Environmental Issues in China Today ― A View from Japan

Economic development and environmental issues in China are attracting more and more attention internationally as the country’s large population and vast demands for food, energy, water, minerals, and other resources play an increasingly important role in deciding the fate of the world. There is great interest in learning more about environmental issues in China, but it is not easy to obtain accurate, relevant information because the issues are diverse and are complex phenomena resulting from the interconnections among natural resource constraints and political, social, and institutional systems. This book originally was published in Japanese with the aim of providing Japanese readers with a holistic picture of what was taking place in China with respect to its air, water, energy, and land. The author then prepared an English edition of the same material to use as a book of readings for the Global Environmental Leaders Program at Nagoya University, where he taught many students from Asia and Europe. The book covers the most important environmental issues in China—climatic change, water, air, energy, and resources—together with ongoing policy responses, based on the author’s active involvement in a number of study projects and international cooperation projects in that country. This volume will help readers to understand the causes and results of environmental problems in China and will encourage them to think more deeply about the environmental implications of the country’s rapid economic growth.

Dr. Hidefumi Imura, Emeritus Professor, Nagoya University After Hidefumi Imura received his doctoral degree (1974) in applied physics at the University of Tokyo, he joined the Japan Environment Agency and subsequently worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Yokohama Municipal Government. After 14 years of being engaged in environmental policymaking in national, international, and local institutions, Dr. Imura moved to Kyushu University in 1988, where he was a professor at the Institute of Environmental Systems until August 2000. From September 2000 until 2011, he was a professor at Nagoya University, moving to Yokohama City University in 2011. Dr. Imura has a wide range of expertise covering domestic and international environmental policy issues, environmental technologies, economics, and information on Japan, China, and other East Asian countries. His research focuses on energy and material flow analysis of human activities in cities, life-cycle assessment of civil infrastructures, and modeling of human and environmental interactions. Dr. Imura served as a lead author of Working Group III of the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).