Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Environment suffers due to vague laws, poor enforcement
By Danny Marks |
December 2, 2010, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
DELEGATES from around the world have now gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for the 16th world climate change conference. A spotlight is on China, one of the world's largest emitters.
China has steadily increased use of renewable energy and percentage of forested areas, and has continued to curb the birth rate of its population.
However, despite such a high-level political commitment, the country still has not reached a number of its targets, such as its goal of reducing national energy intensity, which is a country's energy consumption relative to its total output.
This is in part because of incoherent policies due to the decentralization of budgetary decision-making and encouragement for bureaucratic entrepreneurship. No single body exerts complete authority over pollution control. Specifically, the central government's efforts to curb China's overall emissions are hampered by three obstacles.
Obstacles
First, environmental policies are too broad and complicated, making it difficult for regulators to enforce the laws. As a result of environmental regulations' lack of precision, Chinese business owners and regulators often do not know what is prohibited and who can be called to account through legal measures.
Second, the current incentive structures of promotion and salary cause local officials to give higher priority to economic development than to environmental issues.
Third, environmental regulators, such as environmental agencies and the judiciary, remain weak and impeded by enforcement obstacles.
China's primary governmental environmental regulator, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, lacks enough resources to effectively oversee the implementation of climate change policies. The courts also face a human capital shortage: judges are poorly trained and the country lacks sufficient environmental prosecutors.
MEP has deemed that less than 10 percent of China's cities meet the requirements to be selected as National Model Environmental Cities.
China is likely to achieve better results if it undertakes the following recommendations:
First, it should direct resources to help the judiciary become environmentally competent and change the law so that jurisdiction of environmental law is given to a newly-created environmental court.
Second, it should strengthen MEP's regulatory capacity by increasing the size of the workforce and its budget.
Third, it should draft wide-ranging energy laws that are more specific, have harsher penalties, and have more stringent requirements.
For example, regulators should require that all new buildings are "zero-energy" and ban the transfer of old equipment from coastal to inland areas.
Fourth, it should work with local officials to encourage clean energy investment by exempting clean energy investments from foreign exchange and other policy controls, providing tax holidays to clean energy companies, giving banks more incentives to issue loans for clean energy projects, and streamlining financial procedures to facilitate climate-friendly investment.
Fifth, it should give local officials incentives to regulate climate change policies, such as giving monetary prizes for officials who do the best job reducing emissions.
Sympathy
At the same time, the international community should consider that one-third of China's CO2 emissions result from exports headed to developed countries and that the country has only emitted 7 percent of cumulative industrial greenhouse gases between 1850 and 2000 (whereas the US and EU each have accounted for almost 30 percent).
It therefore should be more sympathetic and seek to help China in any way it can.
The US particularly can provide significant help by leading by example.
A strong US commitment to climate change, beginning with the passage of a climate change bill, would give a big boost to China.
(The author is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Thailand, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. The views are his own. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
China has steadily increased use of renewable energy and percentage of forested areas, and has continued to curb the birth rate of its population.
However, despite such a high-level political commitment, the country still has not reached a number of its targets, such as its goal of reducing national energy intensity, which is a country's energy consumption relative to its total output.
This is in part because of incoherent policies due to the decentralization of budgetary decision-making and encouragement for bureaucratic entrepreneurship. No single body exerts complete authority over pollution control. Specifically, the central government's efforts to curb China's overall emissions are hampered by three obstacles.
Obstacles
First, environmental policies are too broad and complicated, making it difficult for regulators to enforce the laws. As a result of environmental regulations' lack of precision, Chinese business owners and regulators often do not know what is prohibited and who can be called to account through legal measures.
Second, the current incentive structures of promotion and salary cause local officials to give higher priority to economic development than to environmental issues.
Third, environmental regulators, such as environmental agencies and the judiciary, remain weak and impeded by enforcement obstacles.
China's primary governmental environmental regulator, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, lacks enough resources to effectively oversee the implementation of climate change policies. The courts also face a human capital shortage: judges are poorly trained and the country lacks sufficient environmental prosecutors.
MEP has deemed that less than 10 percent of China's cities meet the requirements to be selected as National Model Environmental Cities.
China is likely to achieve better results if it undertakes the following recommendations:
First, it should direct resources to help the judiciary become environmentally competent and change the law so that jurisdiction of environmental law is given to a newly-created environmental court.
Second, it should strengthen MEP's regulatory capacity by increasing the size of the workforce and its budget.
Third, it should draft wide-ranging energy laws that are more specific, have harsher penalties, and have more stringent requirements.
For example, regulators should require that all new buildings are "zero-energy" and ban the transfer of old equipment from coastal to inland areas.
Fourth, it should work with local officials to encourage clean energy investment by exempting clean energy investments from foreign exchange and other policy controls, providing tax holidays to clean energy companies, giving banks more incentives to issue loans for clean energy projects, and streamlining financial procedures to facilitate climate-friendly investment.
Fifth, it should give local officials incentives to regulate climate change policies, such as giving monetary prizes for officials who do the best job reducing emissions.
Sympathy
At the same time, the international community should consider that one-third of China's CO2 emissions result from exports headed to developed countries and that the country has only emitted 7 percent of cumulative industrial greenhouse gases between 1850 and 2000 (whereas the US and EU each have accounted for almost 30 percent).
It therefore should be more sympathetic and seek to help China in any way it can.
The US particularly can provide significant help by leading by example.
A strong US commitment to climate change, beginning with the passage of a climate change bill, would give a big boost to China.
(The author is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies, Thailand, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. The views are his own. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
