Floodwaters at the Xiaolandi dam during a flood-discharge and sand-washing operation of the Yellow River in Jiyuan. Photo retrieved from: www.guardian.co.uk
“The five-year plan also includes the most relentless dam-building effort that any nation has ever undertaken in history. If approved, this program would cut off the country’s nose to spite her face. It would irreversibly destroy China‘s great rivers and biodiversity hotspots of global importance.
China already counts more dams within its borders than any other country. It has paid a huge price for this development. Chinese dams have displaced an estimated 23 million people. Dam breaks in the country with the world’s worst safety record have killed approximately 300,000 people. Scientific evidence suggests that one particular project, the Zipingpu Dam, may have triggered the devastating earthquake in Sichuan of 2008. Dams have also taken a huge toll on China’s biodiversity, causing fisheries to suffer and driving charismatic species such as the Yangtze River Dolphin to extinction.
As part of its low-carbon diet, the Chinese government plans to approve new hydropower plants with a capacity of 140 gigawatts over the next five years. For comparison, Brazil, the United States and Canada have each built between 75 and 85 gigawatts of hydropower capacity in their entire history. Achieving the new plan’s target would require building cascades of dams on several rivers in China’s south-west and on the Tibetan plateau – regions which are populated by ethnic minorities, ecologically fragile, rich in biodiversity, and seismically active.”
Read more: Guardian
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