As we mentioned a few days ago, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) posted an article on the Ministry website making a strong case for more open information as the way to attack pollution before it leads to accidents like those we have been seeing in recent months in Shaanxi, Hunan, Yunnan and elsewhere.  It's good to see MEP pushing for this.  We post a translation of that article here:

More open information, stronger rights protection

Xu Qi 2009-08-17

After expansive media coverage of the Hunan Liuyang City cadmium accident, the problems were quickly handled.  The factory involved Changsha Xianghe Chemical Factory was permanently closed.  The responsible parties were punished.  From the perspectives of cadmium pollution to the local environment and harms to the health, spirit and economic well-being of the public, one must say that this sort of "losing the sheep before mending the fence" (i.e., better late than never) approach is extremely regrettable - although it certainly prevented illegal pollution from continuing. 

Better late than never is too late.  We should draw lessons from this painful experience!  Why did it take years before this long-violating enterprise - that made it so that the locals could not grow on their land or eat the grain they produced - was brought to justice?

A practical and urgent issue is that when pollution is causing major losses and serious harm to the health of citizens, we cannot only undertake a better late than never after-the-fact punishment, but we must "catch the wolf before the sheep flees."  That is to say, we need to start at the source of the problem, prevent possible trouble and prevent these sorts of tragedies from happening again.  

For a long time, environmental impact assessment was supposed to prevent these sorts of harms, but time and again EIA has failed to fulfill its duty. This has led to the sorts of problems described above.  In addition to poor environmental management of local enterprises, a major problem is the lack of comprehensive, timely environmental information.  This has limited the public's ability to participate in environmental protection, and it has blocked or slowed down the public's channels to participate.  As a result, in the battle between illegal polluters and those that would go against them, the disparity in power is too great and it is difficult for the public's rights and interests to receive timely and effective protection.

Experience in China and internationally has shown that better environmental transparency is beneficial for reducing pollution.  In the US, after implementing an open information system [Toxics Release Inventory], emissions of 340 types of chemicals dropped by 40.5%.  In Indonesia, a year and a half after implementing an environmental disclosure system, pollution emissions dropped by 40%. 

Looking at the Chinese experience, it is difficult to be optimistic.  A year after the effective date of China's Environmental Open Information Measures, two environmental groups issued a study evaluating Chinese environmental information disclosure.  Out of 113 evaluated cities, only 4 scored above 60 points [out of 100].  More than 32 cities scored under 20 points.  The average score among the 113 cities was about 30 points. 

A lack of comprehensive, timely open environmental information has given polluting enterprises and local governments the chance to operate in a "black box."  To break this sort of "modus operandi", we need to put every under the sunlight. The way to do this is to do everything possible to make the environmental open information system a reality. 

An open environmental information system has major practical significance for promoting positive supervision in the environmental field, and shifting environmental protection from "after-the-fact remedy" to "before-the-fact prevention."  The moving of the Xiamen PX project and the Guangzhou Nansha petroleum refinery project confirm this.  Because information was released to the public before these projects were built, the public, local people's congress representatives, and experts could use various approaches to express their objections to the projects.  On the basis of this public opinion, the local governments could do a comprehensive evaluation and balance various interests to ultimately make "scientific" decisions that protect public environmental rights. 

Open environmental information is a tool for standardizing/regulating government behavior.  Through open information and allowing the government to accept supervision by the public, media and environmental group, we can bring about improvements to the government's public management capabilities and increase government capacity to make scientific decisions and administrate according to the law.  Also, by spurring the public to get involved in environmental protection, we can give the government more allies in the effort to identify illegal behavior and resolve environmental problems in a timely fashion.  

Open environmental information is a catalyst for promoting enterprise social responsibility.  It can allow consumers to use their money as a vote - to allow those enterprises with green values to emerge and gain market share; to teach those enterprises that violate the law a lesson, raise their awareness - thus creating a more open, just and fair market environment, pushing enterprises to change their environmental behavior.   

Open environmental information is an effective "shock absorber" for resolving societal conflicts.  By guaranteeing the public's rights to know and supervise project construction, pollutant emissions and environmental governance, different stakeholders can come to an understanding, avoiding unresolvable conflicts and bring resolution to societal conflicts caused by pollution. 

In this unprecedented age of information, only if we fully give the public its right to know, affirmatively accept supervision, garner the public's understanding, support and participation in environmental matters, can we appropriately resolve environmental protection problems key to people's lives.  On the basis of "taking people first", realize comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development.

Source: China Environmental News