China plans to adopt new economic policies to reinforce
environmental protection procedures, said Pan Yue, vice minister of
the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), on
September 9 during an interview with the Beijing News.
The former campaigns to crack down on environmental pollution
activities have been successful. However, Pan said, the measures
taken so far are not systemized and the final aim has yet to be
achieved.
“As a result, seven new economic policies have been put forward
to promote better environmental protection,” Pan said, adding that
they are completely different from the original campaigns. The new
procedures feature a broader framework and tougher measures. These
newly proposed policies shift their focus onto more concrete and
practical methods. Pan’s answers to the Beijing News questions are
highlighted and listed below:
The Chinese government’s primary goal has been to establish a legal
system that focuses on environmental protection. Beginning in early
2005, four large-scale law enforcement campaigns were enforced;
together they have greatly benefited China’s environmental
protection cause.
However, what has been achieved is far from what we anticipated.
Due to various inherent drawbacks of the legal enforcement system,
these campaigns have failed to form an integral whole. They have
not been effective enough to enact fundamental changes toward
protecting the environment. Their success has been only temporary:
when one illegal activity is suppressed, a new one emerges in its
place.
To turn the tide, new environmental policies have been proposed
to set up a comprehensive legal system for relevant works. In the
near future, to achieve these set goals, economic means will
replace administrative means to regulate environmental protection
works. Great efforts will be made to revise existing environmental
laws.
In comparison with developed countries, China is faced with a
more complicated situation regarding the construction of
environmental protection system, because environmental problems
here are always associated with various political, economical,
social and cultural issues. It is, therefore, unrealistic to depend
on one or two single policies to tackle our nation-wide
problem.
When building up an environmental protection system, efforts
shall be made to balance the interests of different sectors and
readjust the functions of different departments. Relevant
governmental institutions are now trying their best to meet zealous
public expectations.
In the past decades, the SEPA has been working hard to build up
a system for environmental protection despite existing
difficulties. Departments engaged in macro-economic control and
environmental protection will receive SEPA’s full support as they
collaborate to set up an umbrella system to study new policies on
energy conservation and pollutant discharge reduction.
In July of this year, SEPA, the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and
the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) jointly launched the
Green Credit Policy. The policy is regarded as the first one of its
kind in the country.
A database is now in place with 15,000 pieces of information on
activities in violation of environmental laws. This will make it
easy for commercial banks and other financial institutions to
identify companies with environmental offences and thus effectively
ban them from obtaining bank loans.
So far, the CBRC has released a blacklist catalogued by SEPA to
various banking institutions in China. Heavy polluters are
disqualified from getting loans from any bank or financial
institution. Meanwhile, foreign banks, such as the Standard
Chartered Bank, are planning to work with the Chinese environmental
protection departments to promote the Green Credit Policy.
According to Pan, however, it is still too early to reach a
conclusion regarding the Green Credit Policy. China’s deteriorating
environmental situation has left the country no spare time to work
out a policy after careful consideration. Environmental policies
must endure constant revision.
According to Pan, SEPA is currently working with the China
Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) to design guides to
implement environmental liability insurance. Meanwhile, the two
institutions are working to draw up plans for trial implementation
and lay down corresponding technological criterion. In these plans,
a series of issues, such as the insurance coverage, defining
environmental pollution liabilities, compensation standards and the
procedures to file compensation claims, are all stipulated in
explicit terms. To date, specific provinces and industries that
will pilot this policy have not yet been selected.
It was recently reported that the CNPC and Sinopec have held it
improper to incorporate large chemical enterprises into the
environmental liability insurance system. Pan Yue said he had not
received any formal notice from the two oil giants. However he
encouraged state-owned enterprises to enroll in the program,
because such insurance would share their economic risks once
serious pollution occurs.
Concerning the environmental tax, Pan said it is now the top
agenda of the government works. The financial and taxation
departments are working hard to define taxation measures that can
benefit environmental protection. The establishment and
implementation of an environmental tax is associated with a variety
of issues, including the establishment of a taxation system, the
relationship between environmental taxes and other taxes, the
calculation of a just tax rate, the cost of tax collection and the
impact of an environmental tax on the country’s economic and social
development. It therefore takes years to develop.
(China.org.cn by Chen Xia, September 12, 2007)
