"The research on green GDP will continue. We will not write off
the project as long as the appropriate departments don't put it on
hold," announced Wang Jinnan, the team leader of the green GDP
project, earlier in August during an interview with the China
Economy weekly. Wang was obliquely referring to the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Wang said his team was working on the green accounting for the
year 2006. He also implied that because the 2005 report had been
suspended did not necessarily entail a scrapping of his newer
project.
When SEPA and NBS jointly unveiled the 2004 China Green National
Economic Accounting Study Report in September 2006, they also
promised that the one for 2005 would be published at the end of
2006 or in early 2007.
But the two departments failed to keep their word. "The report
can't be released because there is no international standard
available for green GDP accounting; no other country has conducted
this kind of accounting," Xie Fuzhan, the head of NBS, announced at
a press conference on July 12.
Expectation was further confounded when Wang Jinnan confirmed on
July 22 that the report would be delayed indefinitely. His
statement sparked wider concerns on the future of the green
accounting. This process is believed necessary by 96.4 percent of
the 2,504 respondents of a recent poll conducted by Social Survey
Center of China Youth Daily and the Tencent News
Center.
"My team will not stop researching the green GDP even if the
project led by SEPA and NBS is shelved," stated Wang.
The unpublished report
Wang said that the 2005 report, though not published, had been
hammered out in December 2006. It covers 42 sectors in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities. This is a significant increase compared to the
10 pilot provinces in the 2004 report. Moreover, the 2005 report
listed losses caused by pollution and the amount deducted from the
GDP in these locales.
"These reports are direct reminders aimed to educate the local
governments about the environmental prices paid for economic
growth," Wang explained.
The 2005 report factors in the pollution counts, the potential
treatment costs and the environmental degradation costs.
Pollution counts refers to the amount of pollutants produced,
treated and discharged. The potential treatment cost is the
expenditure used to clean up the discharged pollutant via current
technology. Environmental degradation costs refer to the damage
created by pollution, such as the crop failure and health
hazards.
The SEPA and the World Bank (WB) developed the methodology. Two
inventors adapted it, as well as the NBS, into their respective
statistics covering losses suffered from pollution in 2003 and
2004.
Although Wang's team has improved the methodology, the 2005
green GDP doesn't factor in the costs associated with natural
resources consumption or losses occurring from ecological
destruction: underground water pollution, soil pollution, indoor
air pollution, etc.
Technical challenges
Green GDP is never short of controversy because of its
methodological problems.
Several months after SEPA and NBS kicked off the Study on
China's Green National Economic Accounting in March 2004, Wang
Jinnan, during the 5th Young Scholar Annual Meeting of the China
Association for Science and Technology in Shanghai, pointed out
that green accounting could not be put into practice unless the
technical problems were first solved.
As there is no established practice in the world, Wang and his
colleagues have to "cross the river by feeling the stones".
"Green GDP is good. But it's difficult to implement," said Zheng
Jinping, the spokesman of the NBS. "Some departments may expect too
much from this type of accounting."
Li Deshui, former director of the NBS, also raised questions
about the possibility of deducting environmental costs from the GDP
at the China Summit on the Development of Recycling Economy.
The seasoned statistician held that it was hard to follow
territorial principles in estimating environmental and resource
losses; no sophisticated international standards yet existed. He
made his point by citing an example: if a downstream province were
affected by wastewater discharged by an upstream one, which
province should subtract the environmental cost from its GDP?
Li maintained that since it's difficult to determine the price
of sunshine, air, water, or other resources that cannot be traded
in the market, the departments concerned should focus on the
pollution count statistics.
?
Three years after the green GDP project was launched, Xie Fuzhan,
on behalf of the NBS, voiced skepticism regarding the scientific
basis of green accounting.
Green government performance evaluation
Besides technical problems, political meddling is another
stumbling block hindering the release of the 2005 report.
"Once the report is published, people will find the economic
picture of many provinces is not as rosy as the local officials
have portrayed. It's definitely unacceptable for officials in areas
where serious environmental problems exist," said Wang.
When the project was initiated in 2004, Pan Yue, deputy director
of the SEPA, expressed concerns that in the long run, it is with a
green GDP and a holistic approach to access governmental
performance that would help to put China's economy on a green
road.
He called for the integration of a green GDP into already
established government performance evaluation systems when the 2004
report was unveiled in 2006.
"It seems unrealistic but environmental protection can be
incorporated in the system," said Wang. Although it will take a
long time to turn the green GDP project into a criteria assessing
officials' performance, such an evaluation mechanism is a must to
further develop scientific methodology.??
(China.org.cn by Ma Yina, August 28, 2007)
