What China’s overseas coal exit could mean for Zim

IN response to What China’s overseas coal exit plans could mean for Zimbabwe’ XYZ says: Is being fair to acknowledge that the environmental accusations made towards China are somehow unfair.

As was mentioned in the article, that in terms of per capita carbon emission, “the United States sits in 14th place, with just over 16 tonnes of CO2 per capita while China is in a distant 48th place and emits less than half of that per capita, tallying 7,1 tonnes CO2 per capita.”

If you look at it from a bigger picture, an American would on average produce shockingly 695,97 more tonnes of carbon than a Chinese during a lifespan (the data of the life expectancy comes from the United Nations World Population Prospects: 2006 revision).

That having been said, the number did not take into consideration the carbon emitted during production exported goods.

Therefore, I believe it is fair to assume that an average Chinese lives a better environmentally-friendly life.

I believe that the future of Zimbabwe is bright. The United Kingdom experienced the Great Smog of London in 1952 as a result of heavily relying on coal.

Zimbabwe needs not and should not step into the trap of “develop with pollution and solve the problem later”.

There is an average of 2 871 hours of sunlight per year (of a possible 4 383) with an average of 7 hours 51 minutes of sunlight per day, which makes Zimbabwe a perfect candidate for solar energy. Zimbabwe needs to make use of the God-given advantage and develop clean and sustainable energy systems that benefit all the citizens and the generations to come.