Chapter 6 of Boom, Gloom and the New Normal in October 2011 was one of the first detailed analyses to highlight the way in which pollution was rapidly moving up the political agenda in China. Controversial at the time, it warned: “Recent growth in China and India has come at a price: Poor air quality, chronic water […]
Chemicals and the Economy
China’s rural areas need basic goods, environmental clean-up
Average incomes in China are very low by Western standards, and certainly not “middle-class” as the blog discussed yesterday. It is also easy to forget that almost half the population still lives in rural areas. Official data shows their incomes have shown major growth over the past 20 years, but are still less than a third of urban incomes today. The chart […]
China’s need to clean up pollution will slow economic growth
Pollution is, unfortunately, one of the downsides of industrial development. Luckily for us in the West, it is mostly a distant memory. But as the BBC picture on the left reminds us, Britain was paralysed by ‘smog’ (a lethal mixture of fumes and fog) only 50 years ago in December 1962. Now it is Beijing’s […]
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