Economist:China’s environment A small breath of fresh air

WHEN, in 2008, the American embassy in Beijing started publishing a measure of the fetid smog enveloping the capital, China’s government protested and ordered the publication to stop. Its instinct was to sweep unwelcome facts about the nauseating level of pollution in the country under the carpet. Now that seems to be changing. New rules on pollution say that official data, formerly held secretly, should be published. It is an important step, not just for China’s environment, but also because it gives new power to the large and growing movement of citizen activists who have been lobbying for the government to clean up.

China is now emitting almost twice as much carbon dioxide as the next-biggest polluter, America. At current rates, it will produce 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 1990 and 2050—as much as the whole world produced between the start of the Industrial Revolution and 1970. Pollutants in the air in Beijing have hit 40 times the level decreed safe by the World Health Organisation. Yet China did not have a ministry devoted to environmental protection until 2008, and the government has done its best to keep information about the levels of filth in the air and water under wraps. Even now, the state is keeping secret a nationwide survey of soil pollution.

The new rules that have just come into effect signal the beginning of a move towards openness. They require 15,000 enterprises, including some of the biggest state-owned ones, to make public in real time details of their air pollution, waste water and heavy-metals discharges (see article). In the past, polluters gave the data on their emissions only to the government. In future NGOs such as the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, run by Ma Jun, a former investigative journalist who has been badgering the government on green issues for years, will get these data to analyse and publicise as they wish. Things are opening up at a local level, too. In 2012 only a few cities, including Beijing, published statistics on air quality. Now 179 do. And more firms are volunteering information about pollution—especially those that need foreign investors.

Unwilling liberals

The impetus behind this new transparency is not a sudden enthusiasm for liberalism. Rather, the government is worried that people are increasingly angry about pollution—a recent Pew survey of the concerns of Chinese citizens found that pollution was fourth, behind inflation, corruption and inequality, but was rising fast—and attempts to clean the country up by central-government fiat are foundering.

The government sets a national target for carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of GDP. It determines how much coal may be burned. It requires companies to install certain pollution-control devices. But all these rules—like most Chinese environmental controls—operate through the central-planning system. And that system is subject to “regulatory capture”—getting nobbled by the enterprises it is supposed to control and by the local governments who own or influence them. Factories evade targets by, for example, operating illegally at night, or by dissolving carbon-dioxide or sulphur emissions in water—and then dumping the toxic brew in the local water supply.

More public disclosure will not, by itself, end such baleful practices. But by exposing levels of pollution to public scrutiny, it will allow people to make better-informed choices, to lobby factories and officials for change and to keep an eye on the implementation of environmental laws. The new rules should thus expose polluters to a scissor-style pressure: from above, through the central-planning system, and from below, from the media and organisations such as Mr Ma’s.

Much more is needed. Cracking down on polluters will require provincial or city governments to fine them or take them to court—which they will be reluctant to do, since they often own them. The new disclosure rules have only milk teeth, not real bite. They talk, for example, merely of “urging” enterprises to fulfil “due responsibilities”. And, just as the government is encouraging bottom-up activism on environmental matters, it is cracking down on China’s hyperactive microbloggers.

This points to a tension at the heart of China. The government is nervous of active citizens, yet it needs them. If it gives them more freedom, they can be more useful; if it suppresses them they may be easier to control. These new environmental rules are a move in the right direction. For China’s sake, may there be many more.

中国环境：浅吸一口新鲜空气

2008年，正当美国驻华大使馆推广一项应对弥漫首都北京的恶臭熏天的烟雾污染之际，中国政府随即表示抗议并下令终止推广活动。政府的反应旨在掩盖其不愿接受的事实——中国的污染问题已发展到了令人难以忍受的地步。如今，政府的态度似乎有了变化。有关污染问题的新条例规定，那些过去保密的官方污染程度数据应该公之于众。该条例不仅使中国环境发展迈出了重要的一步，也推动了那些一直在游说政府治理环境问题的民间环保活动人士开展大规模环保运动。

中国现在二氧化碳排放量是仅次于其后的美国的两倍。照现在的排放量，1990年至2050年间，中国的二氧化碳排放量将达到5000亿吨——相当于工业革命之初到1970年间全球总二氧化碳排放量。北京污染指数已达世界卫生组织规定的安全标准的40倍。然而中国直到2008年才设立负责环保的部门，而且中国政府还尽其所能不向公众透露空气和水资源的污染情况。至今，政府仍未公开一份针对全国土壤污染情况的调查报告。

刚施行的新条例标志着政府公开的开端。政府责成15000家企业（包括几家规模最大的国企）实时公开其空气污染、废水及重金属排放量详情。过去，企业污染数据只需提交政府过目。将来，非政府组织就能如愿拿到这些公布的数据进行分析和宣传，如公众与环境研究中心，原为调查记者的马军是该研究中心的主任，马军多年来一直在不厌其烦地敦促政府治理环境问题。在各个地区也有进展。2012年，只有少数城市（包括北京）公布空气质量数据。现在已达179个。更多公司也自愿公开污染数据，尤其是那些需要引进外资的企业。

不情愿的自由派

此次公开透明并不是一时兴起追求自由主义。其实，政府是担心民众对污染会越加愤慨。一项美国皮尤研究中心的调查显示，污染问题再中国民众最担忧的问题中排第四位，前三位分别是通货膨胀、腐败和不平等。人们对污染的忧虑与日俱增，但中央政府治理污染的法令却没有成效。

中央政府设定了单位GDP二氧化碳排放量目标。该目标限定了煤燃烧量，要求企业安装污染控制装置。但这些条例和大多中国环境控制条例一样，通过中央计划体制运行，而该体制服从“监管俘获”——被本该受制于该体制的企业和拥有并能影响该体制运作地方政府控制。工厂通过各种方式逃脱排放目标控制，如在夜间非法运作、分解二氧化碳或是在水中硫化气体排放物，再将有毒液体排入地方水源中。

进一步公开信息本身不能终止这种无益行径。但群众监督污染能使公众作出更明智的选择，游说工厂和官员们进行改革，并监督环境法的具体实施。新条例因此能够将污染者置于剪刀式的压力之下：自上，受中央计划体制之压；自下，受媒体和非政府组织（如马军的公众与环境研究中心）之压。

这还远不够。打击污染者还需要省级或市级政府对其罚款或对其提起公诉（法院为政府所有，故政府会不愿提起公诉）。新发布的条例还羽翼未丰，不足以威慑污染者。条例措辞温和，如仅是“敦促”企业履行“应尽的义务”。另外，政府在鼓励自下而上的环保活动人士的环保运动的同时，也压制过于活跃的微博用户。

这反映了中国所面临的一大困扰。政府担心民众中的活跃人士，却又需要他们。如果政府赋予活跃人士更多自由，活跃人士就能出更多力；如果压制他们，政府就能更好地控制他们。这些新出台的环境保护条例是正确的举措。为了中国自身的利益考虑，此类条例还是多多益善得好。

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