Abstract
China’s swift and substantial economic growth over the past 20 years has made the country one of the top industrial powers in the world, second only the United States. From the perspective of ecology and the impact on the environment produced by economic and industrial growth, the exports that have driven rapid growth have also resulted in an alarming level of environmental pollution in major Chinese cities. Research has shown that the Chinese government’s investment in bringing down pollution levels has been insufficient and ineffective. The monetary amount allocated for pollution reduction has barely reached 0.15% of the country’s GDP and has failed to meaningfully reverse the effects of industrialization, including increased exports and economic growth rates affecting China’s ecology. The present study investigated China’s ecological situation in terms of the industrial production that has generated its level of exports, with special focus on problems related to water, air, and solid waste. An econometric analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the main variables. The exports and GDP (dependent variable), air pollution, water pollution, and industrial solid waste (independent variables) were provided by the Institute of Statistics and the Environment Institute of China for this study. The data was managed in Econometric Eviews 7.0 software and yielded an adjusted R2 of 96.09% (high correlation) with an interesting correlation between the exports and three independent variables; after subsequent variable analysis, we found that investments in water and industrial solid waste were not significant (i.e., that said investments have failed to solve the pollution problem). It is necessary to review the Chinese investment policy with special attention to these variables to appropriately respond to China’s ecological crisis.
Highlights
China is one of thirteen countries worldwide contending with a serious water scarcity problem
The data was managed in Econometric Eviews 7.0 software and yielded an adjusted R2 of 96.09% with an interesting correlation between the exports and three independent variables; after subsequent variable analysis, we found that investments in water and industrial solid waste were not significant
In response to this situation, we propose a correlational model through which we can establish a number of variables: “Exports”, “Air pollution”, “Water pollution”, and “Industrial solid waste”
Summary
China is one of thirteen countries worldwide contending with a serious water scarcity problem. The water problem has caused a series of deficiencies in the production of the two main sectors of the economy: Industry, at a loss of $46 billion (USD) and agriculture at $30 billion in 2014. Soil erosion has reached 2949 square kilometers according to the Bulletin of the Environment of China (2014), a figure equivalent to 30% of the national surface. Annual land disappearance by erosion is equivalent to ten times the surface area of Japan. The country currently has 62,000 industrial coal boilers, consumes 700 million tons of coal in 2014, and has no adequate pollutant control measures in place. It is important to note that in both 2002, when coal burning increased significantly, and again in 2009, ash production reached 375 million tons per year—this is equivalent to more than twice the total production of trash by Chinese metropolitan areas that year (Greenpeace)
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