Su Yang, Management World Magazine Research Report No.050, 2005

The 11th Five-Year Plan is a crucial period for China to build a well-off society in an all-round way. Building a well-off society must take into consideration production, prosperity and sound ecological environment so as to realize a coordinated development between economic growth and population, resources and environment. Correspondingly, to establish the goals for environmental protection and ecological construction during the 11th Five-Year Plan, we must base it on the human-oriented scientific development concept. This article will, in light of this understanding, propose the guiding principles, goals and countermeasures for the country’s environmental protection and ecological construction during the 11th Five-Year Plan.

I. The Basic Situation of China’s Ecological and Environmental Changes at Present

The main goals for the environmental protection and ecological plan during the 11th Five-Year Plan should be set rationally and practically. On top of that, we should have a full understanding of the current situation of ecological and environmental changes and the fulfillment of the 10th Five-Year Plan.

During the 10th Five-Year Plan that will soon come to its end, the country has done a relatively poor job of fulfilling the general goals of environmental protection and ecological construction, especially the goals at the overall level.

Some goals that have been well fulfilled are:

— Most of the goals in environment management capacity improvement have been fulfilled, such as the environmental assessment of the planning of construction projects (including ecological construction and environmental protection projects). And the new pollution discharge payment system has become a regulation;

— The developed regions, especially the key cities in these regions, have done well in the control of overall pollutant discharge. The major cities in the eastern developed areas, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian have made marked progress in pollution treatment and urban environment comprehensive treatment. The water pollution treatment in the Taihu Lake area has basically reached the pre-set goals.

The goals that are hardly fulfilled and need much more work are:

— The treatment of "three rivers and three lakes" and the control of the sulfur dioxide discharge in the "two control areas" have not reached the pre-set goals. The control of total industrial pollution and construction of domestic garbage treatment has not reached the goal.

Of the "three rivers and three lakes" (Huaihe, Liaohe and Haihe rivers and Taihu, Chaohu and Dianchi lakes), only one-third of the waters reached or were up to the Grade III environment quality standard for surface water; two-thirds of waters were below Grade IV; and more than one-third of the waters were of Grade V for low-quality water. The quality has not reached the requirement according to the plan. Only the Taihu Lake area has been well treated. In other areas, improvements are not obvious, and quite a few pollution accidents have occurred. In the Huaihe River area, in particular, the water quality has not been changed in three ways in spite of 10 years’ treatment: nothing has changed about the dead water1;quality water shortage has not been changed; and frequent water pollution accidents have not been changed.

The country’s waste water discharge, domestic sewage and industrial waste water discharge rebounded in 2003. The total sulfur dioxide discharge was not reduced by 10% compared with the year 2000 according to the plan,but was increased. The total smoke dust and dust discharge saw a drastic rebound in 2003 instead of year-on-year reduction.

The treatment of domestic sewage lags behind. The urban garbage treatment plant completion rate in key river basin cities was only 40%, far behind the schedule set by the plan. More than half of the urban waste water treatment plants have not operated normally, and one-fifth of them produce water below the quality standard.

— The goals in desertification and soil erosion control have not been met.

At present, the desertificated area in the country has exceeded 2.674 million square kilometers, and it tends to expand in an accelerated way. The sandstorms still frequently break out, and the soil erosion area is expanding at a high speed. The soil erosion and the "partial treatment and overall deterioration" of desertification have not been effectively curbed according to the 10th Five-Year Plan.

— The goal in the number of the construction of ecological function zones (including nature reserves, natural areas and ecological demonstration zones) has been surpassed, but there exist prominent quality problems.

China has built 82 ecological demonstration zones, 31 ecological functions zones and 1,999 nature reserves, which make up 14.4% of the country’s total area. This is better than many developed countries, but due to low management level, many of such reserves and zones have not been effectively managed.

In a word, during the 10th Five-Year Plan, China has made some progress in specific areas and projects, but the general situation has become worse. The overall goals have not been fulfilled satisfactorily. Compared with the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the environmental recovery has been stagnant.

II. The Causes of the Ecological and Environmental Changes Three factors are cited for the unsatisfactory fulfillment of the overall goals in ecological construction and environmental protection during the 10th Five-Year Plan.

1. The impact from the development at current stage and mode of growth

Environmental problems are rooted in the way of socio-economic operation. Resource and environment problems vary for different stages of development. It is generally believed that since the 10th Five-Year Plan began, China gradually entered the stage of fast development of heavy industry. One striking feature of this period is that energy, transport and telecommunication facility construction has been given substantial boosts while the outputs of iron and steel, aluminum, cement and other important industrial materials have increased substantially, thus accelerating the rise of the proportion of the secondary industry. However, the policy selection for Chinese economy and environment is determined by two basic realities:

First, China has never had or will have the resource and environment capacity that the developed countries enjoyed during their development of heavy and chemical industries;

Second, China’s economy is still developing in the mode of "high capital input, high resource consumption and high pollution discharge" which the developed countries have discarded.

The rapid development of resource-consuming and polluting heavy and chemical industries determines that the burden from pollution treatment is unprecedentedly heavy. Too many new projects, too large a scale of ongoing projects and too low technological content have led to the most drastic rebound of industrial pollution in the late 10th Five-Year Plan since the campaign of "one order and two goals" ended in 2000.

2. The improper point of view of administrative achievements has given rise to local protectionism in pollution treatment while insufficient investment and improper administration have not been put in the domestic pollution treatment

Many local officials, affected by the improper view of administrative achievements, have not properly handled the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection. They blindly seek GDP: on the one hand, they blindly develop high energy-consuming and heavy-polluting industries while shielding and conniving in acts of illegal pollution discharge; on the other hand, they did not attach importance to the pollution treatment projects or actively raise funds for pollution treatment or arrange funds for the construction of the basic facilities in urban sewage and garbage treatment. During the 10th Five-Year Plan, many localities did not have sufficient funds for environmental protection, and the construction of pollution treatment is lagging behind the economic growth. In the Huaihe River basin, only about 34% of the water treatment projects have been completed and a few provinces had less than 20% of the projects finished. The investment is inadequate and the limited funds for pollution treatment have not been efficiently used: the projects in the river basin treatment construction have not been arranged in a coordinated way; sewage treatment pipelines cannot keep up with the construction; and the inadequate policy on the levies of sewage treatment has caused the fund shortage for operation, resulting in the fact that sewage treatment plants cannot be put into place on time.

3. The regulation enforcement and environment supervision capacity cannot meet the demand from the new situation

There are quite a few environmental protection laws and regulations, but penalties for illegal acts are generally too lax, and no criminal liabilities have been introduced. At the same time, the means of law enforcement and supervision at grassroots levels are backward. They do not have the power to shut down enterprises. Nor can they discover and stop the enterprises that discharge secretly or discharge excessive pollutants. All these factors, plus local protectionism, have caused the low costs of illegal acts and high costs for law abiding while the environmental protection also faces a high cost of law enforcement.

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1It includes the waters of the branches or partial arteries of rivers separated by sluices, leading to the loss of self-purification capacity and the waters that become unusable due to poor water quality.