Archive for ‘Pollution’

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03/03/2013

* Spill in China Lays Bare Environmental Concerns

NY Times: “The first warning came in the form of dead fish floating in a river.

 

Then officials in this city got confirmation that a chemical spill had taken place at a fertilizer factory upstream. They shut off the tap water, which sent residents into a scramble for bottled water. In the countryside, officials also told farmers not to graze their livestock near the river.

The spill, which occurred on Dec. 31, affected at least 28 villages and a handful of cities of more than one million people, including Handan. Officials here were irate that their counterparts in Changzhi, where the polluting factory was located, had delayed reporting the spill for five days. For the past two months, Changzhi officials and executives at the company running the factory, Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group, have generally stayed silent, exacerbating anxiety over water quality.

The conflict over the Changzhi spill has drawn attention to the growing problems with water use and pollution in northern China. The region, which has suffered from a drought for decades, is grappling with how industrial companies should operate along rivers. Local officials are shielding polluting companies and covering up environmental degradation, say environmentalists.

“Problems with water weren’t so serious before, but they have become much worse with industrial consumption,” said Yin Qingli, a lawyer in Handan who filed a lawsuit in January against Tianji, which uses water to convert coal to fertilizer at the factory in Changzhi.

Environmental degradation has led many Chinese to question the Communist Party’s management of the country’s economic growth. Addressing the problem is one the greatest challenges for the administration of Xi Jinping, the new chief of the Communist Party. Environmental issues will most likely be on the agenda at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, scheduled to begin on Tuesday.”

via Spill in China Lays Bare Environmental Concerns – NYTimes.com.

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24/02/2013

* China to push compulsory insurance for polluting industries

Reuters: “China will force heavily polluting industries to participate in a compulsory insurance program to ensure they can adequately provide compensation for damage, the government said on Thursday.

Steam billows from a chimney of a heating plant near the World Trade Centre Tower III, a 330-meter-tall (1,083 feet) skyscraper, in central Beijing February 4, 2013. REUTERS/Petar KujundzicPollution has become a core concern for the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party because of the public anger and protests it generates and because the issue cannot easily be hidden from view.

Companies that must participate in the scheme include mining and smelting industries, lead battery manufacturers, leather goods firms and chemical factories, the Environment Ministry and China Insurance Regulatory Commission said in a joint statement.

Petrochemical companies and firms that make hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste would also be encouraged to participate, it added.

Special environmental protection funds would be allocated to companies taking out the insurance, and they would be given priority for bank lending, the statement said.

Companies which don’t apply for the insurance may face negative environmental impact assessments and credit downgrades, which could hamper their development, it added.

A pilot insurance program currently covered more than 2,000 companies across a dozen provinces and had underwritten some 20 billion yuan ($3.21 billion) in risk, the government departments said.

“Using the tool of insurance … is conducive towards pushing companies to raise their environmental risk management and reduce incidents of polluting accidents,” it added.

The insurance scheme follows a spate of rules aimed at cleaning up the country’s notoriously filthy environment.

via China to push compulsory insurance for polluting industries | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

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02/02/2013

* China’s Environmental Protection Racket

WSJ: “Beijing’s choke-inducing air – which blanketed the city for nearly a week before being cleared away by a bout of sorely-needed wind on Friday — prompted Premier Wen Jiabao to call for action to protect the environment and public health.

If the premier and his colleagues can see through the smog on the policy front, they might consider something that has been all but overshadowed by the capital’s plight: the sorry track record of the environmental watchdog in little Nantong in east China’s Jiangsu province.

The problems in Nantong are a tale of environmental protection gone seriously wrong in a country where money clearly talks. They may also be small but critical components of an increasingly toxic environment.

According to a series of newspaper reports, online versions of which appear to have vanished into the country’s not-so-thin air, more than 30 environmental and other officials from the Nantong area were implicated in a scandal that involves bribery and turning a blind eye to pollution problems. Thanks to the reporting of the Shanghai-based China Business News (in Chinese here and here), it’s now fairly clear that Nantong environmental officials were running something closer to an environmental protection racket.

The newspaper, which had been following the story since the summer of last year, reported earlier this month that the scandal had reached the highest level of the local environmental protection bureau. Contacted by the Wall Street Journal, an official with the Nantong Environmental Protection Bureau was unable to elaborate beyond the official posting on the Nantong discipline inspection committee’s website, which stated that former bureau director Lu Boxin was found guilty of accepting bribes and sentenced to 12 years in prison (in Chinese).

This brief report, posted under the banner headline of “Study the Spirit of the 18th Communist Party Congress, Promote and Deepen the Anti-corruption Campaign and the Building of Clean Government,” said that the bribes were taken on more than one occasion.”

via China’s Environmental Protection Racket – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

Posted in China alert, Consumer protection, corruption, Economics, Environment, Green, Illegal practices, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

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21/01/2013

* Ex-minister blames China’s pollution mess on lack of rule of law

SCMP: “China had a chance to avoid environmental disasters some 40 to 30 years ago, the country’s first environmental protection chief has lamented amid worsening air and water pollution.

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But Professor Qu Geping, who has overseen environmental policymaking since the early 1970s, said pollution had run wild as a result of unchecked economic growth under a “rule of men”, as opposed to the rule of law. Their rule imposed no checks on power and allowed governments to ignore environmental protection laws and regulations.

“I would not call the past 40 years’ efforts of environmental protection a total failure,” he said. “But I have to admit that governments have done far from enough to rein in the wild pursuit of economic growth … and failed to avoid some of the worst pollution scenarios we, as policymakers, had predicted.”

Qu, 83, was China’s first environmental protection administrator between 1987 and 1993. He then headed the National People’s Congress environment and resource committee for 10 years.

After three decades of worsening industrial pollution resulting from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, China has accumulated huge environmental debts that will have to be paid back, Qu said.

He said recently he regretted that some of the very forward-looking strategies – emphasising a more balanced and co-ordinated approach to development and conservation, that were worked out as early as 1983 – were never put into serious practice when China was still at an early stage of industrialisation.

In 1970, premier Zhou Enlai had invited a Japanese journalist to give a lecture to senior government officials on the lessons Japan had learned from a series of heavy metal pollution scandals that killed several hundred people during a period of rapid industrialisation in the 1950s and 1960s, Qu said.

“But looking back, China fell into the same trap again,” he said. “In some cases, the problems are even worse now given the country’s huge population and the vast scale of its economy.”

via Ex-minister blames China’s pollution mess on lack of rule of law | South China Morning Post.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

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02/01/2013

* China’s taste for pork serves up a pollution problem

This is but an indication of what is going to happen when billions of poor people become affluent enough to want the things that affluent Westerners take for granted.

The Guardian: “Fan Jianjun points to a concrete pipe jutting from the lake bank. Sludge spews from its mouth and arcs across the water, the surface bubbling with the bodies of flies.

Piglets being fed on a farm near Suining, Sichuan province, China - 27 Apr 2009

Fan has lived in Houtonglong village all his 31 years. The water was clear, he says, before the pig farm was built and people’s health began to suffer.

No one consulted the villagers before Shengtai pig farm was built 100 metres from their homes. The farm produces 10,000 animals a year – a relatively small concern in the world of industrialised farming – but there is so much waste to dispose of, the village air is thick with the stench. In the rainy season manure escapes from the farm, covering the roads. Villagers are developing respiratory problems and Fan struggles to raise chickens and ducks, which die soon after hatching.

In the 10 years since the farm arrived, the villagers have tried to get it dislodged. “We pulled down the walls several times, and blocked the gate with mud and trucks,” said Fan, a self-employed businessman. Complaints to the local government have gone unanswered, so Fan turned to internet forums to raise awareness. “We can only hope the farm will stop polluting our environment,” he added. “Our village was once a very beautiful place.”

Pork is China’s favourite meat: last year the country produced 50m tonnes – more than half the world’s total – and as the disposable incomes of China’s 1.3 billion people rise, their appetite is growing. “Pork is wrapped up in ideas of progress and modernity,” said Mindi Schneider, a sociologist at Cornell University. Until the 1990s typical families only ate meat at Chinese new year.

Memories of the devastating famine that killed tens of millions in the early 1960s still weigh heavy on the Chinese psyche. “I’ve heard people talking about eating meat in ‘revenge,'” Schneider said. “It was so limited before. Now it’s like: ‘look at this progress, we can eat as much meat as we want.'”

In 1980 the average Chinese person ate 14kg of meat. Today that person eats over four times more, almost 60kg. In comparison, the average American eats 125kg of meat each year and the average Briton about 85kg.

The livestock industry is transforming accordingly. Seen from a hilltop 200 miles from Houtonglong, the future of Chinese pork production takes the form of 32 identical redbrick pig sheds, shaded by leafy trees.”

via China’s taste for pork serves up a pollution problem | World news | The Guardian.

Posted in Affluence, agriculture, China alert, Consumer, Economics, Environment, Pollution | 1 Comment »

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30/12/2012

* China expands pollution monitoring to biggest cities

Reuters: “China plans to release hourly air pollution monitoring data in 74 of its biggest cities starting on New Year’s Day, state media said on Sunday, in a sign of increasing responsiveness to quality-of-life concerns among prosperous urban people.

Choking pollution and murky grey skies in Chinese cities is a top gripe among both Chinese and expatriates.

Microscopic pollutant particles in the air have killed about 8,600 people prematurely this year and cost $1 billion in economic losses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an, according to a study by Beijing University and Greenpeace that measured the pollutant levels of PM2.5, or particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

The new monitoring will include not only PM2.5, but also sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide, the Xinhua news agency said, citing a Friday announcement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.”

via China expands pollution monitoring to biggest cities | Reuters.

 

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22/12/2012

* PM2.5 air pollutants causing more deaths than estimated, study says

Once again China is showing that it is not complacent about the nature of its environment. And often after such a study, money will be made available to rectify the situation.

SCMP: “The health risks of microscopic air pollutants have been grossly underestimated on the mainland, with nearly 8,600 premature deaths expected this year in four major cities, a study has revealed.

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And premature deaths are “just a tiny fraction” of the adverse health impacts of tiny airborne particles, less than 2.5 microns in diameter, known as fine particle matter 2.5 (PM2.5).

The startling findings were included in a report by Greenpeace East Asia and Peking University’s school of public health which, for the first time, focused on PM2.5 health hazards in urban areas.

Environmentalists have hailed the study, released yesterday, as ground-breaking, with data linking poor air quality to deadly diseases.

Noting that the World Bank once put the number of premature deaths on the mainland as a result of air pollution at more than 200,000, Professor Pan Xiaochuan, of Peking University, said the study focused on a single pollutant and had not taken into account the long-term health impact of PM2.5, which could be far more dangerous.

The study’s estimation of combined economic losses caused by premature deaths, put at 6.8 billion yuan (HK$8.34 billion), was also likely to be far lower than the real figure owing to limited access to official statistics, he added.

Fine particles have long been known to pose greater health risks than more than a dozen other air pollutants. They damage lung tissue and the cardiovascular system, cause lung cancer and other deadly diseases, and lead to a higher mortality rate.

Based on official mortality figures in 2010 and limited PM2.5 monitoring data in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian, mostly from environment-related research institutes, the study showed a more than 10 per cent rise in premature deaths caused by PM2.5 pollution in the four cities over the past two years.

More than two-thirds of the 8,572 premature deaths this year caused by the microscopic pollutant occurred in Beijing and Shanghai. Although Beijing’s air pollution problem was worse, Shanghai saw the most deaths linked to PM2.5 – 3,317.”

via PM2.5 air pollutants causing more deaths than estimated, study says | South China Morning Post.

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06/12/2012

* China pledges $56 billion to cut air pollution

Reuters: “China will spend 350 billion yuan ($56 billion) by 2015 to curb air pollution in major cities, the environmental watchdog said on Wednesday.

Visitors to Tiananmen Square shield themselves from the sun with umbrellas on a hot and hazy day in Beijing July 28, 2010. REUTERS/David Gray

Local governments will fund most of the programs aimed at cutting the level of harmful particles in the air in 117 cities by at least 5 percent between 2011 and 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement on its website.

Doctors warn that the tiny floating PM 2.5 particles, named for their less than 2.5 micrometer diameter, can settle in the lungs and cause respiratory problems and other illnesses.

China began publishing data on the amount of such pollution earlier this year in an effort to address concerns from residents that pollution readings were grossly understated.

Chinese officials have acknowledged that the thick cocktail of smokestack emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust and aerosols that often fills the air in many cities is a growing concern to increasingly prosperous urban residents.

Many Chinese in Beijing refer to an air pollution index published by the U.S. embassy, a move that has drawn the ire of Chinese officials who have called it unscientific.

Those measurements, based on U.S. standards, appear much grimmer than those of the city government’s and often list pollution levels as hazardous at prolonged exposure.

China has cited its ongoing reliance on heavy industry as the reason it failed to meet some of its 2011 air and water pollution reduction targets.”

via China pledges $56 billion to cut air pollution | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

Posted in carbon emission, China alert, Economics, Environment, greenhouse gas, Pollution | 3 Comments »

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10/11/2012

* China’s ‘most polluted city’ breathes cleaner air

As Western organisations know, “what you don’t measure you cannot manage” and “incentives matter”. So China’s local authorities are beginning to realise, as evidenced at Linfen. Assuming this notion is being espoused across China, then it is very good news indeed for the environment.

China Daily: “Fan Lifen clearly recalls the days when her hometown was shrouded in darkness, with the sun barely visible through a thick curtain of smog.

“The situation would worsen in the winter, when households would burn coal for heating,” recalls Fan, a native of the city of Linfen in North China’s Shanxi province.

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in the past two decades have saddled cities like Linfen with heavy environmental burdens, damaging the health of local residents and fueling complaints.

However, Linfen is making efforts to turn its situation around.

“The air in Linfen has improved tremendously,” said Liu Dashan, spokesman for the Shanxi Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau.

The dramatic turnaround started when Linfen was listed as the “most polluted” among 113 major Chinese cities for three consecutive years from 2003 to 2005.

The local government has since launched a cleanup campaign, closing 1,056 factories and imposing stricter environmental standards on those that are still operating, according to Mayor Yue Puyu.

Substandard mines have been shut down and smaller ones have been merged into competitive mining conglomerates, Yue said.

Residents have been weaned off of coal burning, with natural gas heating introduced to more than 85 percent of the city’s households, said Yang Zhaofen, director of the city’s environmental protection bureau.

The changes were made possible by changing the way the performance of local officials is evaluated, with promotions and other rewards linked to their efforts to improve the city’s environment.

Officials have not only closed down heavily polluting factories, but also taken action to add “green” features to the city. A large park was opened on the banks of the Fenhe River last year, helping to absorb pollutants and purify the air.

Over the years, China’s economic growth has been fueled by over exploitation of natural resources, resulting in environment degradation. A worsening environment has prompted the government to exert greater efforts on environmental protection, replacing the practice of achieving growth at all costs.

President Hu Jintao said in a speech delivered to the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress on Thursday that China should “give high priority to making ecological progress” and “work hard to build a beautiful country and achieve lasting and sustainable development.”

Linfen is a part of Shanxi’s efforts to repair its environment. The province, which provides over 70 percent of China’s coal, is slowly turning toward sustainable development.

More than 3,000 mines have been shut down since reforms were initiated in 2008, according to Wang Hongying, chief of the institute of macroeconomics under the provincial development and reform commission.

In addition to consolidating coal mines, the province has also made changes to the coal tax and fostered substitute industries, Wang said.

“We have set an example for other provinces. Although difficulties may emerge in the future, reforms will continue and we have high hopes for them,” Wang said.”

via China’s ‘most polluted city’ breathes cleaner air |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

See also: http://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

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28/10/2012

* Protests Against Expansion of China Chemical Plant Turn Violent

The Chinese public are increasingly taking to the streets when environmental and other disturbing issues seem to be intractable. Initial police response is almost invariably violent. But, as has happened so often before, with social media and the internet and camera phones, it is becoming harder and harder for the authorities to assert their physical power as they used to. Not only do these incidents gain national coverage but, as this article shows, often they get international press as well. Something the central authorities do not welcome at all.

NY Times: “A week of protests against the planned expansion of a petrochemical plant in the port city of Ningbo turned violent on Friday and Saturday when demonstrators attacked police cars and tossed bricks and water bottles at officers, according to accounts from participants posted on the Internet.

The protesters, who witnesses said numbered in the thousands, were opposing the expansion of a state-run Sinopec plant, which is already one of the nation’s largest refineries. Local residents, citing environmental concerns, have been demanding that the government move the plant from Ningbo, a prosperous city of 3.4 million in Zhejiang Province, not far from Shanghai.

The clashes come at a delicate time for the government, as it prepares for a once-a-decade change in leadership that is scheduled to begin on Nov. 8 during a weeklong series of meetings in Beijing. Public concerns about industrial pollution have become a problem for the governing Communist Party, which often backs economic growth over public concerns about environmental degradation.

In recent years, educated urbanites have harnessed social media to stage street protests against the construction or expansion of factories, mines and refineries. Although such demonstrations are illegal and organizers face arrest, they sometimes have the desired effect.

In July, officials in Shifang, a city in China’s southwest Sichuan Province, canceled plans for a huge copper smelter after tens of thousands of residents joined protests that turned violent. In September 2011, a solar energy company in Jiaxing, near Shanghai, was closed after demonstrators cited noxious chemicals used in the manufacturing process. And in August of that year, officials in Dalian, in northeastern China, said a petrochemical plant would be closed and relocated after at least 12,000 people took to the streets.

In a statement, the Zhenhai district government condemned those it blamed for organizing sit-ins and blocking roads in Ningbo but insisted that public sentiment would be taken into consideration before the start of construction. “Detailed information will be published when environmental reviews are implemented, and public opinions on the project will be heeded,” the statement said.

Residents have expressed concern about the refinery’s production of ethylene and paraxylene, known as PX, a toxic petrochemical used in plastics, paints and cleaning solvents. The demonstrations, which began on Monday when 200 farmers blocked a road near the district government’s office, according to the state media, grew larger on Friday, reportedly after student organizers issued calls through social media outlets.

Photographs of the weekend demonstrations, many taken by cellphone, appeared to show riot police officers swinging batons as they chased protesters or beat those who had fallen to the ground. Censors worked quickly to delete images and witnesses’ accounts posted on Sina Weibo, China’s popular microblogging service. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, an organization based in Hong Kong, said 10 people were injured after the police fired tear gas and moved to break up the protests, which took place in Tianyi Square in downtown Ningbo.

In a series of online posts on Saturday, Chen Yaojun, a local lawyer, described how the police had quickly tackled and dragged away protesters who dared to chant slogans. He said he, too, was arrested after he tried to protect a young student who was being beaten by the police. After he was dragged into a police van, Mr. Chen said, he talked to a young policeman who expressed regret for the rough handling of the protesters. “We have no choice,” the officer told him.”

via Protests Against Expansion of China Chemical Plant Turn Violent – NYTimes.com.

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