China dream a nightmare for climate change

BEIJING (AFP) – At the age of 27, marketing executive Zack Chen is living the modern China dream. Holidays in Europe, modern appliances at home and a high-paying job with a foreign car company.

The problem for the world as it tries to tackle climate change is that more than one billion other Chinese want to be just like him.


“My parents bought their first fridge when I was born, it was a small one from Romania,” Chen said recently over dinner and beer at a Turkish restaurant in Beijing as he recalled his once frugal, but energy-efficient, lifestyle.

“My family stayed in grandma’s house until I was 12. My parents and I shared the same room.”

Now, partly thanks to the extraordinary economic growth in China that began with reforms in the communist country starting roughly the same time that Chen was born, he is living a far more enjoyable life.

AFP