In its proposals for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has said that the country should lower its energy consumption and carbon emission per unit of GDP drastically, reduce pollution level dramatically and improve the environment.

They are among the main goals of China's economic and social development in the next five years and will be deliberated at the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, which opens on Saturday.

Since the goals reflect the challenges that China will face in the next five years, it should set specific targets for reducing carbon emission and improving the environment, says Frances Beinecke, president of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

"There won't be adequate improvement if specific targets are not there to be achieved," says Beinecke, who has worked with the largest environmental action group in the United States for more than 30 years and became its president five years ago. "The way to know your progress is to set a target and meet it. Otherwise, it will be just general desire; you wouldn't know whether you were improving the conditions."

"China is powering a fast-growing economy. That demands a lot of energy, and the result of energy development is an increase in carbon emissions," she says. New industries and manufacturing will develop as new engines of economic development, but these will cause "environmental consequences", too.

To address these challenges, China must "move its clean energy economy forward, set targets for carbon reduction and develop strategies to deal with climate change - something we are trying to do in the US but without as much success."

Also, "it is very important to enhance the environmental protection system, and ensure (that) it is fully implemented and enforced" in the next five years. There should be particular targets for reducing air and water pollution, while strengthening a legal system that allows for compensation and helps citizens address the sources of pollution, she says.

NRDC started its China program 15 years ago when the country's economic growth began having "significant" environmental impact. Five years ago, when China's carbon emissions were rising fast, the organization started its own five-year plan in the country. It has been working with businesses and provincial governments and pushing for changes in business practices and policies to improve the environment and cut carbon emissions. It has helped set standards for green buildings and green processes for the textile industry, too, to achieve energy efficiency and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

"If we are going to work on issues such as curbing global warming, we will have to be in places where major contributions are taking place." Beinecke, who has visited China five times since 1998, says the growth in China is just "amazing". But growth has come with "environmental consequences such as air pollution - you can see it, experience it and read about its extent".

When NRDC started in the US 40 years ago, there were serious environmental problems in that country. There was an "outpouring of citizens' concern" and tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Earth Day in 1970 to demand that the US government take the environment seriously, she recalls. "We (the US) still have serious challenges, the largest of which is carbon emissions we have a very big economy, we emit a lot of carbon. The other is toxicity. In many ways, we are a chemical-based society in our air and water."

The environmental challenges that China faces today were faced by developed nations, in Europe and North America both, years ago. "These are issues you can address," she says. "The systems are known, the measures that need to be taken are known One of the things that we have learnt is that voluntary mechanisms are inadequate you have to set standards, make companies improve.

"Many companies operating in China are global companies. They operate to very high environmental standards in other countries, and they could easily operate at the same level (in China) if required. The big challenge for the next five-year plan is to set the expectation levels for industrial operations as they go forward and insist that they improve the environment."

Beinecke served as a member of the US National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. The Chinese government, too, sought her advice during her recent visit to the country, for China is set to start offshore drilling for oil to satiate its increasing appetite for energy and build up its own oil reserves.

"The BP oil spill has shown the world what the consequences can be," Beinecke says. "During our investigation, we felt it was an accident that could have been avoided if the highest safety standards had been in place and if the federal government's supervision was adequate. There was no single human error, no single equipment malfunction it was a complex system that failed in complex ways."

Now that China is going in for offshore drilling aggressively, it should put in place the highest safety standards, she says. The government must see to it that companies meet the "highest safety standards", and ensure that "environmental reviews are adequate" and "done in advance so that areas of particular environmental fragility or significance are identified and protected".

"I urge China that before giving the rights to companies to go offshore and start drilling, it must make sure that they (the companies) have adequate supervision and safety systems, conduct appropriate environmental analysis in advance to know the risks involved, and establish a response mechanism with the help of the office of maritime safety so if something happens they would be prepared to deal with it."

NRDC has seen China's tremendous enthusiasm for clean energy and clean technology, and their development, she says. "Some people are worried that there is a race between China and the US over clean technology. The reality is China and the US are the two largest carbon emitters in the world, and we both need clean technologies.

"Maybe we are in a race but we are in a race that both need to win. There is no single winner in this. We need to generate energy in our countries through renewable resources and develop capacities to do that as quickly as possible," she concludes.

(China Daily 03/03/2011 page9)