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Less is better
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-21 09:38 Tips for a cleaner planet: eat less, have fewer babies, attach your air conditioner to the floor rather than the ceiling, and when flying in your private jet carry a minimum of five passengers. These helpful energy-saving hints are courtesy of Zhang Yue, president of Broad Air Conditioning Co Ltd, who spoke at a panel of young business elites, academics and politicians at the three-day Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in South China's Hainan province last week. Zhang, whose company uses recycled heating as a power source its centrally-controlled air condition system, also urged attendees to "think internationally, but act locally". Zhang used air conditioning tips, his dining habits (the 48-year-old tycoon claims he only eats on a "half-full" stomach), his personal jet use policy and China's one-child policy as personal examples of "living a thrifty life". "Like most Chinese, I am an example of having fewer children," said Zhang. "One less birth means consuming less and emitting less." Zhang and others on his panel also addressed the bigger picture by urging greater advocacy of family planning policies to alleviate energy, grain and water shortages, as well as environmental problems such as global warming. In an interview with China Business Weekly, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chairman Rajendra Pachauri says he is satisfied with the progress of an international effort to curb global warning in the post-Kyoto Protocol era, but adds that "global coordination" on population control was unlikely and that every country should have a right to decide its own policies. Pachauri, whose team won a 2007 Nobel Prize for its contribution to climate change research, acknowledges China had contributed to the earth's welfare by curbing its population growth and energy and resource consumption. If not for its family-planning policy, according to statistics, China today would be straining to feed, clothe and accommodate an estimated extra 300 million to 400 million people - more than the entire population of Western Europe. Pachauri says international resource supplies and the environment would now be suffering significantly more stress if such measures had not been taken. "But we are not going to put (family planning) on our proposal list," Pachauri says. "Every country has its own tradition and culture and we will respect them." He says it's encouraging that "politicians have already shared the consensus" on the dangers of global warming and that some of them are talking action. India is going to unveil a national policy framework on climate change this year, the United States is on the right track and China has already acted, Pachauri says. "I am so satisfied with the latest development." (For more biz stories, please visit Industries)
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