Xinhua

BEIJING - The Chinese government on Tuesday issued a white paper on its policies and actions for addressing climate change, highlighting a range of major policy measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change and its remarkable results during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) period.

The white paper, titled China's Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change, was released by the State Council Information Office.

The white paper introduced China's policies and actions for addressing climate change, and the positive results achieved during that period, as well as China's overall arrangements to address climate change and its related negotiating position.

In 2006, China set forth the compulsive goal of reducing its per-unit GDP energy consumption in 2010 by 20 percent from that of 2005.

In 2007, China became the first developing country to formulate and implement a national program to address climate change.

Two years later, China put forward the goal of action to reduce the per-unit GDP greenhouse gas emission in 2020 by 40 percent to 45 percent as compared to that of 2005.

The white paper said China accelerated the transformation of its economic development mode during its 11th Five-Year Plan period, and achieved remarkable results in controlling greenhouse gas emission by promoting industrial restructuring, energy restructuring and energy conservation, improving energy efficiency, and increasing carbon sink.

According to the white paper, China accomplished its energy conservation goals listed in the 11th Five-Year Plan -- China's energy consumption per unit of GDP dropped 19.1 percent from that of 2005 accumulatively, which is equivalent to a reduction of 1.46 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Source: usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-11/22/content_14141169.htm

China Daily

BEIJING - The climate of public opinion will be monitored in environmental protection campaigns, according to a senior official.

Public satisfaction will be taken into account in a comprehensive system to assess the performance of local governments on environmental protection, said Bie Tao, deputy director of the policies, laws and regulations department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The system will be different from that currently in operation, which focuses on whether local governments have fulfilled preset pollution reduction targets.

Zhou Shengxian, the environment minister, confirmed that the ministry is revising air quality evaluation standards, aiming to bring them in line with internationally recognized appraisal systems.

"But (reaching the international standards) will be a gradual process, and won't be achieved all at once," Zhou told a high-level conference on the environment and development on Tuesday.

Under the existing system, officials are not promoted if they miss the preset targets. Consequently, local officials concentrate on figures and are "poorly motivated" to address public concern, Bie said.

"Local governments endeavor to reduce carbon emissions, but whether their work has made any difference to people's lives is open to debate," he said.

The ministry has proposed that public opinion should be part of the evaluation system in the Environmental Protection Law.

"Opinions from students, professionals, and non-governmental organizations should be valued as a necessary supplement," Bie said.

The proposal appeared to address the mismatch between public discontent over the environment and figures indicating an improvement in air quality released by the government.

A string of hazy days in Beijing last month, despite the official "slightly polluted" air-quality rating, aroused widespread public discussion on the difference between official figures and what people were actually experiencing.

Sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced by 14.29 percent from 2005 to 2010, while chemical oxygen demand, a gauge of water pollution, has been cut by 12.45 percent over the same period, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

"Despite the figures, do people feel satisfied with the air and water quality?" Bie asked.

A researcher explained why people are skeptical of official figures.

"Thanks to the efforts spent on improving air quality, the intensity of larger particulates has been reduced significantly, but the number of smaller particulates, which are more closely connected to hazy weather, has been on the rise, and that is why official figures are at odds with public opinion," said Wang Yuesi, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Research conducted over a decade by the academy has shown that the intensity of PM10 - particulate matter smaller than 10 microns - has been declining by 2 to 3 percent annually.

However, matter smaller than 2.5 microns has increased 3 to 4 percent every year.

Yang Yang, a program officer from Friends of Nature, welcomed the proposal of adding public opinion to the evaluations but said it lacks detail.

Polluting factory

Commenting on the reluctance of local governments to shut polluting plants, Bie said it might be due to local governments and plants being "interconnected".

Earlier this month, a chemical plant in the city of Qujing in Southwest China's Yunnan province, was widely criticized for resuming operations before it had cleaned up more than 5,000 tons of chromium compound, a highly toxic heavy metal, that it had dumped near the city.

Local officials said that the factory had resumed operations to get the money to fund detoxification.

But Bie said he believes that the local government was "behind" the polluting factory and had acquiesced in the resumption of operations.

Source: www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2011-11/16/content_14104519.htm

China.org.cn

The recent oil leak case at Bohai Bay has stirred heated discussion among Chinese legislators and law experts on the issue of public interest litigation. The focus is: who has the right to file lawsuits on behalf of the public when their interests are violated?

At the end of October, fishermen affected by the ConocoPhillips oil spill in Bohai Bay applied for an administrative review by the SOA and Ministry of Agriculture.

Under the current civil procedure law, plaintiffs are restricted to citizens, corporations and organizations whose interests are directly related to the case. This, though, sets up legal barriers which prevent many social groups from filing lawsuits in the public interest.

After the ConocoPhillips oil spill, some individual citizens and social groups tried to sue the responsible party for environmental damage. However, their requests were turned down by the court.

"When pollution occurs in some place, we can only stand there and watch it happen because we are not recognized by the law as plaintiffs," said Ma Yong, a staff worker in the environmental law center of the All-China Environment Federation (ACEF), a non-governmental environmental organization in China.

On Oct. 28, 2011, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, discussed a draft legal amendment which would enable related authorities and social groups to file public interest litigation over environmental pollution and food safety cases.

During the discussion, many legislators suggested that the draft should clearly define the "related authorities" which were entitled to file public interest suits.

Ren Maodong, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, said that departments of administration are often reluctant plaintiffs in public interest litigation, as many incidents occur as a result of their neglect of duty. In other cases, local protectionism and department protectionism play central roles.

In the recent oil leak case at Bohai Bay, the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) is expected to file litigation on behalf of the nation against the polluters under the Marine Environment Protection Law of China. The SOA declared that it would sue ConocoPhillips China for ecological compensation. However, nearly five months after the incident, there has been no news regarding the litigation.

Continue reading at: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-11/08/content_23845547.htm