China gets tough on major industrial polluters

14 May, 2007: Being confronted with an increasing amount of industrial waste and deteriorating water and air quality, China is setting up an extensive automated network to conduct real-time monitoring of the country’s worst polluters.

Zhou Shengxian, Minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the top environment watchdog, announced that China is launching an automated system which, by the end of 2008, would closely monitor major polluters who account for 65% of the country’s industrial waste.

Environmental agencies and activists have complained that, after being inspected by SEPA officials, many industrial plants turn off their expensive sewage disposal facilities and resume dumping waste directly into rivers. As a result, many rivers have started to turn black, and the fish population is getting depleted quickly.

According to the China Daily, SEPA’s new nationwide real-time monitoring network is aimed at preventing blatant disregard for government’s policies. The automated network will also monitor the activities of urban sewage-disposal plants.

To ensure that the new automated network is effective, the government has set up an assessment system which would guarantee that organizations and local officials ignoring their responsibility to control pollution would be taken to task.

The Chinese government has set a goal of cutting emissions of major pollutants by 10% during its 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010). However, the government recently admitted that it had failed to meet its goal of a 2% reduction in 2006.

A recent report by SEPA revealed that, in 2006, sulphur dioxide emissions went up by 463,000 tonnes in China – which was 1.8% more than the previous year. The chemical oxygen demand (COD), a water pollution index, reached 14.31 million tonnes, a 1.2% rise over 2005.

The authorities want to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 3.2 million tonnes and the COD by 1.23 million tonnes.

Analysts say that the Chinese government’s unprecedented step will keep under check those local government officials who are more interested in economic growth than environmental protection.

Minister Zhou Shengxian has warned that officials who fail to meet pollution-control targets will be punished by cuts in financial support from the central government. Promotion prospects of local officials will also be judged by their efforts to reduce pollution.