Can China make a great green leap forward?
The Chinese once rode to work on bicycles. Millions of pedalling commuters in Chinese cities would, decades ago, crowd out ancient lorries and limousines carrying Communist Party officials. The choice of two wheels wasn’t a fashion for Lycra-clad ethically green mobility. It was poverty. Given the choice, today’s Chinese commuters would rather burn petrol while seated in air-conditioned cars than inhale the foul fumes of China’s cities, while burning body fat. The Chinese need to get back on their bikes. Not back-pedalling to a bleak past of rural poverty and backyard steel mills but a great leap forward. It must leapfrog from a neo-Victorian world of metal-bashing heavy industry to a low-intensity, low-carbon world of electric vehicles, wind turbines, light industry, organic farming and bicycles. That is what many in the rich world would like. At the UN in New York, Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, yesterday made a gesture that might begin to bridge the gap between our carbon-neutral
