China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable - part one

The result is that local environmental protection offices become public relations teams, rubber-stamping projects that the local government wants to push through. How can they be realistically expected to prevent local governments from harming the environment in pursuit of economic gain? We still have not completed the reform of the administrative decision-making process. Many large projects that will have far-reaching consequences get the go-ahead without the public being aware of them. Even if the public finds out about the projects in advance, there are no channels through which they can express their opinions, and the public interest is eroded.

Change requires democracy and a mature legal system. It requires public participation and transparency in public affairs.

The longer I am involved in environmental protection, the more I realise the importance of democracy and the legal system. I am convinced that environmental protection cannot be advanced by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) alone. It requires action from the whole of society, and the establishment and implementation of democracy, and a mature legal system.

Environmental protection is the ideal field in which to experiment with democracy and law, because it is a fairly apolitical area and one on which it is reasonably easy to reach a consensus.

The issue of the Old Summer Palace is a good example. Different ways of thinking, different departmental interests, regional and central powers, communication between the government and public, and the “Law on Administrative Licensing” all came together and interacted. The result was an experiment in the way that democratic and rational decision-making, and public supervision of the government, can work in a rational and harmonious environment. So far, the experiment seems to have been a success.

See China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable - part two here.