China and its Green Growth Initiatives: Comparative Literature Review

China and Its Green Growth Initiatives: Comparative Literature Review
Name:
Course:
Professor:
Date:
Comparative Literature Review
Research Question: Has China's economic growth caused adverse environmental effects on tea growing in ZheJiang Province?
Economic Growth and Environment
Economic growth is a common goal for every country today. Through it, there is an overall decline in absolute poverty, an increase in research and development, improved welfare, and investment. However, economic growth has massive environmental impacts, including increased pollution, loss of ecological habitats, global warming, and depletion of non-renewable resources. Over the past few years, Chinas economic development has resulted in significant environmental damage. Arguably, through economic growth and massive industrialization, the welfare of Chinese people has been significantly impacted. Evidence notes that with economic growth, China's energy consumption has tripled in the last decade and, as a result, doubled its pollution rate. Thus, as China grows economically, its natural resources get destroyed simultaneously. Even with initiatives to protect the environment being introduced, it has become clear that environmental pollution and ecological imbalances are unavoidable. At present, every initiative leads to environmental pollution in one way or another. More so, with an increase in agricultural demand, extreme measures have been introduced, which has led to environmental degradation. Most intensive agricultural activities have led to huge problems, including water scarcity, soil degradation, and severe pollution.[Wu, Changhua, Crescencia Maurer, Yi Wang, Shouzheng Xue, and Devra Lee Davis. "Water pollution and human health in China." Environmental Health Perspectives 107, no. 4 (1999): 251-256.] [Stern, David I., and Donglan Zha. "Economic growth and particulate pollution concentrations in China." Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 18, no. 3 (2016): 327-338.] [Wu, Changhua, Crescencia Maurer, Yi Wang, Shouzheng Xue, and Devra Lee Davis. "Water pollution and human health in China." Environmental Health Perspectives 107, no. 4 (1999): 251-256.] [Liang, Wei, and Ming Yang. "Urbanization, economic growth and environmental pollution: Evidence from China." Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems 21 (2019): 1-9.] [Wang, Mark, Michael Webber, Brian Finlayson, and Jon Barnett. "Rural industries and water pollution in China." Journal of Environmental management 86, no. 4 (2008): 648-659.] [Peng, Shui-jun, and Qun Bao. "Economic growth and environmental pollution: an empirical test for the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in China." Research on financial and economic issues 8, no. 273 (2006): 3-17.] [Yuan, Jingjing, Yonglong Lu, Chenchen Wang, Xianghui Cao, Chun Chen, Haotian Cui, Meng Zhang et al. "Ecology of industrial pollution in China." Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 6, no. 1 (2020): 1779010.]
Land and Water Pollution in China
Industrialization and urbanization have significantly increased, meaning that more land is being channeled for industrial growth, infrastructure, and urban development. Accordingly, only about half of China is habitable, and environmental issues have increased almost fivefold with industrialization. In the last ten years, about 300 million people moved from rural areas to urban China, thus increasing demand for residential land. As a result, there has been a massive decline in forest land in the past ten years, primarily due to human's irrational economic activities. Over the past few decades, rivers in North China have dried up and resulted in ecological destruction in most areas., Soil pollution has equally tripled and continues to threaten the country's food security and agricultural development. Water shortage ranks as China's most common problem, especially in the northern regions. In the past ten years, China's water pollution cases have increased considerably, with industrial pollution standing as the leading cause. Other significant causes of water pollution are agricultural waste, toxic chemicals, non-degradable waste, and sewage waste. In addition, water quality in almost three third of China's natural sources is considered unsafe for human use. Over 300 million Chinese face water shortages, with pollution, considered the critical cause of a decline in the clean water supply.[Azam, Muhammad, Abdul Qayyum Khan, and Ilhan Ozturk. "The effects of energy on investment, human health, environment, and economic growth: empirical evidence from China." Environmental Science and Pollution Research 26, no. 11 (2019): 10816-10825.] [Delang, Claudio O. "Causes and distribution of soil pollution in China." Environmental & Socio-economic Studies 5, no. 4 (2017): 1-17.] [Peng, Shui-jun, and Qun Bao. "China's Economic Growth and Environmental Pollution: An Empirical Test Based on Generalized Impulse Response Function [J]." China Industrial Economy 5 (2006): 15-23.] [Aunan, Kristin, Terje Berntsen, D. A. V. I. D. O'CONNOR, Therese Hindman Persson, Haakon Vennemo, and Fan ...