Economic Growth and Environmental Conservation in Developing Essay

Economic Growth and Environmental Conservation in Developing Countries, Case of China - Essay Example This paper outlines the advantages of the sustainable development of the developing countries, compared with other models of economic development. The term â€Å"sustainable development† means the ability of the present generation to meet their consumption needs without sacrificing the ability of the future generations to consume at least at the present level. The debates of the scholars with respect to economic growth have taken three approaches. Some believe that to achieve the high rate of growth natural resources are required by higher amounts. Therefore it is necessary to reach a steady state before environment can be preserved properly. Some differs that a high economic growth leads to more demand for less resource utilizing goods and services. Therefore it automatically translates into better environment conservation. There is a third argument between economic growth and environmental conservation given by the U shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve. It gives the policy of attaining high economic growth at the cost of environment in the initial phase of development. Then take control of the environmental degradation at a later stage. Then pollution comes down with economic growth. In China, the course of development had caused a lot of environmental degradation. The economic reforms undertaken by Deng Xiaoping, prominent politician of China had more balanced environmental risks. However it can be said that China in its course of development seldom considered the environmental hazards till 1980. Even in Taiwan where the economic progress had been less rapid through industrialization had undergone considerable amount environmental destruction. However in the recent decades there has been a remarkable transformation in the attitude of the Chinese policy-makers and civil society towards environmental conservation. The government had undertaken several policy measures to control the pollution from heavy growth of industries and reduce the environmental degradation. However the consciousness towards environmental exploitation for economic growth is less among the Chinese people than the Taiwanese people. More Chinese people are in favor of rapid economic growth at the cost of environment. The Taiwanese on the other hand are ready to adopt policy measures to preserve the environment at the cost of economic growth. They are ready to achieve sustainable development even if they have to have a less economic growth in the present.(McBeath, Leng, 220-2221) However China has undertaken a significant number of policy measures in various directions of environment conservation including preserving their biodiversity, reducing pollution and wastage. Economic Growth and Environmental Concern: China China has achieved a very high growth rate in the few last few years. Forecasts predict that such high rate of growth shall continue into the future. However the problem with attaining this high rate of economic growth in China is their large population but low endowment of natural resources. In their journey towards urbanization and development of infrastructure for further restructuration of the economy, they face close scrutiny from the local as well as global environmentalists. In the face of such close observation, the Chinese government had undertaken wide range of policy measures in the past and set their goals in reducing the pollution and wastage in their country without compromising their economic growth. Some of these goals were maintaining a 7% rate of growth an d at the same time reduce the discharge of pollutants by one tenth from 2000 to