China
China pledges pollution cut
China has promised major steps to improve air quality as smog and greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow. On June 14, the State Council released a package of 10 anti-pollution measures to ease the emissions crisis, state media said. Topping the list is a pledge to cut pollution from six smog-producing industries by at least 30% per unit of output by 2017, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The government has already targeted producers of thermal power, iron and steel, petrochemicals, cement, non-ferrous metals and chemicals with rules to make them gradually comply with international standards in 47 cities.
The 2017 target is seen as speeding up the process in the six dirtiest industries that account for over 70% of emissions, according to Chai Fahe, vice president of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, cited by the official China Daily.
Despite a series of efforts, the government has made only limited progress in cleaning up the big six emitters. The same group was cited as the source for 70% of power consumption and sulfur dioxide releases as far back as 2007.
But there are signs that the new government is serious about making faster progress on environmental issues after rising public anger over urban smog. "It has proven that environmental crises can stir controversy and greatly undermine social stability," Xinhua said in a separate commentary.
China, which is already highly urbanized for such a poor country, is determined to urbanize further, and Beijing plans to move hundreds of millions more people out of the countryside and into the city. Moving so many people off their farms and into new cities should create a surge in demand for housing and infrastructure, so much so, that urbanization has become the new reason to predict that Chinese growth rtes have already bottomed out and will soon begin to surge again.