China’s Underwhelming Effort to Enforce Environmental Protection

Jul 1, 2016
3 min read

China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter as air pollution has reached shocking levels in popular cities such as its capital Beijing. However, for many years, the Chinese government has downplayed the severity of pollution, claiming that it is an unavoidable consequence of economic growth. After citizens starting voicing their concerns with the environment and the surge of smog in multiple cities, the government declared a “war against pollution.” During the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, Chinese President Xi Jin Ping promised to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. In the same year, the National People’s Congress belatedly updated the environmental protection law for the first time in 25 years and estimated that air quality would improve in about 5 to 10 years. According to their revisions, authorities now have stronger enforcement powers such as the right to detain persistent violators for up to 15 days and to enforce stricter punishments for factories that pollute. Moreover, the Communist Party now evaluates officials not only on their economic performance but also on their environmental record.

The new policies may aid China’s situation but cannot fix the consequences that have already occurred or are occurring today. China’s carbon emissions have contributed to global warming, caused wildlife damage, and impacted human healthy negatively. The consequences are costly, and the World Bank believes that the total cost of environmental degradation and resource depletion is approximately 9 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Furthermore, China may fail to keep its new promise since it has failed to enforce environmental laws in the past. For example, in 2013, the government announced its 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP) in which it promised to restrict the number of vehicles on the road, cut coal burning, and force factories to disclose their emissions data to the public. Local officials provide monetary support for local environmental bureaus, but they also maintain strong political ties to factory and power plant owners. Other local officials let companies pollute since emission-violation fees are a source of revenue for the government. Another issue is that most local environmental regulatory budgets come from pollution-discharge fees, which are based on the amount of pollution; consequently, reduced pollution can result in a loss of important funds. In addition, the government still fears citizen unrest over pollution violations and thus tries to prevent citizens from controlling pollution and limiting the number of environmental organizations; protestors face harassment or arrest.

The revisions to the environmental laws subsequently require major violators to disclose pollution data and local governments to release information on air quality, thereby increasing transparency. Ma Jun, an award-winning environmentalist and director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, asserts that information and transparency are key to motivating enforcement of environmental laws and mobilizing support for change. Ma and his team were able to create an interactive water and air pollution map, highlighting polluting companies around the country. As of now, most of China’s local governments disclose information online about local factory emissions. The government of Shandong province even publishes a monthly list of violators. Ma says that transparency is especially important in China because the central government lacks a functioning court system to enforce environmental laws. The Supreme People’s Court has made it easier for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sue polluters but it court often relegates cases concerning environmental laws to lower-level courts, which have strong ties to the government. As Ma points out, the process is “still not fully based on rule of law” and “polluters are still going to fight to influence the process.”

Although the Chinese government is making changes to improve the disastrous environment through either its FYP or increasing transparency, it will need more ambitious plans to qualify for both the Chinese national standard for and World Healthy Organization’s guidance level of pollution. Additionally, China should realize that investing in environmental improvement is a benefit as it can increase employment and technological advances.