(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-16 07:14

The long-anticipated fall of two key measures of pollution in the first three quarters this year has somewhat made China's double-digit economic growth relatively cleaner than it was last year.

Yet, to fulfill its environmental goal for sustainable development, the country needs to better integrate environmental policies with economic measures that go with the grain of the market system.

Latest data from the country's environmental watchdog show that in the first nine months, emissions of both sulfur dioxide, a major air pollutant, and chemical oxygen demand, a key water pollution index, dropped respectively by 1.81 percent and 0.28 percent year on year.

Fractional as they are, though, decreases of both air and water pollutants for the first time in several years mark much-needed progress in the national clean-up campaign that aims to cut such major pollutant emissions by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010.

The country's failure to check growth of pollutant discharges last year had once disheartened many people who have increasingly concerned themselves with environmental problems.

Now, by possibly making this year a turning point, the latest progress in cutting pollutant emissions gives a shot in arm to the country's ambition to pursue greener growth.

This initial victory should certainly be attributed to the government's intensified environmental protection efforts.

By the end of September, the State Environmental Protection Administration had investigated more than 10,000 cases of environmental law violations. Meanwhile, 250 small coal-fired power generation units were shut down to cut emission of sulfur dioxide and operations in more than 900 paper mills were suspended for waste water processing concerns.

Such government-led implementation of environmental policies can surely bring about some immediate results in reducing air and water pollution.

But to reverse the long-term trend of environmental deterioration, the government must allow the market to assume a bigger role in providing incentives for enterprises to cut pollutant discharges.

Under stringent environmental standards, the combination of a trade system of pollution discharge right and a market-driven pricing system of water and other resources to reflect their environmental cost will persuade more enterprises to embrace cleaner growth wholeheartedly.

(China Daily 11/16/2007 page10)