China faces ‘very grave’ environmental situation
According to a report by Ian Jonson to the New York Times, China’s
three decades of rapid economic growth have left it with a “very grave”
environmental situation even as it tries to move away from a
develop-at-all-costs strategy, senior government officials said Friday.
In a blunt assessment of the problems facing the world’s most
populous country, officials from China’s Ministry of Environmental
Protection delivered their 2010 annual report. They pointed to two major
advances: improvements in water and air quality, key goals that the
Ministry had set for itself to achieve over a five-year period ending in
December.
The targets were met, with pollutants in surface water down 32
percent over the period and sulphur dioxide emissions in cities down by
19 percent.
But officials cautioned that many other problems were serious and
scarcely under control.
“The overall environmental situation is still very grave and is
facing many difficulties and challenges,” said Li Ganjie, the vice
minister. Mr. Li said biodiversity was declining with “a continuous loss
and drain of genetic resources,” while China’s countryside was becoming
more polluted as dirty industries were moved out of cities and into
rural areas.
Li said reversing the deterioration of the countryside was a major
focus for the coming five-year plan. He also pledged to control
contamination by heavy metals, which resulted in nine cases of lead
poisoning last year and seven more in the first five months of this
year. He said that China needed a law to regulate heavy metals and that
he was confident it would be written and passed soon.
Founded as an agency 13 years ago, the Environmental Protection
Office was upgraded to a ministry in 2007, but has fought an uphill
battle for money and power. China’s government has prioritised growth,
worried that unemployment will lead to unrest.
Now, however, signs are growing that environmental neglect is causing
instability. Protests in Inner Mongolia last week, for example, were
partly due to concerns that industries such as coal and mining _ which
are largely dominated by ethnic Chinese _ are destroying the grasslands
used for herding by the indigenous Mongolian population. Similar
conflicts have arisen in other sensitive ethnic areas, such as Tibet and
Xinjiang.
Li said that more than a fifth of the country’s land set aside as
nature reserves had been illegally developed by companies, often with
local government collusion. But he said that the Ministry had now
deployed a satellite that can detect illegal development and would
pressure local governments to stop the work. Failing this, Li said, the
Ministry has the power to influence officials’ prospects for promotions
because environmental compliance is now a part of their performance
evaluation.
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