ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines in qualitative terms the environmental consequences of energy strategies available to China, and examines strategies which might mitigate the environmental degradation accompanying energy development. The consumption of quantities of energy will inflict environmental costs on the Chinese people which may be both economically prohibitive and even socially destabilizing. The Three Gorges Dam Project proposal caused an outcry among the Chinese scientific community and attracted the international attention of environmental critics. Chinese fossil fuel burning emissions account for a substantial and growing percentage of the world total, but ignoring any contribution to global environmental disaster, the effects on China are severe in the form of extremely high rate of air pollution. Non-commercial energy accounts for thirty percent of the Chinese total, and its use in the rural energy sector is the source of some of China's most intractable environmental problems.
