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  PlanetArk 13 Mar 06
China must step up environmental protection or face disaster
Written by Audra Ang

2006 BEIJING (AP) _ China must sharply improve environmental protection or it could face disaster following two decades of breakneck growth that have poisoned its air, water and soil, the country's top environmental official warned Saturday.

"Facts have proved that prosperity at the expense of the environment is very superficial and very weak," said Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration. "It's only delaying disaster," Zhou said at a news conference held during the annual meeting of China's parliament.

Environmental protection has taken on new urgency for Chinese leaders following a Nov. 13 chemical spill in a northeastern river that forced a city to shut down its water supply and sent toxins flowing into Russia. China's cities are among the world's smoggiest, and the government says its major rivers are badly polluted, leaving hundreds of millions of people without adequate supplies of clean drinking water. Protests have erupted in areas throughout the country over complaints by farmers that uncontrolled discharges by factories are ruining crops and poisoning water supplies.

If no attention is paid to the environment, "what's burned are our resources, what's left over is pollution, what's produced in that process is GDP," Zhou told reporters.

Other officials said this week that the government plans to focus on improving environmental protection and quality of life as part of its next five-year economic development program.

Zhou took office after a public outcry over the river disaster in China's northeast forced the resignation of his predecessor, Xie Zhenhua, who became the highest-ranking Chinese official to be ousted over an environmental incident. The spill of benzene and nitrobenzene, potentially cancer-causing chemicals used in dyes and resins, into the Songhua River prompted fears that the toxins could be trapped in winter ice and cause long-term contamination.

But Zhou said experts from China and Russia have concluded that the spring thaw will not release more pollutants. "Last night I received a piece of most exciting news from the Russian side, that they had reached the same conclusion as ours: that there will be no second pollution of the Songhua River this spring," he said.

Despite initial alarms over the spill, which was caused by a chemical plant explosion, farm products from the region were found to be safe, Zhou said.

He said the government has completed a long-term plan for management of the river that puts top priority on prevention and treatment of pollutants. "If in the past, in terms of environmental protection, we were very passive ... now there has been a U-turn," Zhou said.

According to a report released by Zhou's agency, the goals for this year included enhanced efforts in pollution prevention and control in the country's major rivers, stricter enforcement of environmental laws and increased supervision on nuclear and radiation safety. The agency will also develop an environmental law enforcement team, it said.

"What we are aiming for is achieving coordinated economic social development and environmental protection while putting emphasis on environmental protection," Zhou said.

He also said that more than half of China's 21,000 chemical companies are near the Yangtze and Yellow rivers _ drinking water sources for tens of millions of people _ and accidents there could lead to "disastrous consequences."

Investigators have found problems at some companies, and it will take time to resolve them, Zhou said. "At this stage we cannot passively protect our environment by simply stopping economic development," he said. "Yet we cannot be lenient on those polluters."

The National Development and Reform Commission said in a report also released during the news conference that China, which is hungry for energy and other resources, is hoping to reduce energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20 percent in 2006.

"Frankly speaking, this target is not modest and we will have some difficulties in realizing this objective," said Jiang Weixin, a vice chairman of the commission. "But we must make huge efforts to realize this objective."

He said industrial restructuring to accelerate development of high-tech industries and shut down facilities with high energy consumption and huge pollution levels is a measure that will be taken. Li Yuan, deputy minister of the Land and Resources Ministry, said China will also strictly protect cultivated land and increase exploration of mine resources.
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