The information on this page reflects some of the main environment issues for China and some of the initiatives that the World Bank is undertaking to address them.
Overview China’s rapid growth is now a driving force in the global economy and is achieving unprecedented rates of poverty reduction. However, growth is also seriously damaging the natural resource base and generating major environmental liabilities. The country’s environmental problems include land degradation, deteriorating water quality and water scarcity, severe air pollution and declining natural forest cover. These problems threaten the health and prospects of current and future generations and are undermining the sustainability of long-term growth.
Demographic trends in China indicate that; i) the urban population of about 430 million (2001) will reach 850 million by 2015, and ii) the number of cities with over 100,000 people will increase from 630 (2001) to over 1,000 (2015). Government measures to address pollution, including industrial water and air pollution (mainly from state-owned enterprises), have achieved significant results. However, problems remain with the implementation and enforcement of environmental regulations, and the balance between reducing emissions and increasing production has not yet been satisfactorily achieved. China’s urban population has grown in cities of all sizes. However, townships of between 5,000 and 10,000 people are witnessing the fastest growth. While some aspects of the urban environment have improved in China’s mega and large cities, environmental management in the expanding towns and townships remains a major challenge. Pollution in these smaller urban settings is not well monitored and their development plans contain only limited provisions to address it. The World Bank has been and is providing substantial assistance to address these challenges. Projects (e.g. in Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Chongqing) are supporting the construction of sewerage and drainage systems, wastewater treatment plants and solid waste management facilitates. The World Bank is also providing analytical and advisory assistance help China value urban environmental health risks, understand environment/poverty linkages, and implement Water Pollution Control measures. Back to top
Energy, Air Pollution and Green House Gases (GHG) China is the World’s 3rd largest consumer of coal and oil, but much of its energy producing and using equipment is both inefficient and highly polluting. As a result, China experiences severe urban air pollution that has a significant impact throughout the region. It is also the World’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Improving energy efficiency and accelerating the development and application of new and renewable energy and clean coal technologies are therefore very urgent sustainable development and environmental priorities. The World Bank is China’s most important international partner in the effort to reduce energy-related air pollution and emissions. The World Bank has supported several key strategic analyses, including a clean-coal options review and deployment strategy, a renewable energy promotion plan and an analysis of China’s potential in the Clean Development Mechanism. The World Bank is currently implementing a multi-billion US$ energy modernization program to support clean-coal power production and utilization technology transfer, a major energy efficiency improvement program and, more recently, a national renewable energy development program. Bank assistance is likely to continue and evolve in all these three areas. Back to top
Natural Resource Management Unfortunately, some of China’s growth and development has been achieved at the expense of its natural resource base. For example: Land degradation is widespread and increasing. China has huge tracts of rapidly degrading grasslands, some of the worst water erosion problems and the highest ratio of actual to potential desertified land in the world.
Thanks to large investments in tree plantation and shelterbelt development and a natural forest logging ban, China has successfully turned the tide of formerly rapid deforestation. However, the country’s natural forests had been in a continuous decline for over 50 years and the return of many forest ecosystems to a sustainable condition is still a long way off.
Despite the establishment of a national system of nature reserves, the stresses on them have put the country's unique and globally significant biodiversity under serious pressure.
Water availability and quality continues to be a critical problem, particularly in northern China, and the situation is likely to deteriorate over the next decade, especially in the rivers north of the Yangtze. In order to equitably resolve the conflicting claims for water and other natural resources there is a need for both technical progress and improvements in institutional, administrative and regulatory arrangements.
The World Bank is helping China respond to all four of these challenges with technical and project assistance. We have a large land degradation-oriented project portfolio, which focuses on the fragile and severely degraded western region. It includes innovative land degradation projects such as Loess Plateau (slideshow) and Gansu/Xingiang Pastoral Development. We are providing state-of-the-art forest management advice and investment assistance through vehicles such as the Sustainable Forest Development Project. Linked to it is a large-scale GEF-supported nature reserves management improvement program. Water scarcity and water quality problems are being addressed through projects in the western region’s Tarim Basin and in the Hai Basin area of the agriculturally-vital North China Plain. Back to top
Ozone Depletion & Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) China is the developing World’s largest producer of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS), and the World Bank has been collaborating since 1993 on the world's largest Montreal Protocol (MP)- funded ODS phase-out program. With this help, China has phased out about 112, 000 Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) tons in the production and consumption sectors through four World Bank facilitated projects. Of the 88 sub-projects funded under the ODS III Project, 70 subprojects have been completed, and the remaining 18 will be completed in 2005. Under the ODS IV Project, six sector plans are under implementation and an accelerated phase-out plan was approved in December 2004. Total MP commitments under ODS IV now equal $ 355 million. In 2005, emphasis will be on the development of two new sector plans -- a second stage phase-out plan of the CTC/process agents sector and a sector plan for the pharmaceutical aerosol sector. With completion of these two sector plans and through the accelerated phase-out plan, the Bank will help China to completely phase-out production and consumption of ODS by mid-2007. Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that become more concentrated along the food chain and pose a global health problem. China ratified the Stockholm Convention on POPs in 2004 and has actively implemented activities to meet the Convention requirements. In response to a government request, and with GEF co-financing assistance, the Bank is helping China prepare POPs demonstration projects on the management and disposal of PCBs and the use of non-POPs alternatives for termite control. With Canadian and Italian government help, the Bank is also facilitating studies on POPs toxicity and termite control, PCB management training, and a PCB inventory methodology and PCB management strategy.
More information (links go to the Environment and China Country websites respectively):
 Supporting Environmental Management In China
Clean Development Mechanism in China
The Global Environment Facility and China
The Montreal Protocol and China Back to top
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