Confounded by rising discharges of industrial waste and the
deterioration in water and air quality, China's environment
watchdog is setting up an extensive automation network to conduct
real-time monitoring of the countries' most notorious
polluters.
On Thursday, Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental
Protection Administration (SEPA), announced that, "China is now
launching an automated project which, by the end of 2008, will
closely monitor key polluters who account for 65 percent of the
country's industrial waste."
Environment agencies and activists have complained that after
being inspected by SEPA officials, many industrial plants simply
turn off their expensive sewage disposal facilities and resume the
dumping of waste directly into rivers.
As a result, many rivers have started to turn black, with fish
populations in rapid decline.
Zhou stated that SEPA's new nationwide real-time monitoring
network is aimed at preventing such contempt for government
policies. The network will also monitor the activities of urban
sewage disposal plants.
In order to ensure the success of the new network, Zhou also
announced the implementation of a new government assessment system
to ensure that organizations or local officials that choose to
ignore their responsibility towards pollution control will be
properly dealt with.
The Chinese government has set a goal of slashing the emissions
of major pollutants by 10 percent during its 11th Five-Year Plan
period (2006-2010), but it recently admitted that it had failed to
meet its 2006 goal of a 2 percent reduction.
A recent SEPA report revealed that last year, sulphur dioxide
emissions increased by 463,000 tons in China, 1.8 percent higher
than the previous year. The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), a water
pollution index, reached 14.31 million tons, a 1.2 percent rise on
2005.
China aims to reduce its sulphur dioxide emissions and COD this
year by 3.2 million tons and 1.23 million tons respectively.
"We are optimistic we can meet the target by taking a series of
concrete measures," Zhou said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has decided to head up a taskforce in
a bid to ensure that government targets are met and the ongoing
trend of deterioration is brought to a halt.
Analysts claim that this unprecedented move by the Premier will
serve as a deterrent for local governments who are more interested
in economic growth than environmental protection.
Zhou Shengxian, also revealed that plans are in the pipeline for
the assessment of local government work on pollution control, in
which authorities that fail to meet pollution control targets will
be punished by cuts in financial support from the central
government. Local officials' promotion prospects are also set to be
judged by their efforts in reducing pollution.
"Environment indices will be publicized for public supervision,"
said Zhou, "those who fabricate them will be dealt with
appropriately."
(Xinhua News Agency May 10, 2007)
