Heming Wang

Resource Use in Growing China

Natural resources provide the basis for our life on Earth. This article presents the accounts of Chinas direct material input (DMI) during 1998–2008. Using decomposition, we examine factors that have influenced changes in recent resource use in China. Chinas resource demand in 2011–2015 is projected, based on Chinas 12th Five‐Year Plan. Finally, effective policies to restrain Chinas resource demand are discussed with the following conclusions: (1) During 1998–2008, Chinas DMI doubled, from 11 gigatons (Gt) to 22 Gt. Metallic minerals had the strongest growth, quadrupling; nonmetallic minerals and fossil fuels more than doubled, but biomass remained stable. In relative terms, nonmetallic minerals dominated, with more than 60% of total DMI. (2) Factors of affluence (A) and material use intensity (T), respectively, contributed most to the increase and decrease of DMI, but the overall decrease effect is much smaller. Factors of population (P) and recycling (R) only slightly affected changes in Chinas DMI. (3) During 2008–2015, Chinas DMI is expected to increase by 27% to 38%, from 22 Gt to 28 to 31 Gt. The average annual rate of increase of DMI would drop to 3% to 5%, from 7% during 1998–2008. (4) Designing new products and infrastructure that use less energy and materials and changing consumption patterns to be more sustainable are crucial to the future resource strategy of China. More policies are expected to improve Chinas material use intensity and recycling levels.

Exploring China's materialization process with economic transition: analysis of raw material consumption and its socioeconomic drivers.

Chinas rapidly growing economy is accelerating its materialization process and thereby creating serious environmental problems at both local and global levels. Understanding the key drivers behind Chinas mass consumption of raw materials is thus crucial for developing sustainable resource management and providing valuable insights into how other emerging economies may be aiming to accomplish a low resource-dependent future. Our results show that Chinas raw material consumption (RMC) rose dramatically from 11.9 billion tons in 1997 to 20.4 billion tons in 2007, at an average annual growth rate at 5.5%. In particular, nonferrous metal minerals and iron ores increased at the highest rate, while nonmetallic minerals showed the greatest proportion (over 60%). We find that Chinas accelerating materialization process is closely related to its levels of urbanization and industrialization, notably demand for raw materials in the construction, services, and heavy manufacturing sectors. The growing domestic final demand level is the strongest contributor of Chinas growth in RMC, whereas changes in final demand composition are the largest contributors to reducing it. However, the expected offsetting effect from changes in production pattern and production-related technology level, which should be the focus of future dematerialization in China, could not be found.

Decoupling Analysis of Four Selected Countries

We examine decoupling conditions of domestic extraction of materials, energy use, and sulfur dioxide (SO) emissions from gross domestic product (GDP) for two BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries (i.e., China and Russia) and two Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries (Japan and the United States) during 2000–2007, using a pair of decoupling indicators for resource use (D) and waste emissions (D) and the decoupling chart, which can distinguish between absolute decoupling, relative decoupling, and non‐decoupling. We find that (1) during 2000–2007, decoupling between environmental indicators and GDP was higher in the two OECD countries as compared with the two BRIC countries. The key reason is that these countries were in different development stages with different economic growth rates. (2) Changes in environmental policies can significantly influence the degree of decoupling in a country. (3) China, Japan, and the United States were more successful in decoupling SO emissions from GDP than in decoupling material and energy use from GDP. The main reason is that, unlike resource use, waste emissions (e.g., SO emissions) can be reduced by effective end‐of‐pipe treatment. (4) The decoupling indicator is different from the changing rate of resource use and waste emissions. If two countries have different GDP growth rates, even though they may have similar values using the decoupling indicator, they may show different rates of change for resource use and waste emissions.

Decoupling Analysis of the Environmental Mountain — With Case Studies from China

The resource‐development trajectory of developed countries after the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can be portrayed as an “environmental mountain” (EM). It is important for developing countries to decouple their resource use from economic growth and tunnel through the EM. In this study, we embedded the decoupling indicators for resource use and waste emissions into EM curves to quantify Chinas progress in tunneling through the EM over a specific time period. Five case studies regarding the conditions required for decoupling energy consumption, crude steel production, cement production, CO emissions, and SO emissions from economic growth in China were conducted. The results indicated that during 1985–2010 the trajectories of energy consumption, and CO and SO emissions in China met the requirements for tunneling through the EM, but the trajectories of cement and steel production did not. Based on these results, suggestions regarding Chinas environmental policies are provided to enable the country to tunnel through the EM.

Measuring the Decoupling Progress in Developed and Developing Countries

The relationship between economic development and the ecological environment is the key to sustainable development of human society. With the rapid economic development, the demand for resources has increased dramatically, which has led to problems such as depletion of resources and environmental pollution. Therefore, the relationship between resource use and economic growth needs to be studied to formulate corresponding resource use policies to facilitate the sustainable development of human society. This paper uses the resource decoupling indicators to study the decoupling condition of domestic material consumption (DMC) and material footprint (MF) indicators of three BRICS countries and three OECD countries from 1990 to 2015. Resources include biomass, non-metallic minerals, fossil fuels, and metal ores. Based on the results from these cases, we find that developed countries have a better decoupling condition than developing countries in the DMC level, but there is not much difference between developed and developing countries at the MF level. The developing countries’ decoupling condition of MF is better than that of DMC, while the developed countries’ decoupling condition is opposite. This study also emphasizes the importance of developing decoupling policies by selecting an appropriate resource use indicator.

Research on Raw Material Consumption and its Socioeconomic Divers of Shenyang

Chinas resource consumption has been increased rapidly with the development of economy. As one of Chinas most important industrializing cities, Shenyang faces even severer situation of resource restriction. It is important to analyze Raw Material Consumption (RMC) of Shenyang and its socioeconomic divers before designing future environmental and economic plans. In this study, we calculate the RMC of Shenyang during 2002-2012, and then use Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) to find the driving factors of it. Results show that RMC of Shenyang was increased by 160% from 93 million tons to 247 million tons during the studied period. Construction and heavy manufacture sectors contributed the most to the resource consumption. In terms of driving factors, final demand level was the most significant one, and production structure partly impeded the increasing of RMC. It is suggested that more attention should be paid to construction investment and improvement of production structure to control the increase of resource use.