APEC rapid growth costs environmental demage: Critics<\/p>\n
TORONTO (AFP): Stunning economic growth in many Asia Pacific
\nEconomic Cooperation (APEC) economies has been achieved at the
\ncost of severe environmental degradation, environmentalists
\nwarned here yesterday.<\/p>\n
Rapid growth based on fostering trade and investment with
\ndeveloped countries, mainly the United States and Japan, has made
\nEast Asia the world's economic dynamo and raised the standard of
\nliving of millions of its people.<\/p>\n
But critics point to a 1995 World Bank study cautioning that
\n"if unchecked the pace of the environmental damage from pollution
\nand over-extraction of renewable resources threatens to
\ncompromise the welfare gains from higher incomes."<\/p>\n
In a study released at the APEC environment ministerial
\nconference here, the California-based Nautilus Institute for
\nSecurity and Sustainable Development deplored the lack of
\neffective institutional mechanisms to coordinate APEC's "myriad
\nenvironmental projects."<\/p>\n
The projects cover energy and tourism, sustainable cities and
\nclean production technologies, food security and marine
\nconservation.<\/p>\n
"Despite APEC's stated commitment to 'sustainable
\ndevelopment', environmental and macro-economic policy tracks
\nremain largely separate, both within individual APEC economies
\nand in APEC as an institution," the authors of the study, Lyuba
\nZarsky and Jason Hunter, said.<\/p>\n
The anti-APEC Action Network here meanwhile said APEC "means
\ncheap wages, anti-union policies, easy access to natural
\nresources and lax or non-existent labor, environmental and human
\nrights standards."<\/p>\n
Environmentalists say regional cooperation should focus on
\nthree main areas: air, atmospheric and water pollution,
\nespecially those related to energy production and use; resource
\ndegradation; and demographic shifts, food security and
\nurbanization.<\/p>\n
The energy issue is perhaps the most pressing for both
\ndeveloped and developing economies within APEC, which was founded
\nin 1989.<\/p>\n
Projected high rates of economic growth in East Asia over the
\nnext 20 to 50 years will fuel a sharp hike in energy demand,
\nlikely to be based on fossil fuels, including high-sulfur and\/or
\ncarbon-emitting coal, the study by the Nautilus Institute said.<\/p>\n
Energy-related air pollution, especially "acid rain" induced
\nby sulfur emissions from power plants in northern China, is
\nalready among the most severe pollution problems in Northeast
\nAsia, it added.<\/p>\n
Sulfur dioxide emissions in Asia as a whole are projected to
\noutstrip those in Europe and North America by the year 2000.<\/p>\n
Rapid growth in coal-based energy as well as motorized urban
\ntransport are also blamed for large increases in greenhouse gas
\nemissions in Asia, which as a whole will account for 30 percent
\nof worldwide greenhouse gas emissions at the end of the decade.<\/p>\n
Problems of energy demand also affect developed APEC members
\nsuch as the United States, Canada and Australia, which are among
\nthe world's highest per capita carbon emitters.<\/p>\n
In addition to air and atmospheric pollution, APEC economies
\nare also beset by high rates of resource degradation. East Asia
\nis said to have the world's highest rate of deforestation and
\nloss of original habitat. According to the Asian Development
\nBank, the region's timber reserves will be depleted in less than
\n40 years.<\/p>\n
The marine environment and fisheries, both coastal and
\noffshore, are also under severe stress in many APEC countries.<\/p>\n
Compounding the problems are demographic factors, including
\npopulation growth -- Asia's population is projected to rise from
\n3.4 billion in 1995 to 4.9 billion in 2025 --, rural-urban
\nmigration and urbanization.<\/p>\n
By 2015, the APEC region will have 13 megacities of more than
\neight million people and 112 cities with 1.5 million and eight
\nmillion people, officials said.<\/p>\n
APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong
\nKong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New
\nGuinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand
\nand the United States.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/apec-rapid-growth-costs-environmental-demage-critics-1447893297",
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