As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/world/asia/as-chinas-environmental-woes-worsen-infighting-emerges-as-biggest-obstacle.html?src=rechp&_r=0
By Edward Wong, March 21, 2013
Smog
veiled the China Central Television Building in Beijing last week. Air
pollution hit record levels in north China last month.
BEIJING — China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigs have been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City.
So severe are China’s environmental woes, especially the noxious air, that top government officials have been forced to openly acknowledge them. Fu Ying, the spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress, said she checked for smog every morning after opening her curtains and kept at home face masks for her daughter and herself. Li Keqiang, the new prime minister, said the air pollution had made him “quite upset” and vowed to “show even greater resolve and make more vigorous efforts” to clean it up.
What the leaders neglect to say is that infighting within the government
bureaucracy is one of the biggest obstacles to enacting stronger
environmental policies. Even as some officials push for tighter
restrictions on pollutants, state-owned enterprises — especially China’s
oil and power companies — have been putting profits ahead of health in
working to outflank new rules, according to government data and
interviews with people involved in policy negotiations.
For instance, even though trucks and buses crisscrossing China are far
worse for the environment than any other vehicles, the oil companies
have delayed for years an improvement in the diesel fuel those vehicles
burn. As a result, the sulfur levels of diesel in China are at least 23
times that of the United States. As for power companies, the three
biggest ones in the country are all repeat violators of government
restrictions on emissions from coal-burning plants; offending power
plants are found across the country, from Inner Mongolia to the
southwest metropolis of Chongqing.
The state-owned enterprises are given critical roles in policy-making on
environmental standards. The committees that determine fuel standards,
for example, are housed in the buildings of an oil company. Whether the
enterprises can be forced to follow, rather than impede, environmental
restrictions will be a critical test of the commitment of Mr. Li andXi
Jinping, the new party chief and president, to curbing the influence of
vested interests in the economy.
Last month, after deadly air pollution hit record levels in northern
China, officials led byWen Jiabao, then the prime minister, put forward
strict new fuel standards that the oil companies had blocked for years.
But there are doubts about whether the oil companies will comply,
especially since oil officials resisted a similar government order for
higher-grade fuel four years ago. State-owned power companies have been
similarly resistant. The companies regularly ignore government orders to
upgrade coal-burning electricity plants, according to ministry data.
And as with the oil companies, the power companies exert an outsize
influence over environmental policy debates.
In 2011, during a round of discussions over stricter emissions standards, the China Electricity Council,
which represents the companies, pushed back hard against the proposals,
saying that the costs of upgrading the plants would be too high.
“During the procedure of setting the standard, the companies or the
industry councils have a lot of influence,” said Zhou Rong, a campaign
manager on energy issues for Greenpeace East Asia. “My personal opinion
is even if we have the most stringent standards for every sector, the
companies will violate those.”
On Feb. 28, Deutsche Bank released an analysts’ note saying that China’s
current economic policies would result in an enormous surge in coal
consumption and automobile sales over the next decade. “China’s air
pollution will become a lot worse from the already unbearable level,”
the analysts said, calling for drastic policy changes and “a strong
government will to overcome the opposition from interest groups.”
The report estimated that the number of passenger cars in China was on
track to hit 400 million by 2030, up from 90 million now.