Some Big Issues of Our Time

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Dear Principal, professors and students of Tsinghua University, ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour to speak at one of China’s great universities. Environment is an important part of Norway’s contacts with China – which are based on the great potential that we have for learning from each other.

As today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders of China, this you can make a difference - to the environment, to human welfare, to your country and potentially to the world.

It is one hundred years since the great Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen laid down his pen. Yet his work still inspires us today. His plays still make us think about how we lead our lives – whether this be in Norway or in China. In a letter to the king of Sweden and Norway, Henrik Ibsen wrote that his most important task was to “awaken the people and inspire them to think about the bigger issues.”

Environment was not a big global issue at his time. In our time, environment is clearly one of the “big issues”. It is an issue that we are just beginning to wake up to. It is an issue where we must all work together to inspire not only thinking – but also action.

Environment is a “big” issue in more ways than one.

First of all, it involves the whole economy. Environment is closely linked to how and what we produce and consume. We need economic growth, but we also need a clean environment and natural resources.

The other reason for needing to “think big” has to do with solidarity. Climate change is not felt by rich people with “high carbon lifestyles” - it is felt by poor people that have few resources to adapt to these changes. People with traditional lifestyles in the Arctic find their food contaminated with toxic chemicals that come from activities far away. There is also a need for solidarity with future generation. Today’s greenhouse gas emissions will affect the climate of tomorrow – even long after we are gone. Species and landscapes that are lost today are lost for ever. This gives us a moral duty to leave earth as we found it to future generations.

Today I would like to focus on three major environmental challenges: climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the use and dispersion of toxic chemicals to air, soil and water. Toward the end of my lecture, I will talk more about the need to decouple economic growth from environmental pressures. I will also share some of the lessons that we have learnt in Norway when it comes to environmental policy making.

Man-made climate change
The world is facing a climate crisis. Climate change is taking place – and at a more rapid pace than foreseen a few years ago. In the Arctic the temperature rise is twice as high as the rise in global mean temperature. As the ice is melting, less heat is reflected and more heat is trapped in the sea. Less ice cover is not just a concern to polar bears. A “blue Arctic” will increase the greenhouse effect and have serious consequences for the whole global climate system.

In its last report the United Nations’ Climate Panel found strong indications that man-made global warming was taking place. In the new report that will be out next year, the Panel is expected to strengthen its message.

We will have more extreme weather, such as drought, floods, heat waves and storms. Ice is melting in the Himalayas, which is an important source of drinking water for millions of people in Asia. A full melt-down of the Greenland ice-sheet would lead to a sea level rise of 5 to 7 meters. Sea level rise is especially serious for island states such as the Maldives and coastal states such as Bangladesh.

The long term goal of the UN Climate Change Convention is to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous man-made influence on the climate system. It does not set a concrete long-term goal. Like the European Union, Norway has proposed a specific target to keep the average global temperature increase within 2 centigrade’s. This means that global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by as much as 50 per cent before 2050.

We need to have a long-term perspective, also at home. When I return to Norway next week, a government-appointed commission will present a report on how Norway can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50-80 per cent by 2050.

In the short term, Norway has a wide range of policies and instruments to help fulfil our obligations according to the Kyoto Protocol. We introduced carbon taxes 15 years ago. We have a system of tradable emission quotas. We have reached agreements on emission reductions with several industries. Right now we are working to make gas power plants handle carbon in a way that leads to almost zero emissions to the atmosphere.

The Kyoto protocol is only a first step, and a small one. To make a real difference, we need more countries to take on stronger commitments. As we develop a broader and more ambitious post-Kyoto climate regime, we urgently need China on board.

China is the world’s fourth biggest economy. It grows by 10 per cent a year. The emission of greenhouse gases per capita in China is still much lower than in Norway and other industrialized countries. But a large population and strong economic growth has made China a large emitter of greenhouse gases, second only to the United States.

China’s potential for emission reductions is enormous. There should be big double dividends in seeing climate change in connection with local air quality improvements.

In our homes and other buildings, in the transport systems, in all industrial sectors – everywhere action is needed to save energy, implement renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. This is true in China as it is in other countries.

Biodiversity loss
Protecting biological diversity is not just about saving the panda, the white tiger or the polar bear – even if this important too. Biological diversity is far more complex. This diversity is the very foundation for human life. We need food, clothes and medicine. We need filtering of polluted water, flood control, air and soil quality restoration. These are services provided by the ecosystems. If we destroy the diversity, these services will not be there for us anymore.

Some years ago, a Swiss couple on holiday in a Norwegian national park came across a fungus. This turned out to contain cyclosporine - a substance that has since improved transplantation surgery in a dramatic way. They were lucky, heart patients all over the world were lucky, and of course a Swiss medicine company made big money.

We know that the solutions to other medical challenges can be found in the diversity of nature. We just don’t know exactly where. To some, this fact of not knowing may be an excuse not to care. To the rest of us, it is yet another reason why we must be precautionary.

Species and ecosystems appear, change and eventually disappear as part of evolution. But in nature such processes are extremely slow. Today we lose biodiversity at a pace one hundred to one thousand times faster than the natural pace. This is due to land use changes, the introduction of alien species, pollution and over-exploitation of populations. With time, climate change will also become an important part of man-made stress on biodiversity.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, countries agreed to “substantially reduce the loss of biodiversity within 2010”. The Norwegian target is to stop the loss of biodiversity within 2010. That is an ambitious target for us, even though we have some ten times more land per capita than you do in China.

Land and habitat protection is a cornerstone in safeguarding biodiversity. As a lot of our biodiversity can be found in forests, the protection and sustainable management of forests is now on top of our priority list. We are also stepping up our efforts to protect marine areas. Mapping nature types and habitats is important, not least to make biodiversity a part of land use planning outside national parks and other protected areas.

Norway is glad to work with the Environmental Protection Agency of Hunan on improving the biodiversity management in the Dongting Lake ecosystem. The key feature of this project, is to help strengthen sector responsibilities, including the planning of land and water use.

Chemicals hazardous to health and the environment
Chemicals are used in all products and most production processes. But the use and emission of chemicals is also one of our biggest hazards to human health and nature. There are some 50.000 chemical substances on the European market. Some of them have been tested and analyzed. But for most of them, we know nothing or very little about their effects on human health and the environment.

The most hazardous chemicals are environmental toxins that are persistent and accumulate in the food chains. They can travel far away from their sources, by air and water currents, in traded products and even in migrating animals. This is why the chemicals challenge calls for international cooperation, just like climate change does.

To Norway, the international conventions on chemicals and hazardous waste are of particular importance. We are glad that China also plays an active part in these conventions. Our main priority now is to regulate mercury at the international level, in the same way that we did with persistent organic pollutants - or POPs. Mercury is very harmful to children and accumulates in fish.

The European Union’s new chemicals policy is also of particular importance to us. Its aim is to get basic hazard information on chemicals. Norway has urged the EU to go for a high a level of protection of human health and the environment. Although not a member of the EU, Norway is part of the EUs internal market.

We have national targets to stop the releases of the most hazardous substances. We also have targets to reduce chemicals risks in general and to clean up sites and sediments that are contaminated from old times.

Progress has been made. The use and emission of substances such as lead and cadmium have been reduced. Our agricultural sector has introduced a tax scheme for pesticides, which has resulted in more cautious use.

The cleaning up of contaminated industrial sites and sediments in our harbours is a long and costly process. The lesson to be learned here is that prevention is better than cure. Precaution will save a lot of problems – and a lot of money as well. We must avoid leaving pollution for future generations to clean up. We must think environmental management from the start.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the city of Zunyi in the province of Guizhou. There I saw one of our joint projects with China on environmental management, licence and control systems in industry and government. This is an important part of our programme for cleaner production. Zunyi is among the fifty most polluted cities in China, both with air and water pollution. This is also where there was a chemical accident on 12 September, leading to the release of poisonous gas.

Let me for a moment return to Henrik Ibsen. In his drama “An Enemy of the People”, Doctor Stockman discovers serious pollution in the water in his home town on the coast of Norway. He tries to take action, but is met with resistance from the community. A spa is being planned in town, and news of water pollution would scare visitors away. There are attempts to isolate and to silence Doctor Stockman. All this resistance led Doctor Stockman to declare that “The strongest man is always the one who stands alone”.

Today, we cannot allow the Doctor Stockmans - in the form of individuals or voluntary organisations - to be silenced or to be left standing alone as “enemies of the people”. We need a strong and critical civil society that cares about environment and sustainable development. Business must be based on open information. People have the right to know about the state of the environment and to influence its use.

On the potential and the need for decoupling
It is possible to meet the global challenges on environment. The Montreal Protocol has reduced the use and emissions of CFC and other ozone-depleting substances from the industrialized countries. China has made good progress in this field, and is now ahead of its commitments according to the Protocol. This shows how long-term, systematic work gives results. The challenge is to make all developing countries able to fulfil their commitments.

This is an example of real decoupling – of emissions falling radically in a time of constant economic growth. Science was taken seriously. Countries took action together. Results were reached. But remember: As this process started a couple of decades ago, there were warnings that solving the problem would be very costly. Today, we know that it was worth it.

Another success story is Europe’s regional agreement on acid rain. As a downstream country, and a net receiver of sulphur and NOx from other European countries, Norway had a strong interest in bringing down emissions. In 20 years the areas in our country where carrying capacities for acidification are breached have been more than halved.

Behind this success lie not only negotiations but substantial scientific work – on air currents, on carrying capacities and on emission reduction costs. I know acid rain is a big challenge in your country. I have also been told that China has expressed interest in the European “model”. Nothing would be better than if our work could also benefit you in your acid rain policy.

There are also many cases where companies and industries have substantially reduced their negative impact on the environment, with no or very limited negative economic consequences. What is efficient from an environmental point of view is often also efficient from an economic point of view. The idea in both cases is after all to get more out of less.

Newsprint paper production in Norway to day is solely based on thermomechanical pulping, integrated with paper mills. Compared with earlier methods this leads to a very efficient use of the timber, reduced use of water and energy and reduced discharges of contaminated water.

The production of ferroalloys is an important part of Norwegian industries. It is mainly based on Norwegian smelting furnace technology and waste gas cleaning. Power consumption has been reduced and raw materials are better utilised. The excess energy from some of the furnaces is used for power production. Big amounts of dust from the ferrosilicon process are used in the production of cement, ceramics and many other products. What used to be a polluting waste product has been turned into a production input.

Let not these examples and my optimistic approach fool anyone into thinking that decoupling and sustainability is an easy task. Take China as an example. Your 10 per cent GDP (“dji di pi”) growth is truly impressive. But in the long run, growth without environmental standards and improved environmental efficiency will destroy ecosystems and harm nature. To be sustainable, economic growth must be ecologically sound. Short term growth and gains must not stand in the way of the longer term need of protecting nature.

The lessons we have learned
Anyone coming from Norway to China will ask themselves the obvious question: What can I say about Norwegian experience that will be of help to you? Our countries are different in so many ways. Roughly speaking China has 300 times more people on an area 30 times the size of Norway. You have a GDP 8 times the Norwegian GDP, although GDP per capita is 30 times higher in Norway. China is now the world’s 4th largest economy. Our political systems are vastly different. And so on.

And yet dialogue and exchange of experience is the right way to go. We have learnt some lessons that we are glad to share:

• We need consistent legislation and solid institutions. We have experienced that effective and real cooperation with business is much easier to achieve when a strong regulations are in place.
• We need a vast range of policy instruments. Regulatory instruments have traditionally been dominant. Gradually we have introduced green taxes, to use the price mechanism to stimulate environmentally friendly behaviour. Cooperation with business and industry has developed. Environmental information has been made available to the public, to involve civil society.
• We need open information. Environmental policy must be based on public discussion, whistle blowers and active NGO’s.
• We need sector integration and sector responsibility. The Ministry of the Environment can not solve all environmental problems with its own limited means. Agriculture must base its activities on sustainable use of the resources and the ecosystems. Industry must take the responsibility for clean production and phasing-out of hazardous substances. Just to mention two examples.
• We need research and monitoring. We need to base policies on science and knowledge. Where knowledge is lacking, we need a precautionary approach and targeted research.
• We need international cooperation, as the most severe remaining environmental challenges are cross-border and even global. We need bilateral contact and cooperation – such as that between China and Norway.

All of these elements are necessary to achieve the decoupling needed to meet earth’s need for material welfare – within the limits set by the natural resources, the environmental resources and the ecosystems. Decoupling is not a state to arrive and stay in. Decoupling is a never-ending process of improved eco-efficiency, sometimes through incremental changes and sometimes through giant leaps. It is truly a “long march” for all societies and for all people of the world.

As today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders of China, this is also your “long march”. You can make a difference - to the environment, to human welfare, to your country and potentially to the world. In this, I wish you all the best of luck.

I opened this lecture with a quote from our own Henrik Ibsen. I wish to conclude with some words taken from a poem written by the famous Chinese poet, Du Fu. The words are one thousand three hundred years old, written in a world before the age of industrial pollution. But I can also read them as a beautiful image of a future nature in harmony.

The rain in this poem is not acid. This wind does not carry heavy metals. These roots drink water in a clean soil

“The good rain knows when to fall
It comes in springtime to silent roots
And in night-time, carried by a friendly wind.”

Thank you for your attention.