China Environmental Law

Shanghai’s 4^th three-year environmental action plan covers the period 2009-2011 which includes the highly anticipated (at least in Shanghai) Expo 2010 with the motto, “Better City, Better Life.”  It was reported at the conference that Wen Jiabao expects great things for the environment from the exposition: “for Expo 2010 Shanghai, must learn the lessons of the Beijing Olympics, and then do a much better job than Beijing.”  In addition, Shanghai is advancing toward its goal of becoming an “environmentally-friendly city.” 

It continues, however, to face the pressure of rapid (though perhaps slowing) growth, and the need to continue to work on getting the fundamental (and expensive) environmental control infrastructure in place.  The conference highlighted these particular challenges:

1. Energy consumption is increasing along with economic and population growth, making it hard to fulfill the national pollution reduction targets.
2. By 2008, total vehicle volume in Shanghai will reach 2.6 million resulting in vehicle emission and noise problem in the city.  Perspective Note: Although Shanghai has at least a million more people than Beijing, it has 25% fewer cars (Beijing has 3.5 million vehicles).  This difference must be due in part to the fact that Shanghai has made it significantly more expensive (through its license plate cap and auction system) to own a car in Shanghai than in Beijing
3. Relatively weak environmental management in rural areas, causing big differences between rural and urban areas, especially in industrial zones in suburban areas.  Great amounts of environmental infrastructures are also needed in suburban areas to meet the needs of the rapid urbanization process
4. Air quality is behind other international mega-cities (PM10 is about 3 times the level found in Tokyo, New York, or London, although NOx emissions are similar).  More attention should be paid to global issues such as eutrophication, ozone, etc.

To meet these challenges, the draft 4^th three-year environmental action plan will focus on four primary objectives:

1. Emphasizing quality development as well as pollution prevention at the source;
2. Improve urban environmental safety and environmental structures;
3. More attention to global environmental issues when improving the local environment;
4. Develop an innovative institutional mechanism and policy framework for environmental management.

Director Zhang of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau told China Daily that “The new round of the environment protection plan emphasizes on the promotion of circular economy and low carbon economy, with noise pollution control being the first priority,” he said.  The city will eliminate 900 noise-sensitive sites along freeways, urban arteries and railway lines.

Some of the additional specific action items include:

• Implement FGD projects in all coal-burning power plants and initiate denitrification projects in some power plants.
• Add sewage treatment capacity of 2.9 million m3/day, complete urban sewage collection network, and achieve domestic sewage treatment rate of 90%.
• Achieve 85+% domestic waste safe disposal and 100% safe disposal of hazardous waste.
• Cleaner energy replacement for industrial boilers with greater than 10 tons/hour capacity.
• Methane power and wind projects for Laogang Landfill site; methane projects in suburban large-scale livestock farms.
• By 2010, the total mileage of local metro lines reaches 400 km.  Mass transit accounts for 65%+ total travel volume.  By way of comparison, the best US city, New York City, reports about 55% of its workers use public transportation to commute to work; the next best US cities, Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco are in the 30 to 40% range.
• By 2011, 45% of buses and all taxis must meet National III or higher emission standards.
• Promote pilot projects of circular economy and demonstration parks of eco-industry.
• Add 1500 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 square meters or 107,639 sq ft) Of public green space, with 13.1 m² per capita and 38.2% greenery coverage; encourage three-dimensional greenery, e.g., promote greenery on roof and wall.
• By 2010, total volume of SO2 emissions and COD discharges will be controlled to level of 380,000 tons and 259,000 tons respectively.

In total more than 200 projects with total investment of 80+ billion RMB (US$11.6 billion) are proposed.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATIONS

As I previously noted, the chief purpose of the conference was to solicit comments from experts on the proposed 4^th three-year plan.  Most comments were submitted in writing, but a few experts were invited to speak.  I found the comments of the Shanghai academics the most interesting and progressive.  These included the President of East China University; Professor Zhu Dajian, director of the Department of Public Management in the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University; and Professor Huang Zhen Dean of the Energy Research Institute at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Among the more significant comments were the following:

• There was significant support for increasing the suite of parameters monitored and, where applicable, controlled, particularly on the air side.  The additional parameters included PM10, NO_X, ozone, air toxics, and VOCs.
• Environmental protection should not be a back office operation, must be elevated to status of decision-making process.  Break down the silos and bring in larger group of stakeholders into the environmental planning and implementation process.  More human resources should be trained and employed to meet the needs of environmental progress.  “Move from the 1.0 to 2.0 generation.”
• There was unanimous agreement that intensity targets are wholly inadequate to achieve pollution reduction tasks.  Some experts called for Shanghai to set a ceiling on the consumption of energy.
• Adding carbon control as an explicit component of the plan will help Shanghai become a leader in environmental planning.  A majority of commentators called on Shanghai to adopt international climate change commitments.  Note: it would probably be very difficult for Shanghai to to get out in front of the central government on carbon while the Copenhagen round of negotiations is in full swing, but the encouragement Shanghai is getting to initiate carbon controls may make it a willing candidate for the “developed urban area” caps proposed by Scott at China Greenspace. 
• Reform the penalty system, specifically lift the penalty caps in the national legislation and make it cheaper to comply than to pollute in Shanghai.

As Daniel Dudek, Chief Economist at Environmental Defense Fund, noted in the concluding remarks at the conference, Shanghai is to be commended for its “commitment and ambition.”  Much remains to be done, but it is easy to loose sight of the fact that in the face of unparalleled growth and the resultant huge environmental challenges, much has been done.