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Industrialization, energy efficiency and environmental protection in Asian industrializing countries: The role of technological change

Journal Article · · World Resource Review
OSTI ID:78111
 [1]
  1. Asian Inst. of Tech., Bangkok (Thailand). Energy Technology Program
Rapid industrialization in many Asian developing countries has caused an explosive growth in energy consumption and an unsustainable environmental pressure: local water and atmospheric pollution are compromising the results of economic growth with health and ecological destruction, whereas increasing emission of greenhouse gases contributes to the global climate change. The key question is how to orient this industrialization process toward a more energy efficient and environmentally sound direction in order to avoid the errors made by the present day developed countries during their industrialization period. Rapid uptake of technological innovation, fostered by a high turnover of the capital stock and a strong trade orientation, and advantages as latecomers in the industrialization process may help these countries to adopt the latest available technologies in the form of clean process innovations, thus ``leap-frogging`` some of the problems associated with industrialization and avoiding many of the more serious environmental impacts of old technologies. This paper focuses its analysis on the role of technologic change in the greening of industrialization processes of Asian developing countries. After analyzing the technological causes of energy and environmental problems created by the rapid industrialization process in these Asian countries, the paper suggests that not only should the ``end-of-the-pipe`` cleaning technologies be widely promoted, but also the clean process innovations be encouraged, thus tackling the pollution problems in their roots.
OSTI ID:
78111
Journal Information:
World Resource Review, Journal Name: World Resource Review Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 7; ISSN WRRVE5; ISSN 1042-8011
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English