China’s military take climate-change offensive

*Pic: China’s military exchange their guns for shovels

An Industrial precinct in China – Pic Oilprice.com

Smog pollution in China’s Tianjin – Pic Financial Tribune

Whilst China is the greatest air polluter in the world, they are concurrently the most prolific alternative energy developer. China is also leading the way in reafforestation, and has been planting massive amounts of trees to restrain desertification for many years, but now they have taken an even grander initiative – tackling climate change and pollution.

Over 60,000 soldiers are being deployed to fight some of their countries greatest enemies. These soldiers are exchanging their guns for hoes and shovels with a goal to plant 84,000 square kilometres of forest. That is an area greater than the island of Tasmania.

China understands that trees improve air quality and absorb carbon that will fight climate change.

Each tree can sequester 22kgs of carbon per year, that’s up to one tonne by the time a tree reaches 45 years of age.

The majority of the reassigned soldiers will work in the heavily polluted Hebei Province, where three new state forests are planned. The province is often blamed for producing the fumes and smog that cover Beijing and northern China, and has committed to increasing its forest coverage to 35% by the end of 2020.

China hopes to increase its overall forest coverage by 18% by 2035

Expanding the world’s forest cover is one of the strongest weapons we have in the fight against climate change.

Meanwhile Australia continues to lose forest coverage as it permits unabated land clearance for agriculture.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/alarming-rise-in-queensland-tree-clearing-as-400000-hectares-stripped

China’s Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project

Trees do more than protect climate change, they stabilised environments, purify water and reduce sediments. This invariably makes land more productive, which increases sustainable growth and reduces poverty.

Funded by the World Bank and completed in 2002, the Loess Plateau rehabilitation project of over 1,560,000 hectares increased agricultural production and reduced sediments into the Yellow River.
Reafforestation was the main component of stabilising arable land use on the Loess Plateau.

http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00819C/WEB/PDF/CHINA_LO.PDF

*Ted Mead has travelled broadly throughout China and witnessed the contrasts between the country’s serious environmental degradation, and its renewable energy installations. Ted believes in the near future, when climate change impacts become overwhelming, trees, particularly large tracts of virgin forest will be considered a highly valuable global asset. Given the conservative’s present attitude towards the importance of forests for mankind, then we would expect Australia to be one of the last countries in the world to adopt a progressive move.