a tectonic shift in global affairs with few parallels. These two giants, with 40 percent of the world’s people between them — as much as the population of the next 20 largest countries combined — have long slumbered in the shadows of Europe, Japan and the United States, which dominated world affairs during most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” The economic successes of China and India are based not on the richness of their natural resources (much of which needs to be imported), but on decades of investment in their people.

There has always been an active merchant class in China and India, focused on making money, and skilled artisans. When not hindered by politics, some Chinese have done very well financially as the overseas Chinese communities indicate. The same is true of Indian merchants and entrepreneurs and their successes in many parts of the world where they have emigrated.

The basic question facing both countries is that of social mobility — how wide an economic base is possible — both in terms of geography and social class. In both countries there is an important rural to urban migration. This puts strains on urban settlements and often weakens the rural milieu by the loss of its most dynamic elements. India already has 35 cities with a population of over 1 million. Greater Delhi and Bombay have populations of 30 million each. In China, 45 cities have more than a million residents. As the editors write “This unprecedented mass movement of people is causing enormous social strains in both countries, not to mention the need for massive infrastructure investments. China has attempted to stem the flow by controlling city residency permits while encouraging the creation of village and township enterprises to create jobs in the country side…In October 2005, the Central Committee of China’s Communist Party recognized growing inequity as the country’s central economic problem, and issued a statement calling on the country to pay more attention to social fairness.”

There have been increasing reports of violent confrontations with local officials in China. If not reversed, ecological deterioration threatens to become a major impediment to economic development. Likewise in India, in the poorest, most ecologically-threatened areas, there are armed groups called Naxalites after an area of West Bengal where the first uprisings took place. There is a danger of a ‘spill over’ from the Maoist-led civil war in Nepal.

Despite the clear links of ecological deterioration and social unrest, there has been little political leadership on ecological issues. As the editors note “A review of the official development plans of China and India indicates little recognition of the ecological realities now facing them – or the world. Like political leaders everywhere, Chinese and Indian leaders are primarily focused on basic economic and national security goals: reducing poverty, creating jobs, and investing in military defense. And like their counterparts elsewhere, they believe that rapid economic growth is central to meeting those goals.”

However, there is one optimistic note in the next to last chapter “Building a Green Civil Society in China” by Jennifer Turner and Lu Zhi. As the authors indicate “Environmental groups were the first to register and now form the largest section of civil society groups in China. In addition to the registration law, the policy environment in China has increasingly created more political space and opportunities for environmental NGOs to operate and act as watchdogs of local government and industries…Counting green NGOs in China is a challenging task, since many operate in a grey area of legality, but there are at least 2,000 registered independent groups. Paralleling this growth of NGOs has been the rapid emergence of environmental student groups on university campuses. The first few were created in Beijing in the mid-1990s, and today more than 200 university green groups are found throughout China’s provinces… Initially, Chinese environmental NGOs tended to pursue ‘safe’ activities such as promoting environmental education for schools and informing the public on issues such as recycling, water conservation, and animal protection…In terms of political factors today, many Chinese environmentalists wish to diminish government wariness toward green groups — a wariness that stems from the role environmental NGOs played in Eastern Europe and Taiwan pushing democratization.”

Nevertheless some ecology groups have taken steps to reach out beyond their initial issues and constituencies. As the authors note “There are instances when environmental NGOs, lawyers, or citizens taking action against pollution issues have been subjected to major obstacles or backlash from local governments or industries. Many local governments are unwilling to fully implement environmental laws, so naturally local officials are not very receptive to NGO watchdogs.” This growth of a green civil society is a hope for the future and needs to be encouraged.

René Wadlow