MCLC: incentives to curb pollution

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: incentives to curb pollution
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (2/13/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/world/asia/china-to-reward-localities-for
-improving-air-quality.html

China to Reward Cities and Regions Making Progress on Air Pollution
By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — Chinese officials announced Thursday that they were offering a
total of 10 billion renminbi, or $1.65 billion, this year to cities and
regions that make “significant progress” in air pollution control,
according to a report by Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

The announcement came from the State Council
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90785/8534253.html>, China’s cabinet,
after it held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, the
country’s immense air pollution problem. “Control of PM2.5 and PM10 should
be a key task,” the State Council said in a statement, referring to two
kinds of particulate matter that are deemed harmful to human health.

The meeting was presided over by Li Keqiang, a member of the Communist
Party’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee and China’s prime minister.

The announcement of the financial incentives revealed how difficult it has
been for some leaders in Beijing to get many Chinese companies and
government officials to comply with environmental regulations. Though
central officials have been saying with growing vigor that pollution of
all kinds must be curbed, their efforts to force other parts of the
bureaucracy and the state-run economy to obey rules have been stymied by
the self-interest of some groups.

For example, the state-owned oil companies exert enormous influence on
environmental policy, including the setting of fuel standards, and
sometimes ignore orders from officials to upgrade their products.

On Thursday, Chinese news organizations reported that the Shanghai Academy
of Social Sciences had deemed Beijing to be “almost unfavorable for human
living.”

The judgment was part of an annual report on the livability of 40 world
cities released by the organization, which is tied to the Chinese
government.

Beijing ranked second worst in environmental conditions, and Shanghai was
the fifth worst. Other indexes used to evaluate the cities included
economics, governance and cultural innovation, according to China Daily,
an official English-language newspaper.

Over all, Shanghai ranked 21st and Beijing ranked 31st after the six
indexes were tallied. Tokyo, London, Paris, New York and Singapore made up
the top five.

The three cities with the best environmental rankings were Stockholm,
Vienna and Zurich. Moscow had the lowest ranking.

The news reports did not give details on what specific criteria and
methods were used for ranking cities in each index.

Last year, more than 100 cities in China had an average of 29.9 smoggy
days, which was a 52-year high, China Daily reported, though it did not
explain what constituted a smoggy day.

The Xinhua report on the State Council meeting said that the concentration
of PM2.5, a fine particulate matter that lodges deep in the lungs and
enters the bloodstream, increased by 56 percent in December compared with
the month before, based on monitoring results for 74 Chinese cities. The
measured concentration of PM10, a coarser particulate matter, rose by 30
percent that month.

Last month, Chinese news organizations reported that December was the
worst month for air pollution in 2013. More than 80 percent of the cities
with official air monitoring devices failed to meet the national air
quality standard for half of December.

The State Council announcement said that nationwide coal consumption must
be controlled, more vehicles should run on high-quality gasoline, energy
use in the construction industry should be lowered, and cleaner boilers
should be used.

The majority of China’s energy use is based on coal, whose burning,
besides being the major cause of air pollution in the country, also
contributes to greenhouse gases and global warming. China has surpassed
the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the
biggest coal consumer in the world. Xinhua reported last month that the
country’s coal production increased slightly
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-01/15/c_133048072.htm> in
2013 to 3.7 billion tons. Consumption was 3.61 billion tons, or 2.6
percent higher than the previous year.

In July 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection ordered more than
15,000 companies regarded as major sources of pollution to report
pollutant discharge levels starting this January. The companies account
for more than 80 percent of pollution of various kinds in China, according
to one official news report. The ministry’s order also required government
agencies to supervise the release of pollutants by the companies and their
attempts at self-monitoring.

The order was praised by Ma Jun, a well-known environmental advocate who
promotes transparency efforts, but it is unclear to what extent the
companies and government officials across China are now following the
mandate.

Throughout Thursday, a familiar gray haze cloaked Beijing. At the day’s
start, the United States Embassy’s air monitor in Beijing rated the air as
“hazardous,” a level at which all outdoor activity should be avoided. The
concentration of PM2.5 at the time was 268 micrograms per cubic meter, or
11 times the recommended exposure limit set by the World Health
Organization. The air stayed at unhealthy levels into the evening