Making green policies work
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-29 07:26

Although a series of green polices has been released, there is still much to be done to ensure they are implemented effectively, says an article in People's Daily. The following is an excerpt:

Since the green credit policy was introduced last July, a collection of environmentally sound policies, such as green insurance, green security and green trade, has come into play. Such policies show that our country's environmentally sound economic policies have entered an operational stage, in which environmental officials have joined hands with economic regulators to design and implement programs that ensure conservation.

Environmentally sound economic policies were born out of the pressure created by potentially severe environmental conditions. People have every reason to believe that such policies, which are based on market rules, will employ means such as pricing, taxation, public finance, credit and insurance to affect the behavior of the market; and unlike the top-down effect of traditional administrative means, these policies are bottom-up and can support innovations in environmental protection technology, increase competitiveness and reduce the costs of environmental clean-ups and administrative monitoring. These policies are an effective way of solving environmental issues.

Just as Pan Yue, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said, although the establishment of environmentally sound economic policies has already gained some progress, there is still a large gap to cover to the expected target. The gap is mainly the result of two factors:

First, local resistance will reduce the effect of environmental policies. Some projects that use a lot of energy and create a lot of pollution are able to generate quick returns for local governments, which has inspired some of them to stand in the way of policies like green credit.

Second, China has a weak legal protection system when it comes to environmentally sound economic policies, which inhibits the implementation of these policies.

It is obvious that if we are unable to get by these two obstacles, it will not matter how well designed our green policies are. Without full support from all parties, their benefits will be moot.

On the one hand, we should require our government officials to be more concerned about the environment; on the other, we should further improve our legal system in this regard.

(China Daily 02/29/2008 page8)