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Ecodisasters

Chinese environmentalist bureaucrats have finally admitted that pollution is poisoning their country’s water, air and soil, and also that its CO2 emissions are steadfastly increasing. The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) is complaining that they are not able to solve environmental problems without the help of the central government. In fact, despite the latter’s promises concerning environmental protection, the Communist Party has done very little to organize a legal apparatus able to firmly control the activities that weigh so heavily on the environment. In particular, SEPA’s weak points were highlighted last year by the ecological disaster of Lake Taihu (one of the country’s five largest freshwater lakes, with more than 90 islands), which is not only polluted by toxic algae, but also by the emissions from the small factories and crab farms along the coast. In this case, SEPA officers have had their hands tied, as they had no authority over any of the causes of the catastrophe: crab farms were under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, while the waste-water treatment comes under the jurisdiction of the local government and Lake Taihu depends on the policies of the Ministry of Water.
With such bureaucratic fragmentation, it’s next to impossible for SEPA to act in order to protect the environment. Above all, it lacks the budget that it would require in order to deal with China’s serious ecological problems. Furthermore, although China granted about 180 billion dollars for environmental policies to be applied between 2006 and 2010, most of it was destined to other agencies and local offices. This often causes a conflict of interest with the governmental organizations operating in the area. Therefore, SEPA’s budget remains risible when compared to the undertaking. To make matters worse, there’s also little commitment from local authorities and several highly-polluting powerful national companies, who are protected by the Central government. Last year, Chinese government officers asked the World Bank to not publish a study, made with SEPA’s help, according to which a link between the number of deaths and the pollution in China was highlighted. Pan Yue, a fervent Chinese environmental activist related to a former general, stated that experts believe that 70% of the 2 million cancer-related deaths which occur in China every year are caused by pollution. The only positive news is that the population is beginning to worry about the environment, though the government attempts to hide the problem.

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