Alex Wang's Blog: Greening China

Chinese officials talk environmental and climate governance at the National People’s Congress meetings

2010-03-16T08:59:31Z

As I’ve blogged about before, one of the keys to fighting China’s pollution problem is strengthening China’s environmental governance system. This is a view not just held by environmentalists, but one that is also held by a growing number of Chinese government officials at the highest level.

The topic of environmental governance received a surprising amount of attention last Wednesday at a high-level press conference convened to discuss China’s actions on climate change and the environment. The press conference was held in conjunction with the annual legislative session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and featured three speakers: (1) Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), (2) Xie Zhenhua, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and (3) Wang Guangtao, the Chairman of the NPC’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

Winning the Battle, but Losing the War?

One of the more interesting questions last week came from a reporter with the South China Morning Post, who asked Zhang Lijun of MEP how he reconciled the fact that China had succeeded in meeting its pollution reduction targets for sulfur dioxide (SO2) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, while at the same time China’s overall environmental quality had clearly worsened. Essentially, China may have won some battles, but why is it losing the war? This question strikes at the core of China’s environmental governance system and its current strengths and weaknesses.

China set a 10 percent volume reduction target for emissions of SO2 and COD in its current 11th Five-Year Plan. With less than a year left in this five-year period, China has apparently been successful at meeting these pollution targets. As of the end of 2009, China had reduced its SO2 emissions by 13.14% (passing the target ahead of schedule) and reducing its COD discharges by 9.66%.1

This success can be attributed in large part to the fact that pollution reduction targets were elevated in importance in the current five-year plan period, and incorporated into government officials’ job evaluations. This has the impact of focusing the minds of officials even at the lowest levels on environment enforcement when determining their overall enforcement priorities (as I’ve blogged about here and here). Zhang pointed out during the press conference that some local officials from Shandong that did not meet their annual emissions reduction targets were sacked as result of their failure.

The downside of this system, however, is that it can in some cases focus officials too narrowly on a particular target, say SO2, as opposed to other environmental concerns. Imagine a local official in a lead smelter region focusing all of his or her limited resources and attention on SO2 reduction to avoid getting sacked. One might expect to see some problems with lead pollution, as we did last year.

Zhang commented that the reason China’s overall environment situation may be worsening while certain pollution reduction targets are being met is that China’s overall pollution problem (of course) is not limited to two types of pollution. While SO2 and COD have improved, nitrogen oxide (NOx), for example, has increased over the same period. As a result, China’s acid rain problem has not been reduced overall (since both SO2 and NOx are primary causes of acid rain). The conclusion: “This illustrates that the two pollutant control programs that we rely on are not enough alone to improve China’s overall environmental quality,” said Zhang. In the 12th Five-Year Plan period (commencing in 2011), MEP is therefore looking to increase the number of pollutants included in the “total emissions control” system (such as NOx) as well as expand the scope of the existing targets (such as including agricultural sources of COD).

This all may seem obvious to some, but it is an insight that is highly relevant to the current planning for China’s 12th Five-Year Plan. If China wants to successfully address its environmental challenges, it will need to quickly broaden its focus to cover a wider range of pollutants, particularly heavy metals and other toxics, fine particulate, and other pollutants particularly harmful to human health. Progress on the SO2 and COD targets should not lull anyone into believing that the hard work on environmental protection is done.

Climate and Environmental Transparency

Another hot topic at the press conference was disclosure of environmental information. Xie Zhenhua discussed transparency in the international climate change negotiations, while Zhang Lijun focused on China’s environmental disclosure system. Zhang noted that environmental officials are now required to disclose a variety of environmental information. For example, on the MEP website you can now view the environmental quality of 113 cities on a daily basis.

Environmental information disclosure is an indispensable tool for environmental regulation because it can spur companies to take proactive measures to reduce pollution in their own facilities, it raises public awareness of environmental issues and gives the public the tools it needs to identify and handle environmental risks. While narrowly defined, top-down pollution reduction targets are effective at focusing officials’ attention on a limited set of pollutants, information disclosure empowers other stakeholders to monitor the environmental performance in a more comprehensive way.

It is important that senior officials are raising transparency in such a visible way. Among Chinese ministries, MEP has been the most aggressive advocate for greater information transparency. Open information in China will not live up to its potential though until facility-level pollution information is more widely available. In China, it is still not possible to obtain facility-level pollution information for most factories. Only certain significantly polluting enterprises are required to disclose their emissions data. Even so, many refuse to do so and suffer few consequences for this. Environmental protection can be a challenging business, but broadening facility-level environmental transparency is one of the easiest and quickest ways for China to reduce pollution and reduce the enforcement burden on its perennially overstretched environmental agencies. It is relatively inexpensive and technically uncomplicated, and a number of cities around China are already making quiet, but impressive progress on environmental transparency (see the conclusions from our 2008 Pollution Information Transparency Index in partnership with IPE). Moreover, MEP can give environmental transparency in China a big push forward by disclosing the raw data from its recent national pollution census. This data set will be an invaluable tool that the public, academics and other stakeholders can use to identify and address China’s most serious pollution problems.

This little noticed focus on environmental governance last week is a good sign that we hope will serve as the foundation for a strong push to strengthen environmental governance in the 12th Five-Year Plan period.

__________

1 The major caveat to this is the outcome of China’s recently announced first national pollution source census, which found that COD discharge in 2007 was more than twice the levels originally announced for 2007 (30.3 million metric tons, in the pollution census v. 13.8 million metric tons, originally announced). This was attributed largely to inclusion of agricultural sources in the census and different calculation methods. The 11th Five-Year Plan COD targets apparently will continue to be measured against the sources identified prior to the census.

China and Copenhagen: Resolutions for 2010

2010-01-06T12:20:12Z

This blog was co-authored with Barbara Finamore and Alvin Lin.

The thrust and parry of the post-Copenhagen blame game reached a fever pitch just before the holidays with a number of media articles suggesting that China was responsible for an unsatisfactory outcome at the climate meetings.

The article that has gotten the most attention has been one by Mark Lynas entitled: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room (Guardian, Dec. 22). In the days after the article was published it was virtually the only article being “retweeted” under the #COP15 tag on Twitter. The central premise of the Guardian piece was that China, despite presenting itself as a constructive player, intentionally played the spoiler in the climate negotiations. In Lynas’ view, this is why China vetoed the efforts by developed countries to set a target for reducing their own emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and engaged in a variety of other tactics.

Was the Copenhagen Accord a Failure?

The spirit of the holiday season seems to have calmed the rhetoric down over this past week. Nonetheless, we still felt it important to weigh in on what to make of Copenhagen because our take on the dynamics of the negotiations and whether or not the Copenhagen Accord was a “failure” is a bit different than Lynas’. What happens in 2010 will be critical to whether we can effectively meet the challenge of climate change, so it is imperative that we start off on more constructive footing.

Let's keep in mind what had happened in the lead-up to Copenhagen. Realistically, a full, legally binding agreement was extremely unlikely after Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s proposal for a “one agreement, two steps” process at the APEC meeting in mid-November had gained support from many world leaders. Instead, the expectation was that some form of "political agreement" would be reached in Copenhagen, with a final legally binding treaty to be worked out in 2010. So, in our view, the proper yardstick for evaluating the success of Copenhagen is whether progress was made that will (i) get us closer to a fair and ambitious global agreement in 2010, and (ii) facilitate passage of comprehensive U.S. climate legislation.

The Copenhagen Accord had at least three steps that pushed us forward based on this yardstick, which our colleague Jake Schmidt blogged about here:

First, in the run-up to Copenhagen countries representing more than 85% of the world’s global warming pollution set forth plans to reduce or slow the rate of growth of emissions, and these will be brought forward as commitments that are part of the accord by the end of January 2010.
Second, the announcement of a significant ramp-up in funding ($100 billion by 2020) from developed countries to developing countries was important. This funding needs to be greater and a number of scientists and groups have already said so. But this is a good start.
Third, the agreement to biannual reporting on mitigation actions and emissions, subject to “international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected” was another important step.

These advances will obviously need to be elaborated through further negotiations, and how well they are implemented will be critical to judging the ultimate success of the accord. But in the near-term we think the agreement on transparency will help get the climate bill through the Senate. Moreover, passage of climate legislation in the United States next year would be a major game changer (which the Copenhagen Accord would have helped nudge along) and will lead to a much more productive dynamic for addressing climate change in the G20, Major Economies Forum, and COP16 in Mexico. This dynamic will have its first boost in little over a month as countries associating with the Copenhagen Accord set forth the mitigation targets and actions they will commit to ahead of the January 31, 2010 deadline. Of course, the step forward on transparency is also important because, assuming the details are worked out consistent with the spirit of the accord, it will help to move us toward a better sense of how the largest emitters in the world are doing to reduce their emissions.

Did China Play the Spoiler?

British media coverage has pressed the "China wrecked the deal" angle, suggesting that China acted in bad faith by such actions as vetoing any long-term 2050 targets for the accord. But this judgment fails to consider the negotiating perspective that China and other developing countries have consistently espoused, namely that developed countries have used up most of the global "carbon space" and so should bear the bulk of the responsibility and cost for mitigating global emissions. Taking into account this perspective, China’s reported actions could be seen to reflect its disagreement with developed countries on how future mitigation burdens should be allocated considering historical responsibilities, rather than a flat-out desire to block any long-term deal as Lynas suggests. One might also ask why the U.S. and other developed countries have not faced similar outrage from the press for not offering up deeper emissions cuts and greater support for developing countries, given their historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and much greater per capita emissions. This was despite criticism that environmental groups leveled at the U.S. and other developed countries for insufficiently ambitious proposals. These are substantive differences among the countries that need to be worked out, and we do not get any closer to resolving these differences with accusations of bad faith. In any case, China and the rest of the world will have an opportunity to demonstrate the full extent of their commitment to addressing climate change in the coming year, as countries work toward completing a final climate agreement before the end of 2010 and begin to implement their climate targets. The proof of how constructive each of the countries has been will be in whether we have an effective, binding climate agreement before 2010 is through.

In the end, we know that China will need to be part of any effective global climate change deal. The hard work has really just begun and every country will have the opportunity in the coming year to rise to the occasion. So we should put aside the recriminations and get on to the business of forging a new climate agreement in 2010.

Copenhagen in Pictures - Time to Step Up to an Agreement (UPDATED)

2009-12-18T08:05:46Z

[Update (3:25pm local time): Wen and Obama both spoke this morning and we are clearly not yet at an agreement. Wen's talk contained important language about transparency, international dialogue and cooperative exchange. Obama emphasized that "We are ready to get this done today!" Obama and Wen met for 55 minutes after their talks and apparently made progress on all three of the issues that Obama raised in his speech: mitigation, transparency and financing. The negotiators will need to head in to overtime now to hash out the details.]

We are on alert to listen to speeches from Obama, Wen and others. Today is the day to make a breakthrough. As we wrote earlier this week, the US and China have started to make positive moves to break the climate impasse (also here). The countries have literally been working around the clock (Su Wei said on Wed that he'd been up for more than 50 hours) and we expect the pay off to come today. We'll report back as soon as we hear what the leaders announce. In the meantime, here are some pictures from the past week in Copenhagen...

Protests inside Bella

Polar bears

Prince Charles

Minister Xie Zhenhua of China after the BASIC press conference with India, Brazil and South Africa

China Information & Communication Center, where crowds gathered to listen to each China press event.

Vice-Minister He Yafei speaking last Friday

US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announcing Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI)

Wednesday night plenary session 10:35pm - working through procedures, procedures, and more procedures...

Copenhagen Week One Wrap-Up

2009-12-15T12:24:42Z

One week down, an agreement to go. The first week at Copenhagen was intense in and out of the Bella Center. Inside, thousands of government bureaucrats and staffers mixed with thousands of environmental advocates, researchers, students, journalists, bloggers and a guy dressed in a polar bear suit. The media and blogosphere played up the atmospherics of shocking “secret” draft texts, sharp words and session stoppages, but most people realize these are just part of the game. There are real differences to be worked out, but my colleague Jake Schmidt describes the reasons we are optimistic for a positive agreement this week and highlights the issues to look out for. The first week has narrowed the issues and produced a short draft text (see here). For the first time ever, we have major plans of action from all emerging economies and strong targets from most of the developed countries. Moreover, we’ll soon have an unpredecented gathering here of over a hundred heads of government who will arrive to finalize an agreement. This sort of focus and commitment is unprecedented.

Outside, city was relatively quiet yesterday after anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 protestors took to the streets (and nearly 1,000 were arrested) on Saturday.

China and the US

“The Fate of Climate is in Your Hands” Courtesy of Global Voices Online

The media focused last week on the various barbs thrown around by SU Wei (China’s chief climate negotiator), HE Yafei(a vice-minister at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Todd Stern (US Special Climate Envoy) (video). But there was more smoke than fire, as both countries want to come to a political deal by the end of this week. At SU Wei’s more sparsely attended Saturday press conference, he took a less combative tone and noted that China’s slogan for this 2ndweek of negotiations was to: “enhance confidence, consolidate consensus, strengthen cooperation, and implement actions.” The arc of the negotiation seems just about right to mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js"> us here. Both the US and China stepped up with targets in advance of Copenhagen to set a constructive tone for the negotiations, came out of their corners swinging earlier this week to establish their positions, and ended the week on a constructive note. They will all be scrambling early this week to hammer out the key details before the world leaders start to arrive mid-week.

To MRV or Not to MRV?

One of the big issues for the week will be on the question of how countries stand behind their commitments and how they do so in a transparent manner. In climate parlance, this is known as “measure, report and verify” (MRV) (whether it be actions, emissions inventories or technical/financial support).

The position of China, India and the so-called “BASIC” countries (Brazil, South Africa) is that actions supported by developed countries will be subject to international review, but that actions without support will only be domestically, not internationally, reviewed. China has been laying out the case that it has put in place institutions to measure data and drive implementation of its climate targets, which should give other countries comfort that China is meeting its targets. We’ve talked about the efforts that China has made in this regard to use complex bureaucratic evaluations, itsTop 1000 energy consuming enterprises program and other measures.

The US position is that commitments should all be transparent, part of the international agreement, and put through a “consultative-type process” for some sort of appropriate international review.

So how do we “get to yes” here? There is a great deal of space for creative thinking if the countries are willing to step away from their postions, and focus on their interests. The US interest (and the goal of the climate treaty in general) is to better understand how all major emitters are doing on their efforts to “bend the curve” on or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. China is interested in preventing inappropriate intrusion on its sovereignty. Look for room to compromise on the scope and frequency of any reviews of actions or emissions inventories, as well as use of facilitative review focused on capacity building and technical support. China actually has a good deal of innovative practice and experience and may be willing to show this off on the international stage. The US should be willing to step to appropriate international review and transparency as well to stand behind its commitments.

Copenhagen in Pictures - One Week Down, an Agreement to Go

2009-12-14T16:13:05Z

Here are some photos from the first week in Copenhagen. Enjoy!

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC

Rajendra Pauchari, Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

China press event with Su Wei, Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Todd Stern press conference, Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Relatively modest lines during week one at Bella Center

The Bella Center computer area

The main hall at Bella

NRDC Side Event: China and the World: Solving Climate Change Through Practical On-the-Ground Collaboration

NRDC Side Event

The official China side event, which focused on the concept of “cumulative per capita emissions.”

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: “I issued the endangerment finding literally hours before stepping on the plane for Copenhagen.”

Participants enjoying some NRDC China climate materials.

Meeting China’s Climate Targets

2009-12-10T07:00:26Z

The level of interest in what China will do in these Copenhagen negotiations is intense. On Tuesday afternoon we went to the first public Chinese press event of the negotiations at the China delegation office. We arrived to find people overflowing out of the door. Three times as many people as could fit in the briefing room had arrived.

Afterwards, we went straight from the press event to our NRDC-organized side event on “China and the World: Solving climate change through practical, on-the-ground collaboration.” Standing room only again (see here for an overview of the event).

Our panel addressed, as the title suggests, ways in which China on its own and in partnership with the rest of the world is driving toward climate change solutions. I addressed the question of how China implements (and will implement) its climate targets and policies. Lü Xuedu, deputy director-general, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, touched on a number of the same points (for example he mentioned the high-level leading group on climate chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao). The key point is that China has, over several years, built up a complex administrative framework to drive implementation of its energy and environmental targets.

China has recognized the harm that climate change will cause the nation, but is at the same time also driven to achieve its climate-related targets (energy intensity, renewables, forestry cover) for a variety of other reasons: energy security, pollution reduction, development of China’s fledgling green-tech industries, and so on. This should give some comfort to those who believe that China is not serious about these targets.

Institutional Tools for Meeting China’s Targets

By now, you are no doubt familiar with China’s target to reduce its energy intensity (energy use per unit of GDP) by 20% in the 2006-2010 11th Five-Year Plan Period. One of the key tools for driving compliance with this target has been the use of the so-called target responsibility system – essentially, bureaucratic job evaluations. The promotion and job prospects for governors and mayors around the country turn on how well they perform against very detailed criteria. Lü Xuedu put it more bluntly: “If you don’t do a good job on these, you might be fired.” I’ve talked about this in past blogs, but I wanted to give a bit more detail here to show how this works.

Traditionally, the criteria for official evaluations have been tied mainly to economic development and other targets. But in recent years, the government has begun to incorporate environmental and energy targets into this evaluation system. In November 2007, the government issued a set of detailed criteria for measuring government officials on how well they meet the energy intensity target. Here is an English translation of the criteria (see Chinese original):

The criteria list is impressive in its detail. The criteria measure not only how well officials perform against targets in the aggregate, but give points for officials to meet specific smaller targets that help to achieve the larger goal. For example, officials can earn 8 points (out of 100) for “completing the year’s goal of eliminating retrograde production capacity.” This has been a policy goal that is generally considered to have good implementation. To give you a sense of what this looks like, here are a few photos:

Studies have shown that environmental evaluation criteria have been effective in moving government officials’ behavior. For example, in Guangdong Province, use of environmental evaluation criteria led mayors to invest more aggressively in waste water treatment plants and other environmental facilities, and resulted in agencies working together more closely on enforcement actions.

As Lü Xuedu said, China has put in systems to make sure it meets its targets. These systems are particularly relevant to the talks in Copenhagen these two weeks because Minister Xie Zhenhua has explicitly stated (in announcing China’s carbon intensity target) that it will use these administrative mechanisms to achieve its announced carbon intensity target.

How this will translate into the international climate agreement remains to be seen. What is clear is that China has done a great deal, much of which the rest of the world is unaware, to improve implementation of climate-related targets. This performance should help to engender trust among the other nations of the world. It’s a reason China may be willing to lead the developing countries by example through greater transparency and disclosure of its actions and emissions.

NRDC Official Side Event @ Copenhagen: Tuesday, Dec. 8th 6:15pm

2009-12-07T09:55:42Z

We are hosting an official COP15 side event tomorrow in Copenhagen. China and the U.S. are moving forward aggressively to combat climate change. More needs to be done for sure, but the foundation for the types of on-the-ground collaboration needed to truly solve the problem is already in place. Come listen to a distinguished panel of experts discuss the ways in which China is tackling climate change and cooperating with the US and other countries of the world.

The Natural Resources Defense Council: Official COP15 Side Event

China and the World: Solving climate change through practical, on-the-ground collaboration

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 18:15 – 19:45

Room: Dan Turell, Bella Center

China is seeking a lower-carbon development path through greater energy efficiency, development of renewable/low-carbon energy, and improved energy/environmental governance. Top US and Chinese experts analyze China’s progress to date, challenges ahead, and the most important on-the-ground solutions. Their topics will cover industrial and building energy efficiency, renewables, low-carbon fuels for vehicles, carbon capture and sequestration, and environmental governance.

Panelists:

Barbara A. Finamore, China Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
Dr. Mark Levine, Senior Scientist, Group Leader and Founder of the China Energy Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy
Dr. Lü Xuedu, Deputy Director-General, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration
Robert Earley, Low Carbon Transportation Program Manager, Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (iCET)

NRDC discussants:

Jake Schmidt, International Climate Policy Director
Qian Jingjing, Deputy Director, China Program
Alex Wang, Director of China Environmental Law Project
Dr. Kevin Mo, Senior Sustainable Buildings Specialist

For more information, contact Alvin Lin at alin@nrdc.org and Jingjing Qian at jqian@nrdc.org

Welcome to Copenhagen!

2009-12-07T05:05:55Z

We registered at the Bella Center yesterday morning and witnessed the calm before the storm. The momentum is palpable as an estimated 25,000 begin to check-in to decide how the world tackles the greatest environmental challenge of our time.

Jake Schmidt has already laid out the key issues here, here, here, here and here. Read his posts for the lay of the land. My colleagues and I from the China team will be blogging about developments relevant to China this week and next.

NRDC Asia Society panel on US-China climate, Obama & Copenhagen (VIDEO)

2009-12-02T10:00:59Z

The video of our recent Monday morning panel at the Asia Society in NY is available online. Professor Jerome Cohen presided over the event. NRDC China Program Director Barbara Finamore discussed China's progress on climate and the opportunities for international collaboration. Orville Schell talked about the US-China dynamic and the recent Asia Society-Center for American Progress-Monitor Group report on carbon capture and sequestration. I talked about the thorny question of how China will implement and meet its energy and carbon targets on the ground.

Things are moving at a rapid clip these days. This panel was just two weeks ago, but the landscape has already shifted in a number of major ways - it came right before the series of US-China energy collaborations announced during Obama's visit, prior to the US emissions reduction announcement, and before China's carbon intensity target news.

During this panel, we talk about very interesting progress on the "how do we know China will do what it says it will?" front that many outside of China may not be aware of - including the push to use bureaucratic job evaluations to meet China's energy intensity and environmental targets, as well as the Top 1000 energy consuming enterprises program. When China says that its recently announced carbon intensity targets will be "binding" domestically, the bureaucratic job evaluations (that determine the promotion prospects of government leaders), bureaucratic tools for punishing poor performance, and other measures are the types of initiatives that will be put in place to make this a reality on the ground. Xie Zhenhua, China's lead climate negotiator, was explicit about this at last week's press conference ("Domestically, they will be binding. We'll use statistics, monitoring, bureaucratic evaluations and accountability systems to realize these targets." "在国内来说它是有约束力的，我们要通过统计、监测、考核、问责来实现这个目标。")

The challenges - of course - are still significant, but this only strengthens the argument for strong, decisive US-China collaboration on emissions monitoring, environmental governance, energy efficiency, CCS, and so on. The US EPA and China's NDRC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (download PDF) on greenhouse gas emissions monitoring the week of President Obama's visit to China. The agreement is extremely general and needs to be fleshed out, but this is certainly a start. The series of US-China energy announcements on efficiency, electric vehicles, CCS, etc. is another very positive recent development.

We are farther along towards a true global climate deal, with the US, China and the other major emitters in the game. Let's hope for real progress in Copenhagen. Let us know if you'll be there. Our team begins to arrive this coming weekend for the big show.

Link: Asia Society - The Run-up to Copenhagen

Obama in China: What Should be Done to Build Confidence on US-China Climate Action

2009-11-16T17:30:01Z

The leaders of the world asked for an extension on climate action in Singapore this past weekend. As Jake Schmidt points out, whether this is good or bad depends on how the leaders of the world's top emitters use this extra time beyond Copenhagen. To wit, will nations use the extra time to break through some of the key sticking points on the way to a serious agreement, or is this just more delay?

This means that President Obama has some work to do in China this week. Climate change has already been placed clearly at the top of the agenda for his visit to China, and this is a remarkable development. But important advancements need to be made this week to push forward on building the trust and technical capabilities needed to bring about a meaningful international climate agreement.

One area of clear mutual interest is in the growing of green-tech industries and markets on both sides of the Pacific. The US and China both have a major interest in dealing with the negative impacts of their reliance on coal. Renewables, energy efficiency, and carbon capture technologies are areas for mutual cooperation and its time to get beyond rhetoric to start working through the details. Some in China are concerned that US efforts to promote climate and environmental action in China are an effort to constrain China's economic growth and rise on the world stage. President Obama has already begun to lay the rhetorical response that this is not the case, but concrete agreements with clear win-wins for both economies will help back up the words.

Another issue is concern in the US and elsewhere that China will not be able to implement the commitments it makes on climate. This has been raised as a barrier to action on US domestic climate legislation and in the international climate negotiations. One issue here is for China to help the US and other countries understand the significant steps already being taken to improve enforcement of climate and environmental targets.

Government official evaluations - These include detailed evaluation systems for government officials that tie promotion and compensation opportunities to achievement of national energy intensity and pollution reduction targets. In the environmental context, such inclusion of environmental targets in Chinese bureaucratic evaluation systems has been shown to lead to greater investment in environmental protection and strengthened enforcement action.
The Top 1000 program - China also implemented a program to set energy intensity targets for China's top-1000 energy using enterprises. This involved negotiated targets and agreements with companies and has driven action over the past few years. If ultimate targets are reached, this would mean CO2 emissions reductions equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Poland.

These are measures with "Chinese characteristics" tailored to local circumstances, and the international community needs to know that this and other governance reform is ongoing and active in China.

But how to demonstrate that these measures are effective? How China measures any progress on GHG emissions reductions is a difficult issue fraught with challenges. Indeed, this is a challenge that the US is working on right now itself. Outside of the power sector, the US does not have experience in accurately measuring GHG emissions either and is currently putting in place a system to do so. This presents an ideal opportunity for US-China collaboration - to have experts from both nations work to build trust and break through technical barriers. China is making some progress on environmental transparency in general (see here), but much work needs to be done in developing the methodologies to measure GHGs. This will be an essential building block on the way to a strong international climate agreement.

The US and China can start this week to pave the road to a strong agreement next year by putting an agreement in place that includes a strong step forward on green-tech collaboration, while establishing intensive collaboration on the governance structures and techniques for measuring and tracking GHG emissions reductions that would result from climate action.

These would send a strong signal that the announcement over the weekend in Singapore will lead to better, more effective climate action, and was not - as many are saying - another failure of the world's top GHG emitters to lead the way on climate change.

More Heavy Metal Mania: another China pollution round-up

2009-11-02T09:29:46Z

The parade of pollution incidents in China has continued over the past few months and the Chinese (and international) media should be applauded for their continued coverage. In addition to pollution incidents in Shaanxi, Hunan, Inner Mongolia and elsewhere (see our earlier post here), a new spate of cases have come to light:

In Linyi, Shandong Province, 3 people were convicted on criminal charges for dumping massive amounts of arsenic-laden waste water into the Yellow River. This case was another instance of the use of the criminal provision regarding "spreading of toxic or hazardous substances," with its heavier criminal penalties, that we wrote about previously.
In August 2009, more than 1,300 children in Wugang, Hunan Province were found to have abnormally high levels of lead, believed to be caused by coal, manganese and iron smelting plants in the area;
More than 200 children in Kunming, Yunnan Province were found to have excessive levels of lead - the source of the pollution is disputed;
In September 2009, at least 121 children living near a battery plant in the southern province of Fujian tested with high-levels of blood lead;
In October 2009, 968 children in Jiyuan, Henan Province - China's biggest lead smelting base - showed excessive lead levels, leading to a plan to move the 15,000 local residents away from the pollution zone.

In response, the central government has announced several measures:

In response to the Fengxiang and Wugang incidents, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) approved in principle a draft "Implementation Plan for the Comprehensive Handling of Heavy Metal Pollution" on August 28, 2009. A final draft is still in preparation as of this writing. MEP has stated that this plan will include strengthening reform of industrial structure, raising the environmental threshold for projects, strengthening regulation of enterprise pollution, and rapidly establishing a regulatory system for managing heavy metal pollutant emissions and a complete inspection and supervision system for prevention and control of such pollution.
On September 29, 2009, MEP announced that it would - along with eight (8) other ministries or bureaus** - commence a three-month nation-wide campaign to investigate enterprises that involve significant amounts of heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and arsenic) in production, storage or transport processes.

The heightened media atte ntion, public concern and proposed government action are all necessary actions, but they are not enough. Perhaps the most important announcement MEP made concerns "rapidly establishing a regulatory system for managing heavy metal pollutant emissions and a complete inspection and supervision system for prevention and control of such pollution." This is an important recognition of the systemic nature of the problem. Development of a system that can address pollution risks before they explode into major incidents is a must for protection of human health, minimization of costs and maintenance of social stability in China. There are a host of measures that can be taken to fix the post-hoc nature of the current environmental regulatory system for heavy metal pollution (in no particular order).

Give central environmental officials stronger authority and resources to step in when local governments fail to regulate. To break up local protectionism China's central environmental authorities need sufficient legal authority and resources (human and financial) to intervene in a sustained way in areas where local governments fail to fulfill their legal duties. MEP's authority should be expanded (even beyond its recent elevation to full ministry status). Such a move would be critical to addressing the types of heavy metal incidents that have been filling the headlines in recent months.
Tie government official career prospects more closely to reduction of heavy metal pollution.China has had relatively good success with its total emissions control (TEC) system, which for now sets volume reduction targets for emissions of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution. Part of its success is the incorporation of pollution reduction targets into government official job evaluations. This has the impact of focusing the minds of officials even at the lowest levels of the system. This is one of those systems with "unique Chinese characteristics" and its strengths should be harnessed in the name of controlling heavy metal pollution as well.
Disclose emissions to the public. This is perhaps the simplest measure government can take to help reduce pollution. Information disclosure can assist overburdened enforcement officials by driving enterprises to reduce their own pollution, empowering the public the monitor loc al polluters and providing other stakeholders (like banks and corporate purchasers) with the tools to channel business away from bad environmental actors. China has already moved in this direction and expanding use of information as a regulatory tool is low-hanging fruit for pollution reduction.
Establish serious penalties for data falsification and illegal operation. When companies provide false data to the government, this weakens the very foundation of the environmental regulatory system. Yet, penalties for lying to the government and obstructing inspections are extremely low (capped at around US$7,000 in China's water pollution law with no criminal penalties, for example). There should be criminal liability for intentionally lying about environmental data or obstructing government inspection work. Moreover, many enterprises often begin operations without going through basic registration and environmental impact assessment procedures. This makes it more difficult for authorities to regulate these entities and leaves some of the worst polluters out of the scope of environmental regulation. Stronger penalties and enforcement authorities (such as the ability to attach personal liability to company officials) should be put in place for such behaviors.
Ramp-up the monitoring network. There is an urgent need to establish an effective ambient air monitoring network for pollutants with ambient air quality standards. Without a monitoring network continuously measuring air quality in population centers and near priority pollution sources, the air quality standards in place provide little protection to those who most need them. In addition, the monitoring data will provide an important check against fraudulent pollution reports that may be filed by large emitters. China has already invested much in this and is planning to expand its nation-wide monitoring network. The need to ramp-up quickly is more urgent than ever now.
Develop a comprehensive approach to responding to pollution incidents. Finally, the response to pollution incidents should be expanded to incorporate the full-range of tools for reducing health risk from heavy metal pollution, including human and environmental sampling, emergency response activities, environmental remediation, exposure reduction, and human health protection measures. These tools should be established on the polluter pays principle, but provide the resources for governmental agencies to act immediately and seek reimbursement later if the polluter is unwilling or unable to react immediately and responsibly. China is using some, but not all, of these tools now and work can be done to make the response system more robust and more standardized around the country.

Experts in China have been calling for these reforms and the time is right to put these recommendations in place. Where China has applied its full array of governance tools - say in the areas of energy efficiency and reduction of sulfur dioxide - there has been progress. Heavy metal pollution has been taking a drastic toll on China and the time is right to apply that type of approach here.

Visit Greenlaw! See NRDC's bilingual blog dedicated to discussion of China's environmental law, policy and civil society at http://www.greenlaw.org.cn (Chinese) and http://www.greenlaw.org.cn/enblog (English).

** In addition to MEP, the other ministries or offices involved in this campaign are: the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC; http://www.ndrc.gov.cn); Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT; http://www.miit.gov.cn); Ministry of Supervision (MOS; http://www.mos.gov.cn); Ministry of Justice (MOJ; http://www.moj.gov.cn); Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD; http://www.cin.gov.cn); State Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC; http://www.saic.gov.cn); State Administration of Work Safety (http://www.chinasafety.gov.cn); State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC;http://www.serc.gov.cn).

Lu Guang's Amazing China Pollution Photos

2009-10-27T03:22:06Z

Chinese photographer Lu Guang has won the 2009 W. Eugene Smith Award for his pictures of pollution in China. You can see an extensive set of photos here.

If you have not seen Eugene Smith's photographs of Minimata, you should take a look. They are stunning. And they helped to change the course of environmental protection in Japan.

The Big Turtle King: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Joined the Green-Tech Revolution

2009-10-21T04:50:20Z

Much has been written in recent months about China's coming green-tech revolution, leading some to ask whether this is a genuine phenomenon or not (see also here). I decided to see for myself and, this past weekend, took one small step into the green-tech revolution. I became the owner of one of the more than 100 million electric bikes in China (some 90% of the world market). .

I had ridden these many years before and not been impressed by battery power, performance, etc. A few weeks ago, however, my friend Evan Osnos purchased a more recent vintage of electric bike, a Vespa-like electric moped known as the Little Turtle King. His reviews were exceedingly positive, so I decided to jump back in for a try.

My colleague, Rich Kassel, notes that the more environmental option is still just to ride a bike and that in New York City the numbers of bike commuters has been growing (up 45% since 2006). However, e-bikes are the growth area in China. They are filling a niche created by the need to travel greater distances, still insufficient public transit systems and the hassle and relative unaffordability of cars for many people. Air quality in Beijing can be a major deterrent to bike riding and, for me, an e-bike would replace longer trips that typically would have been taken via taxi.

Last Saturday, I travelled up north to the same strip of e-bike stores near Tsinghua University where Mr. Osnos purchased his Little Turtle King. After a survey of the various models, including Little Turtle Kings and what appeared to be copies of Little Turtle Kings, I settled on the da gui wang - or Big Turtle King, which is like a larger Vespa with curving motorcycle handlebars. Though e-bikes have the benefit of lower energy use and no local emissions, a crucial environmental downside of most electric bikes sold in China is that they come standard with a lead-acid battery. By one estimate the production of each lead acid battery results in 3 kg of lead emissions. Given 100 million e-bikes in China and counting, that's a lot of lead emitted. Disposal of lead-acid batteries also represents a major hazard to the environment on the other end of the battery life-cycle.

The cleaner alternative was a lithium-ion battery. This came at a price though. With the standard lead-acid battery, the cost of the turtle king amounted to about five hundred and fifty US dollars (3750RMB). Switching to a lithium-ion battery added another five hundred and seventy dollars (4000RMB), more than doubling the price of the vehicle. Still the shopkeeper told me that half of their sales were for lithium-ion battery bikes, not because of the environmental benefit, but because of alleged performance boost - longer range (up to 100km on a single charge vs. 50km with the lead-acid battery), more power and a lighter battery. I suggested that she should advertise the environmental benefit. She seemed to nod in assent.

In the end, I rode out of the dealership on a brand new, shiny black Big Turtle King (with lithium battery) onto the mean streets of Beijing, where I found myself at every intersection surrounded by an incredible diversity of vehicles, electric and otherwise, competing for Darwinian supremacy. Amid this motley assortment, electric vehicles were clearly edging into the lead. Indeed, they were everywhere, in all shapes, sizes and formats. And it is here where I think you can see China's green-tech revolution taking shape - the product of government policies (on e-bikes) dating back to the early 1990s - even if all those people on electric bikes are blissfully unaware of it. It is not necessarily pretty in the beginning, but with all the ferment and China's legendary reputation for rapid change, you disregard China's green-tech revolution at your own peril. .

Indeed, my turtle king was a makeshift retrofit from a gas-powered scooter body. The technician sawed a jagged hole under the seat of my new bike to insert a large lithium battery that can only be described as a US tort lawyer's dream (there are two identical plugs emerging from the battery, one for energy input and one for output; the technician warned "whatever you do, do not plug your charger into the wrong one" as she hand-labeled each plug by ballpoint pen.). And on day 2 with my turtle king I ran out of juice after 45km instead of the advertised 80-100km. However, as my colleague Roland Hwang notes, China's electric vehicle companies are looking to learn from the tremendous success of the e-bike industry, trying to figure out how to build up from the lessons learned in putting 100 million plus e-bikes on the road. I expect these early kinks to be worked out in fairly short order.

In the meantime, as a consumer and Beijing city resident, my move to an e-bike has been thrilling. I am seeing Beijing in a whole new light, traveling down side streets I would never otherwise see, getting glimpses of daily Beijing life that have been hidden from me over the past five years, and perhaps best of all beating the choking traffic that all those poor car drivers cannot avoid.

China Environmental News: More open information, stronger rights protection

2009-09-13T12:28:09Z

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

The Shaanxi lead poisoning incident and other stories: a China pollution round-up

2009-08-18T20:33:27Z

In recent weeks, Chinese media has been awash in news about pollution accidents or other incidents around China. Here is an overview:

Lead poisoning in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province: more than 600 children were found to have lead poisoning (see here and here also) [Update: The smelter has been shutdown in the wake of unrest.] .
Cadmium poisoning in Liuyang County, Hunan Province (see here also).
78 officials sued over 'environmental neglect' in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province.
4,000 people sickened by tap water contamination in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia (see here also).
An ammonia gas leak in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia: more than 200 workers were hospitalized when a pipe carrying ammonia gas burst.
Contaminated drinking water in Pinglu County, Shanxi Province: more than 100 people became ill from 'suspected water contamination.'
Aniline pollution in Jilin City, Jilin Province: this story gained nation-wide and international attention when workers' alleged illnesses were attributed to hysteria (see also).
The award for best title goes to Caijing for its excellent expose entitled 'Heavy Metal Warfare' on Hunan Province's attempts to deal with its massive heavy metal pollution problems.

So, what exactly is going on here?

Just these media-reported incidents accounted for over 5,000 people sickened by pollution in the last few months. We thought China was in the middle of a 'green leap forward' (See Christina Larson's piece on this "China paradox"). These incidents remind us of how intractable China's pollution efforts will be unless significantly more is devoted to fundamentally reshaping China's environmental governance.

It is no surprise that recent progress in China's green tech has been driven by the powerful National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC), and not the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), which is responsible for pollution control. Combine an insufficiently strong environmental agency with still limited opportunities for public supervision (though we are seeing incremental signs of change here and in a variety of public participation mechanisms China is implementing) and the troubling incidents listed above are the result. Any solution, we believe, will require building up MEP's authority and continuing the moves in China on public involvement.

Getting the job done

The Caijing article in general gives a terrific overview of the type of comprehensive strategy, including central-local collaboration, increased funding, technical assistance and other techniques that will be needed if China is to begin to really tackle its pollution issues. The article also has a story that reminds us how hard local enforcement can be in China (C. McElwee was already on this last week).

When a small smelter on the list of the government's closure plan refused to stop production well after its deadline had passed, the county chief, flanked by local NPC delegates, relevant government agencies and armed paramilitary police, stormed into the plant and destroyed its furnaces with three tons of dynamite.

The article also talks about steps being taken in Changsha, which has been designated as one of two major environmental pilot cities in China (the other is Wuhan).[1] Let's hope that this experimentation produces the sort of change needed to really get pollution under control. While we don't normally recommend it, whether or not this change requires several tons of dynamite, we leave to the local experts.

[1] These are so-called "two-style society" (两型社会) pilot cities - short for资源节约型、环境友好型社会 (resource conserving and environmentally friendly).