Making waves in the Middle Kingdom

Sze Pang and family Sze Pang Cheung is communications director for Greenpeace in China and this article first appeared on Dimsum.

It is hard not to notice the growing environmental crisis in China even if you are living outside of the country. But the fact that many organisations are fighting this crisis in China may be out of your radar.

When I first started working for Greenpeace in early 2002, it was just about to open its first formal office in Beijing. I joined, because I was a Greenpeace volunteer and I loved it. I was wishing to broaden my perspective beyond Hong Kong. I had moved to the city with my family from Fujian province when I was five.

I have witnessed the Beijing office grow from a handful of staff to an office of almost 50 staff. But China's environmental problems have grown even faster.

We are proud of what we have achieved over the years, but we are under no illusion that much more needs be done if we are to save the environment in China.

China - whose Chinese name means Middle Kingdom - is really central to the global problem of environmental protection. A World Bank report in 2006 says 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China; everyday Beijing alone adds 1,500 more new cars to its congested roads; and the country is now the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, the culprit behind global warming.

But it is unfair to blame China alone. True that half of all tropical logs traded in the world are destined for China, but one third of the imported timber is turned into products and exported to the UK and other developed countries. Unsustainable consumption patterns in the West are fuelling the environmental crisis in China.

We use our global presence to leverage change in China. I was in London four years ago to meet B&Q's senior management with our UK colleagues. After months of dialogue with the company back in Shanghai and Beijing, B&Q, the largest home furnishing retailer in China, finally committed to sell timber products made from certified sustainable forests.

But ultimately the change has to come from within China.

Two weeks ago, we projected a huge video on one of Beijing's old city gate Yong Ding Men (the Gate of Permanent Stability) to call on China to take a leadership role in tackling global warming, the worst crisis humanity has ever faced.

This event marked the beginning of our campaign to create strong public momentum in China, to push the government to increase its use of renewable energy, to move away from coal burning and to take leadership role in reaching a strong global climate agreement when the world's governments meet in Copenhagen this December.

This will be the most challenging campaign we have ever undertaken in China, but nothing is easy in the Middle Kingdom.

When the future of the country and the planet is at stake, giving up is not an option. Reaching out for more support is. We are writing to you, hoping that the fight by Greenpeace and other organisations in China will fall within your radar, and you will tell your family and friends in China about it as well.