It is of vital importance to the future of China to hold local government officials really accountable for energy saving and environmental protection.

An accountability mechanism under consideration by the central government as revealed by a senior official will hopefully make it imperative that government leaders or Party secretaries at any level will have no chance of being promoted as long as their governments fail to fulfill the targets of energy saving and reduction in discharge of major pollutants.

The country failed to achieve the target of saving 10 percent of energy for every 10,000 yuan GDP and reducing 10 percent of major pollutant discharge in the 10th Five-Year-Plan (2001-05). The 11th Five-Year-Plan (2006-10) sets both targets at 20 percent. However, we failed to fulfill both quotas of 4 percent in 2006, and both quotas rose in the first six months of this year rather than dropped.

The ominous sign is that energy-consuming, resource-intensive and highly polluting industries contributed 60 percent of the GDP growth in 2006 and the same was true of the growth in the first six month this year.

There is no denying that local governments have failed to place enough emphasis on the restructuring of their economy for energy-saving and reining in the discharge of major pollutants. Over-emphasis of GDP growth still dominates the agenda of local economic development.

The new accountability mechanism should be one of the options to thrust down the throats of local government leaders that efficient use of energy and resources and pollution control are vital to the sustainability of the country's development.

It is not easy to reverse the over-emphasis on GDP growth by local government officials as GDP growth means an increase in revenue or more money at the disposal of local governments. While energy saving and pollutant discharge reduction requires input in technology upgrading, which could even slow down GDP growth.

So such a mechanism must be designed that it is feasible and can really push local government officials to have a vision beyond their immediate interests.

The statistics department and auditing office must be vigilant against local governments providing false figures of the targets, which will affect the smooth implementation of this mechanism.

(China Daily July 31, 2007)