Sustainable Development Assignment: Climatic Change In China

Question

Task: In this module, we have undertaken a broad sweep across a number of topics that are of importance to the sustainable development debate. We have noted that although the concept lends itself to differing interpretations, yet it is recognised that the idea has made us think about the way we carry out our activities. We are now aware that we need to be “living within the limits of the planet” but significant efforts will be required to achieve such an objective.
This assignment gives you the opportunity to explore a specific issue of your choice affecting sustainable development. You could consider ways to create a sustainable future, strategies required to achieve sustainable development in a given context (e.g. city, region, country, business, etc.), barriers to achieving sustainable development objectives, progress made so far and innovative ways of promoting sustainable development.
You are asked to undertake a thorough analysis of a topic of your choice to demonstrate your understanding of the problem and your appreciation of the subject. Your task is to write an academic paper not exceeding 2500 words (excluding abstract, footnotes and references).

This is an indicative list and the suggested topics cover a broad range of issues. This is for guidance only. There is no expectation that you have to consider all issues indicated under a topic. You have to develop your own questions – do not follow the questions indicated below blindly.
a) Progress with the SDGs – Almost four years have passed since the SDGs were launched. Has any progress been made in implementing the SDGs? How are different regions and countries performing and what lessons are emerging to take the agenda forward?

b) Sustainable cities: As the world is urbanising rapidly, a special attention on sustainable urban areas is essential to support the objectives of sustainable development. How are cities doing in terms of sustainability? Are their strategies and plans well aligned to deliver the SDG targets?

c) Deep decarbonisation and Sustainable development: The Paris Agreement has called for accelerated global emissions reduction to fight the climate challenge. How will deep decarbonisation options influence sustainable development at the national or global level?

d) Circular economy for sustainable development: The concept of circular economy is catching attention of industries and service providers. How is this concept being used practice and what lessons can be learnt by others?

e) Economic growth and sustainable development Economic growth has a profound effect on climate change and sustainable development. Is economic growth compatible with the idea of sustainable development and can there be development without growth?

f) Shaping the sustainable energy future of a country. Many variations of this topic are possible. A holistic picture with possible actions to be taken to achieve such a goal comes at one end. The risks and challenges for such an objective can also be considered as a separate category of work. Similarly, the specific dimensions of the problem such as environment, climate change, poverty, finance, etc. can also be considered as other potential topics. Finally, it is also possible to analyse the plans of a given country to see to what extent they are likely to achieve the sustainability targets. Examples could include: Will renewable energies make the poor worse off? How will the energy sector evolve by 2030 to support the sustainable development agenda?

g) Sustainability strategies As sustainable development targets and action plans start rolling out, it is important to analyse country strategies, targets and policies. Similarly, firms and organisations are developing their strategies to meet the future challenge. A careful analysis using a coherent framework can be a good research activity. A comparative analysis of two or more cases can also provide interesting insights.

h) Governance and implementation: How important are institutions in shaping the implementation of sustainable development?
Are the existing arrangements fit for purpose?
How can the governance challenge be addressed?
Are global institutions fit for purpose?
vernance challenge be addressed?
Are global institutions fit for purpose?

Indicative research topics for Assignment B

Answer

Executive summary
The sustainable development assignment looks forward to provide a practical evaluation of the effect of SDGs on Deep de-carbonization and sustainable development in China. The sustainable development assignment focuses on the useful review of the pieces of literature to offer an outline of the significance of the study. The parties of UNFCCC established Paris Agreement in the year 2015. The ultimate goal of the agreement is to end the climatic issues globally and protection of the planet by bringing prosperity. According to the findings of this sustainable development assignment, climatic change is one of the major concerns within the Chinese population and government. It is imposing serious issues to the global health. However, the government and decision maker of China is currently looking forward to mitigate climatic issues to bring sustainable development into their economy and society.

Introduction
Sustainable future refers to the development of discovering a world full of innovative projects, which will look forward to create practical possibilities for future generations. It provides an effective method to the population of a country to make the best use of the available resources. It provides the ability to support, sustain, confirmed and upheld the environment. It had observed in recent years that the natural resources are depleting which is causing strong imbalances in the ecologies. The sustainable development assignment will look forward to explore the specific issues, which are affecting sustainable development. The sustainable development assignment will look forward to consider the effect of SDGs on Deep de-carbonization and sustainable development in context with China. It will focus on designing the research questions to provide appropriate answers associated with it. The sustainable development assignment will provide methodology to outlay the approach, which will be used in the paper. The impact of Paris agreement on the sustainable development of China will be discussed in the paper. The study illustrated within this sustainable development assignment will look forward to provide the policies and initiative of Chinese Government and decision makers to develop the economy sustainably. Effective recommendations will be provided in context of China to mitigate the climatic issues.

Literature review
The increasing number of cities, spaces of urbanization, and various issues are supposed to be mitigated by the SDGs. The Paris Agreement aims towards strengthening the global response towards the change in climate and temperatures. The agreement had looked forward to increase the ability of the countries to deal with the climatic changes. The parties of UNFCCC in the year 2015 adopted the Paris Agreement to mitigate climatic issues (Alina et al., 2019). The ultimate goals were to end the climatic issues globally and the protection of the planet by bringing prosperity. The SDG’s and Paris Agreements are linked together to mitigate the problems. SDG is working towards various matters to reduce the issues within nations and increase the well-being of the economy. In the year 2019, it was observed that the plan had focused on reducing extreme poverty, increasing responsive budgeting for gender, and providing access to electricity and efficiency to the most impoverished country (Un.org 2020). Moreover, the targets of SDGs also looked forward to increase labor productivity. However, the process in various fields faced much slower growth.

It is being observed in the studies considered to prepare this sustainable development assignment that the cities are overgrowing due to the rising migration and increasing population (Du Pont et al., 2017). Moreover, the slums are being considered as the most significant feature within urban life. The sustainable cities also require the creation of adequate business opportunities, affordable and safe facilities of housing, and building a resilient economy and society. SDGs had also looked forward to involve the green spaced, public transportation, and improving the urban management in a participatory manner. SDG's progress report represents that around 4.2 billion people, that is, approximately 55 percent of the total population lives in the cities all over the world. The cities look forward to take into account only 3 percent of the total landmass of Earth. However, it consumes around 60 to 80 percent of the energy, which eventually leads to 70 Percent of carbon emissions (Un.org 2019). SDG encourages the overall countries to effectively work towards the progress of sustainable development to fulfill the remaining gaps.

Despite all the progress made by SDG's, various issues are there, which reduces the efficiency of the report (Schleussner et al., 2016). Paris agreement is looking forward to put its best effect on fight with the problems effectively. The increasing level of corruption into weak, developing and poor countries is reducing the efficiency level of sustainable development. The higher authorities for their personal and private usages use the funds for sustainable development. The evasion of taxes and the offshore bank accounts eventually leads the organization towards the cost of revenues. Moreover, there is no adequate data and reports, which will look forward to justify the progress of SDG's within the countries. It leads to the lack of efficiency within the development goals of the Paris Agreement. The development of sustainability cannot be accomplished without transforming the method of building and maintaining the urban spaces within the city.

Research Question
The sustainable development assignment will look forward to provide adequate answers associated with the key questions. The questions of research are being stated below:

• How will Paris Agreement support the sustainable development future in China?
• How economic growth is compatible with Sustainable development?
• Is it possible for a country to implement sustainability within its economy without any growth?
• What are the Challenges faced by China while implementing the Paris Agreement?
• Provide suggestions to mitigate the issues in Paris Agreement?

Methodology
The sustainable development assignment focused on summarizing the significance of the Paris agreement in China through the process of a secondary method of data collection and analysis. One of the significant advantages of the process is that it will facilitate in providing real views and critical of the deep de-carbonization (Krippendorff, 2018). It analyzed a range of scholarly journals, articles and news reports with multiple approaches and concepts in context with the topic of the report. Special effort was made on collecting comparatively new or recent data, so that overview of the recent scenario can be gained.

Findings and Analysis
Climatic Change in China
The change of climatic conditions in China has a major impact on its economy, environment, and society (Buckley, 2015). Structures of energy, activities of humans, change in climate, and global warming are looking forward to make China suffer from the negative effects. The forestry, agriculture, and the sources of water are majorly being damaged due to the current situation. The Chinese Government also looked forward to prioritize the self-sufficiency of food due to the fearing reliance on the international markets, which can ultimately make the country politically and economically vulnerable.

Moreover, the study highlighted in this sustainable development assignment signifies that it is much difficult for the farmers to cope up with the changing environment as it hampers their crops. Increasing sea levels is one of the significant concerns within the country as it eventually increases the precipitation rate. The coastal areas of China had risen and it is much difficult for the state to cope up with it in the future.

Figure 1: Climate Change, Human Impacts and carbon sequestration in China
(Source: Fang et al., 2018)

It is visible in the above image provided within this sustainable development assignment that China accounts for 27.6 percent of the carbon emissions from the combustion of the fossil fuels (Fang et al., 2018). However, Paris agreements will help the country to implement effective policies to reduce the emission of carbon into the environment. The emission within China is interrelated with the increase in the economy and size of the population. The rapid expansion of collectivism and industrialization makes the country most populous in all over the world. It accounts for around 1.37 billion people, which is higher than Europe and America. Moreover, the gross domestic products of China are expanding at an annual rate of 10.1 percent in the past 30 years. It was observed in China that there was an increase in 0.24^oC from 1951 to 2017, which had exceeded the global rate. The average rate of precipitation in China was around 641.33 mm in the year 2017, which was about 1.8% of rise than the previous year. The sea level also rose at a rate of 3.3 mm per year.

Impact of Paris Agreement on the sustainable development of China
Conference in Paris regarding the climatic change was concluded through the Paris agreement (Nature.org 2020). China was one of the participants concerning the climatic change and its adverse impact on the country. For the first time in 2015, the decision makers of China made their concern towards the rationality and the necessity to mitigate the climatic change within their state for increasing the social and economic welfare. It also facilitated the country to implement improvement programs and pursed towards reducing the carbon emission to increase the ecology of the country. China looked forward to adopt constructive participation within the global governance to represent itself as one of the strongest and responsible power. The agreement expertly facilitated China to aim towards establishing the low carbon growth associated with the restructuring plan of China. The Paris Agreement effectively influenced the country to adopt socio-economic development plan in the year 2015. The main goal with the socio-economic development plan of China was to accomplish 93.9 percent of reducing the carbon emissions. China is looking forward to control its priority sectors, namely energy, chemistry, building, and transport. Sound data and reports of carbon emission will also help the Government and higher-level executives and concerned people to keep a track and establish effective plans to mitigate it (Un.org 2020). The innovation based development strategies examined in the context of sustainable development assignment will generate momentum for the sustainability of economic and social sustainability in China. Chinese government will drive transformation and sustainability within the country by taking initiative towards effective management and planning of cities to contribute large positive outcomes (Lse.ac.uk. (2019). 

The interrelation of sustainable development and growth
Since the year 1980, China had looked forward to significantly grow in every sector to gain effective goodwill and reputation in the international market (Liu and Xia, 2018). However, the excess growth had led the country towards excessive pollution, which is eventually damaging the social and economic well-being of the country. Within the Conference of climatic change held in Paris, the president of China "XI Jinping" looked forward to represent itself as the country, which had rapidly grown in and had looked forward to improve the lives of people living in China significantly. 

The economic growth of a country is shares a positive relationship with the development of its economy (Rogelj et al., 2016). However, the sustainable development is based on the multidisciplinary concept, which relies on the reduction of consumption of resources, producing effective and clean alternatives of energy consumption, protection of ecology, and removing the complexities from the lives of the population to provide the quality life. However, it is necessary to address the environmental, economic, and social damages as the rapid growth adversely affected the entire social and economic well-being of China. Sustainable development looks forward to organize the principles effectively to meet the development goals of humans. It is a simultaneous process, which looks ahead to sustain the natural system by providing competent services of ecosystems and natural resources to the society and the economy.

What are the challenges faced by China outlined herein sustainable development assignment while implementing the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement looks forward to establish the multilateral architectural framework, which provides practical guidelines to the country to put effort into mitigating the climatic issues within the states (C2es.org. 2020). Moreover, the dramatic shift towards the usage of land for energy production aims towards correcting the negative impacts of the environment caused by the economy. However, one of the significant challenges mentioned in this segment of sustainable development assignment that the country is facing is related to the effects of de-carbonization on demand for raw materials. The transition towards the low carbon economy requires a substantial increase in mining activities. It will majorly affect renewable energy and resources. The wide range of mining activities reduces the efficiency of policies and its implementation and governance. 

Recommendations
It is much necessary for the decision-makers of the country to effectively meet the diversified needs to address the issues of climatic change. However, it is noted herein sustainable development assignment that in order to effectively implement the Paris agreement, China might focus on the following mentioned approaches:

Make the population informative about the problems of Climatic Change: The country must raise awareness of climatic issues among the populations effectively. It facilitates the effective contribution of the population towards reducing carbon emissions.

Development and employment of decision support resources: The decision-makers of the country can look forward to employing and develop the decision support resources, which will provide scientific knowledge to the users to reduce environmental pollution.

Conclusion
The sustainable development assignment had focused on reviewing various pieces of literatures considering the implementation of Paris agreement within the economy of China. Research questions are provided within the sustainable development assignment, which provides an effective guideline to discuss the answers associated with the topic. Considering the thematic analysis approach various factors related with the Chinese climatic conditions is provided within the paper. From the above sustainable development assignment, it can be concluded that Paris agreement influenced China to effectively adopt policies and regulations to mitigate climatic changes. Adoption of ecofriendly policies is making the country face various challenges. However, the decision makers in the country are looking forward to develop a sustainable future for Chinese population. The Chinese Government is also looking forward to plan and manage ecological cities so that they can mitigate the issues of carbon emissions. The development goals of Chinese Government influence them to effectively increase their sustainable reputation on the global platform. The innovation-based strategies of sustainability will help the economy to increase their ecological efficiency and manage the resources effectively. The multilateral architectural framework of Paris Agreement will strengthen the economies to reduce carbon emissions and implement sustainable strategies within the country to provide competent services of ecosystems and natural resources to the society and the economy of China.

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