Ben Preiss
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 Published: Aug 26, 07 Views: 3,561 China’s rapid economic rise has come at great environmental cost. Coal provides 70% of China’s energy needs, contributing to the fact that only 1% of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. As the recall of millions of toys, for reasons including the use of lead paint, and the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin have hit the headlines, and the 2008 Summer Olympics approaches, China is under a lot of pressure and scrutiny from the rest of the world to take measures to drastically reduce its pollution.  Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life. China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.Experts once thought China might overtake the United States as the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases by 2010, possibly later. Now, the International Energy Agency has said China could become the emissions leader by the end of this year, and the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency said China had already passed that level.
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