January 2007
China Fails To Achieve Environmental Targets
Chinese officials have recently admitted that they are failing to meet their targets on energy efficiency and pollution emissions.
The Chinese have been making an attempt to control the environmental impact made in the wake of rapid industrial and economic growth, but the only places that have reported any significant improvement in their handling of this have been Beijing and five out of twenty two provinces. While the figures for second half of 2006 are not available as of yet, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Minister, Ma Kai, stated in December that "it [was] extremely hard to achieve this years goal”. The minister"s warning came with the continued establishment of energy-guzzling and heavily-polluting industries. Indeed, the Chinese Environmental Protection Administration reported that emissions of sulphur dioxide and water pollution rose 2 per cent but refused to comment on the margin by which they had missed their environmental targets.
In defence of this failure, Ma Kai gave the Chinese industrial structure and lack of supportive policies as the main obstacles in tackling pollution domestically. But this has not stopped newspapers, including the China Daily, from calling China's environmental report card 'dismal' and noting that the country had failed its first test under the five-year plan.
Although much of China's airborne pollution comes from large coal-burning power stations and from car exhaust fumes (neither of which can be reduced quickly), laws covering other pollution are regularly flouted, with toxic waste being pumped into rivers and lakes by heavy industry. Experts blame the strategic planning which underpins China's rapid economic growth, based on high energy use, large outputs and heavy industry, as well as a culture in which environmental concerns play second fiddle to economic expansion.
The new targets set were a part of the 2006 five year plan. The plan calls for energy consumption per unit of GDP to be cut by 20% and pollution emissions by 10%; but to external observers this was wildly optimistic. Han Wenke, director of Energy Research Institute made explicit that "nationwide, it [was] certain that last year"s [targets] could not be achieved” and continued that future targets were totally unrealistic. Vice-minister of the NDRC, Pan Yue confirmed that 2006 had been "the grimmest year for China"s environmental situation”, reluctantly conceding that there had been 161 serious environmental accidents in China during 2006 - nearly one every other day.
Ultimately, the most worryingly aspect of this is that China, the world's largest consumer of coal and second largest producer of greenhouse gasses, is set in this half of the 21st century to become the world's biggest polluter and in spite of its admissions of problems and effusive regrets, there is little prospect of improvement.
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