China Environmental Law

China loves the plan and the percentage. It embraces “scientific development” and numerical goal-driven government. And yet numbers in China are frequently untethered from the reality they are supposed to represent. Subordinates have generally felt free to tell their superiors what they think the superior wants to hear because of the lack of an effective audit system.

The environmental protection field is not immune from this phenomenon. Thus, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has, according to China Youth Daily (you know how the kids love to read those stories about protecting the environment), “established a comprehensive detection system to improve the management, supervision and enforcement of pollution controls.” The system is specifically designed “to fight against fraudulent environmental statistics reported by local governments and enterprises.”

It will utilize two mechanisms to improve the validity of reported environmental numbers:

• Increased penalties for fraudulent reporting: dishonest enterprises will be blacklisted and subjected to detailed inspections
• Reality checks: the MEP will check if the environment has actually improved. “If the environment is deteriorating in contrast to the statistics, then the statistics are wrong,” Zhao explained.

Reality checks are harder to implement than it may seem, since the local entities which would generate or have access to the actual environmental performance data, are probably the ones who are part of the misreporting conspiracy to begin with. However, it appears the MEP has a very literal take on a “reality check.”

“Statistics will no longer be the only index used to evaluate the environmental protection work of local governments. A blue sky doesn’t lie, and people can tell whether the environment is improving,” said Zhao.

I like the dig at the Orwellian concept of “blue sky” days. This is a good first step to combat an endemic problem in China. MEP struggles with its lack of personnel and funding, but it attempts to effectively marshal its resources in those areas where it can have the most impact.