On Board with Green Growth

The activists targeted the construction of a six-kilometer railway bridge across Nairobi National Park, a joint project by Kenya Railways and its Chinese partner China Road and Bridge Corporation, arguing it would affect the park’s ecology and endanger its rich wildlife that includes buffalo, giraffes, lions, leopards, and white and black rhino. 　

To avoid costly land seizures in populated areas, the Kenyan government said the route through the park was picked as the “most cost-effective and technically feasible,” according to media reports.　

Dr. Ben Okita, director of conservation policy and planning for Save the Elephants, a Kenya-based wildlife conservation organization, told NewsChina that the ideal situation would have been to avoid the National Park completely but unfortunately, even though possible, this could not be achieved due to financial and engineering constraints. Richard Leakey, board chairman of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, told Reuters in 2015 that the “final plan was a pragmatic balance of wildlife and development concerns.”　

The planned six-kilometer bridge over the park is part of the second phase of a much larger project the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), a massive regional rail network. Largely funded by China, the SGR would replace the meter-gauge railway first built under British colonial rule in the 19th century. 　

The first phase of the SGR, a 609-kilometer line linking Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to Nairobi, which also passes through a larger protected area, Tsavo National Park, began operation in May 2017. So far, Phase I of the new railway has decreased journey times between the two cities from over 10 hours to five.　

The Chinese contractors of the SGR’s more controversial Phase II have also taken steps to “conduct some levels of engagements with stakeholders.” “The operators for Phase II have learnt much from Phase I, and the designs have to some degree been modified to adapt to the needs of wildlife,” Okita said. “The section that passes through Nairobi National Park for example is raised on high pillars to allow wildlife movement and activity beneath.” 　

As Chinese investments increased in BRI countries since its proposal in 2013, the Chinese government has taken steps to incorporate environmentally sustainable and green strategies and objectives into BRI that are now making real progress on the ground. 　

During the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) held in Beijing in late April, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the BRI “an opportunity to propel the world into a green future and help countries transition to low-carbon, clean-energy pathways with new infrastructure that is sustainable and equitable.” He added that BRI offers opportunities to “a more equitable, prosperous world, and to reversing the negative impact of climate change.”　

Zhai Dongsheng, director of the Belt and Road Construction Promotion Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, listed several significant Chinese-built transportation projects in BRI countries, such as the 756-kilometer electrified railway connecting Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti, the Mombasa to Nairobi railway project, China-Laos railway project, and the high-speed railway project linking Serbia and Hungary. 　

Zhai said as some traditional industries, or labor intensive industries, such as textiles, manufacturing and oil refining, are included in this outbound investment, “the government should consider setting up an outbound industry inventory to restrict the transfer of high energy consuming and heavy polluting industries,” adding that industry associations and business councils should also play a role in promoting self-discipline and internal supervision. 　

In an earlier interview, an inside source from Datang International Power Generation Co. Ltd told NewsChina that the company’s hydropower projects in Laos and other Southeast Asian countries have all filed environmental impact assessment reports and vowed to address environmental concerns during their construction.　

According to Zhai, the Chinese government required enterprises to abide by environmental guidelines from the outset that involve ecological restoration, energy saving and emissions reduction. “The government has invested in green industries including renewable energy, such as wind, solar and nuclear. Also, China has exported advanced state-of-the-art ecological management technologies such as desertification prevention and wastewater management to BRI countries,” Zhai added. 　

Considering that many BRI countries are developing nations, Zhang Jun of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said during an August press conference that high-quality infrastructure built to high standards must also conform to each country’s real situation and consider “affordable cost, public acceptance and balanced project plans.” 　

Yang Baohua, chairperson of the board of the China-Africa Development Fund (CAD Fund, the first Chinese investment fund since 2006 to promote investment cooperation between China and Africa) told NewsChina during a recent interview that the CAD Fund maintains strict restrictions on private investment through environmental and social impact evaluations. As of April, the fund has invested over US$4.8 billion in 93 projects across 36 African countries in areas such as infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture, energy and mineral development.　

According to Yang, several renewable energy projects between the CAD Fund and Chinese private investors have made significant contributions to the sustainable development of local economies in African countries. For example, the Shenzhen Energy and CAD Fund-invested Sunon Asogli 560 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired plant in Ghana provides over 20 percent of the local power supply. The Lesedi and Letsatsi solar PV plants produce 150 MW in South Africa. With partial investment from China’s GCL-Poly Energy Holdings, the plants provide clean electricity to approximately 130,000 South African homes while contributing to local socio-economic and renewable energy development.　

The South African Mamba Cement project in northeastern Limpopo Province is funded by Chinese cement producer Jidong Development Group, CAD Fund and South African partner Women Investment Portfolio Holdings. According to a Jidong insider, the project, which went online in 2016, includes a cement production line capable of producing one million tons a year. Besides pollution control technology for dust and nitrogen oxide emissions, the plant also uses a state-of-the-art waste heat recovery (WHR) system with a generation capacity of 33MW/hour. The system cuts energy consumption by 30 percent, a reduction of around 30,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year, the insider said. 　

Mamba is the first cement company with WHR technology on the African continent. “Over 95 percent of all production equipment for the cement plant come from China built to Chinese standards,” the unnamed source said, “which also promotes Chinese technology and standards on the international market.”　

In April, China officially launched the BRI International Green Development Coalition to “facilitate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through a green construction of the Belt and Road.” 　

Zhou Guomei, deputy director-general of International Environmental Cooperation Center with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, told NewsChina that 132 institutions (60 domestic and 72 international) have joined the coalition. According to Zhou, the coalition seeks to become an international platform to foster cooperation and share progress and practices for green BRI construction among partners. 　

According to Manish Bapna, executive vice president and managing director of the World Resources Institute (WRI), told the Xinhua News Agency that an aim of the coalition is helping to embed green development concepts into the development strategies of BRI countries to ensure they pursue sustainable, growth-oriented solutions and technologies and have the capabilities to do so.　

Besides official exchanges, there are signs that China’s environmental NGOs are playing an emerging part in the conservation efforts of BRI countries. NewsChina learned that organizations such as the Global Environmental Institute and the Paradise Foundation are connecting with local NGOs in Africa and Southeast Asia through programs focused on forest conservation, wildlife protection and climate change mitigation. 　

The Paradise Foundation joined Kenya’s Mara Elephant Project on the Greater Masai Mara Program dedicated to protecting the region’s elephants. 　

“Environmental preservation knows no borders, because nature is a global concern,” said Wang Dezhi, chief scientist with the Paradise Foundation. Wang expressed his hopes that China exports not just its economy, but also its ideas of environmental preservation and affordable technologies to BRI countries.　To a certain extent, domestic efforts for increasing wildlife preservation have had a ripple effect in neighboring countries. For example, the plight of the endangered snow leopard, a reclusive species that lives in fragmented populations throughout the mountainous areas of Central Asia that span more than 10 countries including China, is gaining more international attention in the conservation field. 

Nedopil Wang pointed out that despite China being a world leader in driving decarbonization, the country’s continued financing for clean energy stands in contradiction to its continued investments in fossil fuels, particularly coal. 　

According to a World Resources Institute study published in October 2018, most Chinese financing under the BRI has gone to fossil fuels: of the US$51.2 billion spent on electric power generation and transmission from 2014-2017, 36 percent (US$18.2 billion) was spent on coal. 　In comparison, 11 percent (US$5.9 billion) was spent on solar and wind energy. Another report, titled “China at a Crossroads: Continued Support for Coal Power Erodes Country’s Clean Energy Leadership,” pointed out that China is one of the top funders of coal plants in the world.　

Another challenge to green finance is defining what industries qualify as green. For example, as Nedopil Wang explained, while the Chinese government’s green industry catalogue includes “clean coal,” most financial institutions around the world, including the World Bank, do not. 　“Coal and oil industries have strong support in some countries and what is regarded as green by some may not be regarded as green by the rest,” Nedopil Wang said. “An even more tricky situation is a rail system which generally is regarded as green for mass transportation purposes. But if that train project is used to transport coal from a mine, it’s not considered green since it is supporting a non-green industry.”