Asia’s Clean Revolution: Industry, Growth and the Environment

The world’s environmental future will be determined in significant part by what happens in the rapidly industrializing and urban economies of Asia. The sheer scale of urban population and industrial growth in Asia - from Indonesia to China - and the energy- and materials-intensive character of the development process, constitutes a dark shadow over the region’s, and indeed the world’s, environment. And yet this challenge is also an opportunity. Precisely because so much of the urban-industrial investment within developing Asia has yet to take place, the opportunity exists to shape a different development future - one that is far less energy-, materials- and waste-intensive. Asia’s Clean Revolution examines the prospects for and pathways to such a new trajectory. The book lays out a vision of how developing economies might go beyond environmental regulation and put in place an array of policies and institutions that could integrate environmental, industrial and technological goals. These findings provide important input for negotiators considering climate change on a global scale. The book approaches the challenge of growth and environment in Asia in a novel way, by identifying six major transformational dynamics under way in the world today, and assessing whether these can be harnessed to the goal of improved environmental performance of industry. With a set of specially commissioned chapters from authorities in North America and Asia, this book presents concrete policy solutions to the looming crisis driven by large-scale urban-industrial growth in developing Asia.