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Opinion / You Nuo

No more business as usual

By You Nuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-04 06:49

In today's China Business Weekly, published in the China Daily every
Monday, readers can find something new. It is the "Energy and
Environment" supplement (Page 3) that will be appearing regularly.

As a consultant to the China Daily, I was extremely happy with the ready
acceptance of my suggestion three weeks ago that we need to focus on the
environmental crisis accompanying China's rapid development.

What should make the new publication a voice worth listening to is the
involvement of two of China Daily's strongest operations - the energy
business and environmental protection reporting teams.

The managers of the newspaper's two major news departments, national news
and business news, got enthusiastically involved in the change.

From now on, in every Monday's China Business Weekly as well as China
Daily's regular business coverage, readers can follow energy industry
developments - new pipelines, new power stations, new imports and new
discoveries of reserves - alongside the ideas and solutions to curb
pollution and save resources.

This is the first time, so far as I know, that a national Chinese news
operation is bringing together energy and environment in its daily
reporting, and bringing environmental issues into what is traditionally
understood as industry - especially what is commonly seen as a hopeless
polluter.

Right now, China Daily only has a small energy-and-environment team. But
it can be seen as a sign of important change. Business reporting will no
longer be separate from environmental concerns.

It is about time to remove the separation in a country that has been
leading the world's economic growth and, in the process, also been
generating astonishing records in pollution and waste. As major trends
begin with small signs, I hope the practice started here will be followed
by more news organizations in China, with environment no less emphasized
than development.

What is worrisome, however, is an unhealthy tendency - in journalism as
well as politics, and sometimes even more so in politics. Environmental
concerns and business interests are often championed by different
movements as if the values they represent are ultimately conflicting in
nature.

At one extreme are people suggesting that the only possible consequence
of the developing world's continuous development is more waste and more
pollution, if not total global catastrophe. At the other extreme are
people insisting that since development is a human right, people in
non-Western societies deserve to spend and waste as much as their Western
counterparts do or once did.

To balance the extremes, some are calling for developing countries to
refrain from Western middle-class luxury. Luxury aside, it's obvious that
if all people in the developing world are to enjoy even the minimal
requirements of clean drinking water, decently cooked food and heating in
cold weather, greatly increased energy consumption and emissions are
likely.

The world needs both development and environmental concern. Of course
people will have to change their lifestyles - just as business reporters
will have to learn to look at business issues from an environmental
perspective. But the solution is not to just learn the virtue of
refraining from development but to use effective emission control
technologies.

One long-term reason to merge energy and environmental reporting in China
Daily is precisely this - to check on the policies, laws, and market
forces to make emission control a business, not just a slogan.

E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/04/2007 page4)

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