call to go green in china

Chinese minister of environment, Mr. Zhou, has a word of warning for the newly rich."It is a disgraceful lifestyle to drive a BMW but have only dirty water to drink." We should be concerned about a lack of respect for the environment as the country carries out its economic stimulus plan. To Fact-finding teams from the Ministry of Environmental Protection recently visited some 40 cities and discovered defects in the 4-trillion yuan stimulus package, which is funding investment in many new infrastructure projects and factories. Of particular concern is environmental protection not being highlighted in the overall plan; new industrial operations causing additional environmental problems in China's central and western frontier regions; national environmental protection policies being affected; environmental management by companies becoming more relaxed, and corporate investment in pollution control seeing a marked decline.

From November to the end of February, the ministry rejected or suspended approval of 14 polluting and high energy-consuming projects with development budgets totaling 104 billion yuan. On top of that, ministry officials told China Daily yesterday that due partly to government policing of investment projects, China is fully capable of meeting its goals in the emission control of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand, a main index of water pollution. The target is to cut emissions by 10 percent of the nation's 2005 level, in line with the goals for the country's 2006-2010 development program.Controlling those two emissions had only been possible when developed countries' per capita GDP reached the $20,000 level. It is a feat for China to achieve the same when its per capital GDP is only around $3,000, he said.This is because the country has come to realize that no economic policy can be successful if not matched by sound environmental policy, Zhou said. Convinced that China can "use the crisis as an opportunity to adjust its industrial structure," Zhou also said he and his staff would keep an eye out for local governments attempting to ignore environmental protection in their investment initiatives.