Thousands of students join us to create human water dragons around Beijing – celebrating world water day, and highlighting issues of water scarcity. With more than 20% of the world’s population and only 7% of its freshwater, China knows very well what it means to live in stressed water conditions. Indeed, the available water per person is only 1/4 of the global average!

THIRST is an NGO we started through the Young Global Leaders Community of the World Economic Forum. More information is available at http://www.thirst4water.org. you can also see the blog on the homepage of the WEF at http://www.weforum.org

Happy World Water Day!

Statements made by BHP Chairman Jac Nasser as reported in today’s Business Age question the rationale behind Australia’s conversation on a carbon tax, warning “against belief that Australia’s plans for a carbon tax would be influential – environmentally or diplomatically – on a global scale”.

The point is extremely well put and a missing point in this carbon price debate.

With only 1.6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Australia’s reductions in emissions will never be headline grabbing. So why are we talking about imposing a cost on Australian tax payers to reduce emissions here?  If, as Mr Nasser points out – it is to increase our soft power internationally, surely it would be better to focus our efforts on creating exponentially more emission reductions by deploying our green technology in other countries around us.

An interesting series of conversations in Sydney today with private and public sector representatives discussing the commercial opportunities available in the cleantech market in China. In particular, talking about practical ways in which we can shift cleantech into China, and at the same time build green wealth for Australia and for Australians. This particularly in terms of building green jobs, green R&D, and green return on investment.

Most interesting was the turnaround in this government entity’s approach – from scratching chins 18 months ago about the perceived risks, to now actively engaging in a conversation about how we can work together to create a platform which encourages Australian greentech to take advantage of the size of the market in China to deploy product at scale, and thereby deliver greater returns to their (Australian!) investors. A very welcome change.

Last week Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited China. She is the first sitting Prime Minister to visit China in three years….even though China is Australia’s largest trade and export partner.

Given the importance of the trip, those of us in Beijing had expected (hoped for?) a well orchestrated performance – a series of visionary speeches, and carefully planned meetings which achieved meaningful results in the further development of Sino-Australian relations.

On all counts, expectations were left in tatters as we witnessed in stark contrast polished articulate presentations by the Chinese – most notable Li Keqiang (one of the top 3 most powerful people in China) – a man of vision, charisma and clear leadership, with that of our own prime minister who gave a speech punctuated by an unfortunate series of remarks about recent visits to Japan and South Korea, comments about Human Rights and requests for China to become more involved in ensuring peace in the region (despite China’s numerous comments that it would not respond to international pressure to do so).

This was a great opportunity to set out a plan forward – like the Chinese, to give a clear response to the challenges that lie before our two nations. Not just on natural resources, but on the green industry (Australia has technology – China needs it), on agriculture (Australia has knowledge – China needs it), and financial investments (China wants to make them – Australia could benefit from them).

Unfortunately, this was an opportunity missed. Comments from the audience give an indication of how our Prime Minister was received – after Li Keqiang spoke for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was actually 23, PM Julia Gillard stood at the podium for a full 32 minutes – what to both Chinese and expats alike “seemed like an hour”.

And the ultimate indication of the status of the Sino-Australian relationship when you take away all the words and the rhetoric – consummate politician Li Keqiang failed to stand up to shake our PM’s hand after her speech. Maybe he is also a little confused about what we are doing in China.