China’s Sustainability Project
Since the 1980s, sustainability has taken centre stage in world politics as it focuses on how best to simultaneously meet people’s needs and the environment through facilitating human well-being without degrading the ecosystem. Despite sustainability sparking and highlighting the importance of conservation, economic growth, human health, and the important links between these factors, sustainability is also responsible for indicating socio-ecological processes that cause degradation of the environment, social injustices and poverty. Ideally, sustainability needs knowledge, better technology and incentives from political powers to be effective. However, sustainability is inherently political due to its normative nature.
Chinese Economic Complexity
Even though China has a steadily developing economy of about 8 per cent annually, this economic development has had detrimental effects on the natural environment. Economic growth in China’s past two decades saw an increase in demand for almost every natural resource known to man, including water, land and energy. Consequently, practices of depleting forests have devastating impacts such as flooding and desertification. Also, poorly regulated emissions and waste disposal continue to impact water and air negatively. China’s strive for economic sustainability is failing because today, china is one of the leading contributors to global environmental issues. A report by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture in 2000 asserts that 20 per cent of agricultural products in major industrial districts have high levels of arsenic, cadmium and mercury due to irrigation, breathing and drinking of wastewater. As a result, 7 per cent of mortality in urban areas is caused by pollution.
Basing on total sustainable indicators, the Chinese government is among the frontrunners of endorsing worldwide sustainability. Ranking by China Sustainable Development Indicator System (CSDIS) shows that most of the coastal cities rank higher in global sustainability despite being economically advanced in China. The UNDP, in conjunction with the Chinese government, have programs that support developing countries to have sustainable economies through aid and investment initiatives.