China's quest to attain hegemony proves detrimental to global environment

Beijing [China], November 20 : Beijing's quest to attain hegemony has promoted unsafe industrial practices and has proved to be detrimental to the global environment as well.
A recent report has concluded that China has emitted more carbon dioxide in the past eight years than the UK has emitted since the industrial revolution, reported International Forum for Right and Security (IFFRAS).
China's unsustainable ecological model is dangerous for its domestic residents and even more so lethal for vulnerable countries that face an existential threat due to climate change concerns.
Its Belt and Road Initiative is arguably the largest economic project ever undertaken, and more so can also be considered as an instigator of such disastrous ecologically degrading mechanisms, reported IFFRAS.
The implementation of the projects under the ambit of the initiative lacks a clear environmental policy that safeguards concerns relating to ecology.
However, the host country often finds itself as a victim of environmental degradation due to a lack of safeguards in the projects.
Many local populations have been displaced, forcing them to migrate into camps that lack basic facilities, even if meant for a temporary period. The short-sighted deals are causing local residents to resent Chinese investments that have caused such miserable circumstances for locals residing in such areas for decades.
These reports come at a time when global leaders were in Egypt attending United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27). A prime agenda of the summit was to have nations agree to reduce global carbon emissions are at an all-time high although the leader has found little respite in sight, reported IFFRAS.
For instance, in the African nation of Mozambique, Chinese firms have been purchasing banned indigenous timber; though only after Chinese entities had managed to bribe public officials in the country for sourcing the ecologically destructive product, reported IFFRAS.
China's ecologically threatening industrial processes has made it the world's largest emitter of mercury and neurotoxin. This has made China the leader in creating a conducive scenario for mercury-related toxic air pollutants, risking the threat of a severe air pollution crisis.
Not only this, the Chinese Communist Party's developmental goals have led it to accelerate its Chinese-owned subsidiary's plans for coal burning as well. These developmental expeditions have also made the country the biggest producer and exporter of plastic products also causing one-third of the globe's plastic waste alone, reported IFFRAS.
According to a report, China's plastic waste is also unmanaged. The reports stated that these plastic wastes are also directly dumped into the environment without any non-polluting mechanisms in place, leading to millions of tonnes directly affecting marine life and causing a severe threat to island nations that face the majority of the environmental burden.
The BRI mega-projects run through at least 1,700 sensitive biodiversity sites and have threatened around 265 species in the process of building infrastructural projects.
A study published in Nature Sustainability suggested BRI projects may lead to "permanent environmental degradation" due to ecological degradations caused by pollution, habitat loss, and wildlife deaths, amongst other factors.