Learning from China’s environmental issues

By Idealog, February 14, 2012 @ 4:43 pm

As a growing economic powerhouse, China is struggling with its sustainability profile.

Jonathan Watts, environment correspondent for The Guardian, says it faces the world’s greatest environmental crisis with fossil fuel pollution, water shortages and deforestation tied to its exponential economic growth.

Watts hits New Zealand next month for a series of public evening lectures in Auckland (March 29), Taupo (March 30), Wellington (April 2) and Christchurch (April 4). He will also be the keynote speaker at the Sustainable Business Network conference in Auckland on  March 29. 

 Watts will describe the impact of development on China’s environment and the lessons New Zealand can learn.

"In the nineteenth century, Britain taught the world how to produce. In the twentieth, the US taught us how to consume. If China is to lead the world in the 21st century, it must teach us how to sustain," he wrote in his book, When a Billion Chinese Jump.

Bookings can be made at eventfinder.co.nz and proceeds will be given to the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand.