Is the time ripe for regional environmental cooperation? 

Environmental pollution transcends political boundaries, whereas authority of governments is normally confined within their regional or national borders. This seeming contradiction was not as significant when economic and environmental developments were at a lower level and understanding of the nature of environmental problems was still at a primitive stage.

The once widely accepted principle that "local governments should be responsible for local environmental quality" has gradually lost its impetus because people have learned that in some cases that responsibility has gone beyond the local jurisdiction and become impossible to fulfill.

While governments have started to pay more attention in their policy design to address environmental externalities, particularly with more market-based instruments (MBIs), spatial limitation on their environmental responsibilities can lead to competition for environmental resources and the "tragedy of the commons."

Motivation of transboundary environmental cooperation comes from both the pressure to find true solutions to environmental problems and the pursuit of a win-win strategy.

Successful examples are common in the international arena, manifested in both global environmental conventions and a selective group of countries' co-operation to solve a regional problem.

The annual Northeast Asia Conference on Environmental Cooperation (NEAC), which includes China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Mongolia, was started in 1992. It has played an important role in the attempts to solve regional acid rain, sand storms and marine pollution. By comparison, domestic regional environmental cooperation could be more effective because it enjoys one advantage: enforcement and co-ordination from the higher government, which does not exist in the international scenario.

The Northeast States for Co-ordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) program in the US, which was founded in 1967 by some northeastern state governors, is based on the understanding that common problems require a co-ordinated approach.

China is facing severe environmental problems resulting from rapid economic development over the past two decades.

Though the country has made great progress in environmental protection, both in finding innovative approaches and maintaining a reasonable environmental quality, it was not until recently that people began to pay serious attention to such transboundary environmental problems as acid rain.

True cooperation takes root gradually because it is built upon two important factors: increased awareness and attention to environmental problems, which is closely linked to economic development. All parties involved share a common understanding of the problem and are all willing to cooperate.

The Yangtze River Delta represents an area with the most rapid economic growth in China. In 2003, the combined gross domestic product of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang accounted for approximately 23.9 percent of the nation. Rapid economic development has also brought environmental challenges to the region, as evidenced by acid rain coverage and water quality problems in the Taihu Lake watershed.

Regional cooperation is not a foreign idea to the three provinces any more as many regional initiatives, such as telecommunication and personnel management, have dominated the agendas of local leaders.

However, as the market itself will probably be the final judge in individual enterprise's choice in the development of local economy, environmental cooperation is a true governmental initiative that requires both the leadership of the central government and the championship of local governments to establish momentum in order not to fall behind other sectors in terms of development.

Recently some very encouraging signs have emerged in the area. During one recent Yantze River Delta regional environmental cooperation forum that was organized by the People's Daily, the US-based Environmental Defence, and the School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) of Tsinghua University, the three participating localities established the conditions to realize regional environmental cooperation beyond administrative boundaries.

Setting the foundation for regional environmental cooperation certainly requires more than one meeting. But it appears the three localities have at least come to the conclusion the time is ripe for initiating some serious actions.

The significance of their cooperation doesn't stop at improvement of local environmental quality. Environmental Defence and Tsinghua's SPPM published their "Regional Environmental Co-operation Blue Book" during the event, which links the success of this new initiative to the revitalization of the entire country.

They're not alone in that ambitious vision.

"To achieve regional environmental cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta region will be of great significance to the sustainable development of the whole country," said Chen Qingtai, deputy director with the Development Research Center of the State Council.

(China Daily June 28, 2004)