ABSTRACT
China’s breathtakingly rapid industrialization has been an impressive economic feat, but its environmental degradation and the loss of lives and good health are some of the most pressing challenges to emerge. China’s government is facing the glare of the international media, and considerable domestic and international discontent. The country has to find a way, equally creative as its modernization efforts, to address its environmental problems. Dr. Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. (Rowe, 2014), is confident that air pollution can be addressed. She says, “The big challenge with air pollution is that [polluters] don’t turn on the de-sulphuring equipment. The technology is there to deal with a lot of air pollution, it just doesn’t get used” (p. 8). Hopefully she’s right. International agreements on climate change – in particular the Paris Climate Change Conference of November 2015 – might be a “game-changer” for the country.
