中国问题受《Nature》关注

　　

生物通报道，近日的Nature新闻发表了Population studies: China needs women文章，表达了对中国人口比例问题的关注，事情缘起浙江师范大学，浙江大学和伦敦大学在上发表在BMJ的一篇研究性文章。此外，Nature头条新闻还发表了China's greener future?的文章，关注中国的能源与经济增长的问题。

 

性别差异问题

据文章介绍，根据2005年的中国人口普查数据显示，20岁以下的年轻人中，男女比例失衡，多出3300万男性。[1] Zhu, W.X., L. Lu, and T. Hesketh, China's excess males, sex selective abortion, and one child policy: analysis of data from 2005 national intercensus survey. BMJ, 2009. 338: p. b1211.

 

自从中国开展计划生育以来，随着超声检查技术的提高，很多的夫妻选择胎儿性别。

 

这项研究选择了近480万人作为研究对象，并且覆盖了整个中国的省份，调查结果发现，80年代末期，中国的男女比例为108：100，到2000-2004年左右，男女比例变为124：100。

Fig 1 Sex ratio in 1-4 year age group: all China’s provinces【1】

 

能源与经济增长问题

中国经济高速发展势必带来环境的问题，如何兼顾环保发展经济成为中国政府目前面对的挑战。

 

英国Tyndall中心气候研究部的Jim Watson和Tao Wang最近发表China's Energy Transition: Pathways for Low Carbon Development文章，这一文章是Tyndall中心领导的一项全球脱碳计划的研究成果。

 

研究人员称，中国的减排压力在2020年至2030年达到顶峰，在全球脱碳计划中中国将作出巨大的贡献，为应对气候变暖作出积极响应。同时中国将努力维持经济增长势头，兼顾环保。近期中国政府官员，能源专家和气候科学家将在北京发布这一报告成果。

 （生物通 小茜）

 

More Details

Gain without pain

The report's four scenarios describe possible emission pathways towards a low-carbon future for China that would not much dampen its economic aspirations.

Structural changes, most notably the service sector becoming the dominant branch of the economy, could help restrict China's energy demand in 2050 to between 15% and 100% higher than in 2005, the report finds. Meanwhile, China's economy could continue to grow to between 8 and 13 times its current size.

All scenarios described in the report include nuclear power — albeit to different degrees. Three out of four also include carbon capture and storage technology as a crucial means of reducing emissions from burning coal, China's most abundant fossil fuel.

China could get by with a budget of 70–111 billion tonnes of cumulative carbon emissions by 2100, provided emissions peak no later than 2030, the authors conclude. This, says Watson, would still be in line with capping global cumulative carbon emissions at 490 billion tonnes over the twenty-first century. That's the upper limit of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change think the world can afford without risking catastrophic climate change.

The report is a further step towards developing a global strategy for phasing out carbon emissions over this century, says Malte Meinshausen, a climate-policy expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. "These kind of in-depth country reports are exactly what we need," he says.

But the emission scenarios described in the report would probably still lead to potentially dangerous global warming in excess of 3 °C, he cautions. To avoid the risk of dangerous climate change, global emissions should peak no later than 2015, and Chinese emissions in the early 2020s — not 2030, Meinshausen says. "We need to pull out all the stops," he adds.

Coordinated action

Watson and Wang, an environmental economist, have based their cautiously more optimistic analysis on data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency and various Chinese sources.

The measure of its success, says Watson, is whether the Chinese government will be interested in the study, and willing to discuss its findings further. But he adds that China is unlikely to make substantial announcements concerning its climate targets before the United Nation's climate summit in Copenhagen in December this year, where more than 190 nations will attempt to agree on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

 

The developing world, including China, was not obliged to cut its emissions under Kyoto. Policy experts reckon that China's position concerning future cuts, or at least slower growth, in its carbon emissions will be crucial for the negotiations in Copenhagen.

 

"China can achieve low carbon growth, and there are promising signs that it will build on its small green accomplishments as it is trying to get out of the current recession," says Watson. "But successful climate diplomacy will require all other countries to act with the same urgency."