Development Asia—Going Green: January–March 2012

By Asian Development Bank

This edition of Development Asia explores the concept of green growth: the embracing of environmentally sound and sustainable policies with the need to maintain high economic growth. It features an exclusive interview with leading expert Ashok Khosla, who takes a hard look at the promises and failings of green growth. In other stories, we look at pioneering efforts to deliver medicine through a soda company's distribution network.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9789292574406

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Growing Green

Must developing Asia sacrifice its environment for economic prosperity? A growing number of political leaders think not

BY Gregg Jones

At the Boao Forum for Asia in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2010, some 2,000 political and business leaders from around the region applauded when PRC Vice-President Xi Jinping in his keynote address called for green and sustainable development. His forward-thinking blueprint for future Asian development included the promotion of renewable energy and low-carbon technology, and efforts aimed at steeping Asians in the culture of conservation—ideals that were hardly priorities for most leaders in the region just a few years ago.

The nations of Asia and the Pacific have dazzled the world with their robust economic growth over the past 2 decades, reducing poverty rates and delivering middle-class comforts to millions. But the region has also become a leader in the unwelcome byproducts of traditional development: reduced water and air quality, depleted natural resources, and imperiled biodiversity.

That is beginning to change.

Green growth projects are sprouting around the region. The PRC, for years best known for its spectacular economic growth and spiraling environmental problems, has also become a leader in the development of green technologies. In 2009, the PRC overtook Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States to become the world’s top manufacturer of wind turbines, and its domestic market for turbines has already become the world’s largest. The PRC also boasts the world’s longest high-speed rail network, and holds close to 1,000 local and international patents for high-speed rail