Environmental comparisons for newly industrialized countries

[China Guy]

I'm doing some research on environmental problems in China. I would like to find some tables or other easy and straightforward comparisons between China and other Newly Industrialized Countries at a similar level of development.

I have googled, and am simply overwhelmed by the amount of replies. Would greatly appreciate it if someone out there has some links to some basic and useful information. Thanks!

[Duck Duck Goose]

Clarify--you're talking about pollution specifically, or "quality of life" issues like education, fine arts, traffic flow, etc.?

[China Guy]

You know, I was hoping DDG would show up.

To clarify, I would look for something more pollution specific. Things such as air quality of major cities, water quality, flooding, deforestation, reforestation, desertification, rate of population growth, government spending on environmental cleanup, etc. Really, anything with some country by country comparisons (including China) would be useful.

Quality of life issues are much more subjective, and most newly industrialized countries are highly dualistic. Therefore, such things as infant mortality rates, population literacy, are more outside of what I'm researching.

thanks

[London_Calling]

Well, these are the big guys on the block. Every country gets a yearly cough an' grope from the, allegedly, much respected OECD. Looks like (from the left-hand menu) they address the Environment but I don't have the time to take a tour. Hope it helps.

http://www.oecd.org/EN/home/0,,EN-home-0-nodirectorate-no-no-no-0,FF.html

[Quercus]

The OECD isn't a bad place to start, but they're basically a government body, so while you can trust what they say pretty well, they might not be as hard-hitting as an international non-profit. I don't know if the Worldwatch Institute's annual report has country-by-country breakdowns or not; if it does, it's a great source, though evidently you either have to buy it or find it in a library. If I have time I may be able to find a couple more sources in the next day or two. Any specific questions, give a shout as well

[China Guy]

Thanks for the replies. I did search around the OECD for about an hour, and either the stuff is buried deep or I just don't know how to find it.

Any further suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

[Measure for Measure]

The 1992 Information Please Environmental Almanac had a profile for each country. Unfortunately, they appear to have stopped publishing the annual in 1994.

Earth Almanac: An Annual Geophysical Review of the State of the Planet, Second Edition (Earth Almanac) exists. I have not looked at it.

http://www.grida.no/soe/ provides, "Links to state-of-the-environment reports from countries and regions of the world. "

http://www.american.edu/TED/ted.htm may or may not help.

Jackpot: a page of links http://www.etown.edu/vl/globenv.html . Print it out, circle the good bits.

I hope this helps.

[Duck Duck Goose]

Jeepers. :eek: [emerging with difficulty from underneath search engine]

It might help if you had a list of countries you want to compare. Putting in "air pollution newly industrialized" just generates avalanches of this kind of thing:
The discussion so far emphasized the point that in monitoring industry's sectoral contribution to sustainable development, all three dimensions of the concept have to be taken into account. Depending on the availability of data, such monitoring is likely to proceed in stages which differ in terms of comprehensiveness and the level of detail. The early stages are based on data that should routinely be available to most countries. For example, the share of the manufacturing sector in total employment, per capita manufacturing value added and the share of pollution-intensive industries in manufacturing value added are rough indicators of industry's contributions in the social, economic and environmental dimensions respectively. Later on, the picture should be broadened and given more detail by adding indicators, for example, from the set outlined in the previous section....

[cough, choke]
Not that it isn't fascinating, but... :D
http://www.unido.org/doc/50364.htmls

Narrowing it down by specific countries would help a lot. ;)

Also, "PRC" and "China" bring up different stuff. [sigh]

[China Guy]

Flowbark, will check that out after my nap.

Duck Duck Goose, I was really hoping that someone had some handy dandy sites. Otherwise, I may as well do the googling myself. I posted in response to the sheer weight of google replies. However, if you are up for a challenge, China, India, Indonesia would be nice. I'd like to throw in a country that is reasonably representative of newly industrialized nations in Africa and eastern europe as well.

Once again, appreciate the replies.

[Measure for Measure]

Some of my cites may lead you to information on all countries.

If you are going to work with a subset, I might recommend that you take a look at Chile. Though small, it has used some interesting market-driven environmental policies.

[Motog]

May not really be what you're looking for but here's a news article about a recent UN Environment Programme (UNEP)'s "Global 500 Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement" award to the city of Shenzen

http://www.abc.gov.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-5jun2002-53.htm

[China Guy]

thanks for the replies everyone.

I spent hours trying to find stuff. Finally, I discovered this Penn State Ag Econ lecture link: http://coldfusion.aers.psu.edu/450/nrenv.htm

Not perfect, but does have a few comparisons that are useful in case any one is interested. It provides enough comparisons to help with what I'm writing.