Environmental Monitoring and Public Reporting (China)

Transcription

1 Environmental Monitoring and Public Reporting (China) Dr. LI WanXin City University of Hong Kong August 2012 EU-China Environmental Governance Programme Policy Studies-Study 2 (China Volume)

2 This is an English translation of the EGP Study 2 环境监测与公开报道. The contents of every EGP Comparative Policy and Practice Study on EU ( EU Volume ) or China ( China Volume ) environmental governance approaches and mechanisms covering one of EGP s four core thematic subjects is principally the output of a research author and cannot be taken to reflect either a European Union or any other official view. This Study #2covers the EGP core them Public Access to Environmental Information. The EU-China Environmental Governance Programme (EGP) is a 15 million EU-funded programme implemented with China s Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. It comprise four themes: 1. Public access to environmental information 2. Public participation in environmental planning and decision making 3. Access to justice in environmental matters 4. Corporate environmental responsibility For more information: 2

3 Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BACKGROUND AND EVOLUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND PUBLIC REPORTING IN CHINA RATIONALE: TOWARDS BETTER ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION TRANSPARENCY INSTITUTIONAL EVOLVEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND PUBLIC REPORTING POLICY ON INFORMATION ACCESS AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION STATUS OF CURRENT REGULATORY FRAMEWORK IN ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND PUBLIC REPORTING IN CHINA NATIONAL LEVEL Laws, administrative procedures, other instruments Overview of status, effectiveness, etc., of environmental standards and monitoring Strengths (i.e. what currently works well) Gaps (i.e. what current does not work well; weaknesses; deficiencies) PROVINCIAL, MUNICIPAL LEVELS Laws, administrative procedures, other instruments Strengths (i.e. what currently works well) Gaps (i.e. what current does not work well; weaknesses; deficiencies) INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS Impacts and effectiveness CASE STUDIES A LACK OF ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND PUBLIC REPORTING ON THE WU RIVER ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ENFORCEMENT IN CHONGQING USING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING DATA FOR CONTROLLING INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION IN ZHENJIANG A SPECIFIC CASE(S) INVOLVING A SPECIFIC COMPANY(IES) A SPECIFIC CASE(S) INVOLVING A SPECIFIC INDUSTRY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT FILLING GAPS Increasing comprehensiveness of existing policy / laws Developing subsidiary policy and legal instruments Pilot / demonstrations activities Adapting EU approaches and instruments to Chinese needs ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING, PUBLIC REPORTING, AND SOCIAL LEARNING TOWARD GREEN GROWTH PROTECTING INDIVIDUALS FROM ENVIRONMENTAL HARM CATALYZING CO-PRODUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT FACILITATING SOCIAL LEARNING REFERENCES List of Tables TABLE 1. THIS IS THE TABLE HEADING AND CAN BE SELECTED FROM STYLES AS LIST.... 错误! 未定义书签 TABLE 2. THIS IS THE TABLE HEADING AND CAN BE SELECTED FROM STYLES AS LIST.... 错误! 未定义书签 3

4 List of Figures FIGURE 1. MAPPING KEY PLAYERS, THEIR ACTIONS AND POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIPS IN A CENTRALIZED ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE REGIME IN CHINA List of Annexes 4

5 Executive Summary Environmental monitoring and public reporting are the foundation for environmental infomration transparency. Environmental information transparency performs the following three major functions in society: protecting individuals from environmental harm, catalyzing co-production of environmental enforcement, and facilitating social learning. Those functions are indispensable for the realization of green growth. Both the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Aarhus Convention of the 1990s have correctly emphasized the importance of public access to environmental information, participation in environmental decision-making and access to justice. Following the global trend, the Chinese government has made big strides in empowering the public to participate in environmental issues by mandating disclosure of environmental information held by the government. Following the PRC Law on Environmental Protection 1979 (for trial implementation), the Chinese central government has set national standards for ambient environmental quality and emission standards. Furthermore, national monitoring networks have been established for monitoring ambient environmental quality such as air and water. Local environmental protection bureaus (EPBs) have built monitoring stations to conduct the following four types of work: monitoring ambient environmental quality, compliance monitoring of pollution sources, monitoring under an emergency situation, and monitoring for environmental management functions. The regional disparities in level of economic growth, environmental monitoring capacities, and public environmental awareness and demand for a clean environment, the national environmental regulations and standards are sometimes not faithfully followed at a local level. However, localities with higher capacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing have become forerunners in environmental monitoring and reporting in the country. That also facilitated environmental enforcement by both the government and the public. The exisiting environmental regulations and standards have been mainly based on considerations of funcational purposes of different geographical areas and environmental media. However, it is important to establish the link between environmental and health risks and environmental standards. The EU adopted a comprehensive and scientific approach in setting environmental standards, both imission and emission. Imission standards have been set based on rate of human exposure and health impacts of pollution. Based on the imission standards, the government set emission standards and issue discharge permits. Besides an integrated risk-based approach in setting environmental standards, more stringent environmental enforcement provides strong incentives for EPBs to improve its monitoring capacity as well as for polluting firms to comply better with environmental regulations and standards. WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM EU ON THIS POINT? China has made big strides in publicly reporting environmental information. However, that information is technical and difficult for the public to understand. The EU not only reports information on ambient environmental quality, but also makes that highly technical knowledge publically understandable and further makes recommendations for their activity level. The public can make sense of that information and apply to their daily lives. 5

6 Not only important for carbon emissions reduction, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) are important for pollution prevention and control. Thus, environmental NGOs as well as MEP have been calling for the pilot / demonstrations of pollution release and transfer registry (PRTR). to ensure the pollution sources comply with environmental regulations and standards, EU countries such as the UK have established the PRTR for self-monitoring, reporting, and verification. Furthermore, the government makes use of that information for generating interactive tools that allow the public to check on pollution sources and give them pressure to clean up. To improve the environmental monitoring and public reporting, it is necessary for China to sponsor longitudinal studies and scientific research on health effects of pollution and further build capacity of local EPBs. 6

7 1 Background and Evolution of Environmental Monitoring and Public Reporting in China 1.1 Rationale: Towards better environmental information transparency China s attitudes towards nature and the environment set the context for choosing national development strategies. Before 1949, agrarian China relied on land for harvests and people had respect and fear for nature. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism taught people to obey the rule of nature and act accordingly. Chairman Mao envisioned an industrialized China with four modernities 1 when he took power in He held a strongly anthropocentric view calling for conquering nature to produce subsistence as well as industrial goods. These economic activities were often interrupted by political upheavals between 1949 and Thus, the associated environmental damage during this period was not as serious as that which arose from the rapid industrialization and urbanization between 1979 and Continuing to be guided by an anthropocentric view, the growing scale of the economy in China undoubtedly has produced wealth that was unimaginable before the economic reforms instituted in The related unprecedented environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources in China have caused domestic and international concern. In response, since 2004, the Chinese leadership communicated with the public their ambition for sustainable and green development using the following terms: a scientific approach to development, harmonious society, cleaner production, circular economy, control of total pollution discharge, energy efficiency and conservation, and carbon reduction (Li 2011a). Environmental monitoring and public reporting forms the basis for institutions for sustainable development that will be able to realize those policy ambitions and meet the rising public demand for a cleaner environment. 1.2 Institutional evolvement of environmental monitoring and public reporting The World Development Report 2003 identified the four pillars of institutions for sustainable development: (1) picking up signals; (2) balancing interests; (3) implementing policies; and (4) policy learning and adaptation. Picking up signals refers to identifying what problems to act on and what policy goals are worth pursuing. Balancing interests refers to determining whose interest will prevail and the stance that governments will take when interests conflict. Implementing policies concerns the actions that are actually taken once interests are reconciled. And learning and adaptation refers to bettering performance based on the results from previous decisions (The World Bank 2004). Environmental monitoring and public reporting will be able to facilitate institutional development along all the above four dimensions. Chapter 4 of the 1979 PRC Environmental Protection Law (for trial implementation) explicitly granted the environmental protection bureaus (EPBs) the responsibilities of environmental monitoring, surveying and making sense of the current state of environmental quality and future trends of changes, and recommending measures for improving environmental quality (PRC Environmental Protection Law (for trial implementation) 1979). One year after, the Chinese National Environmental Monitoring Center (CNEMC) was established. Besides environmental quality and trends of environmental change, the mandated responsibilities of CNEMC have been expanded to survey pollution discharge from sources and environmental risks. 1 Agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense. 7

8 To control pollution and to preserve the ecological vitality, over the years, the Chinese central government has gradually expanded the regulation of environmental quality and enacted more stringent immission standards. The ambient air quality standards were updated in 2012 (GB ) from the 1996 version (GB ). Indoor air quality standards were enacted in 2002 (GB/T ). There have been five different standards for water quality, according to the water sources and usage: for aquaculture in 1989 (GB ), for agricultural irrigation in 1992 (GB ), for underground water in 1993 (GB/T ), for sea water in 1997 (GB ), and for surface water in 2002 (GB ). Standards for noise and vibration were enacted in 1988 for urban areas in general (GB ) and for areas near airports in particular (GB ). Standards for the sound environment (GB ) were enacted in Soil quality standards were first enacted in 1995 (GB ) and later more specific standards were made for soil for different usages: for greenhouse agriculture and edible agricultural products in 2006 (HJ and HJ ), and for exhibition in 2007 (HJ ). A lot more emission standards have been made to regulate pollution sources. 2 Consequently, technical guidelines and standards for environmental monitoring have been established. They cover standardized operational procedures for monitoring ambient environmental quality as specified in the national environmental standards, as well as more specific details such as methods and equipment for collecting samples and testing. There have been altogether 129 technical guidelines for monitoring related to air, 163 related to water, 14 related to noise and vibration, 20 related to soil, 18 related to solid waste, and 35 related to nuclear radiation. 3 Furthermore, the infrastructure, manpower, and level of automation of environmental monitoring have been greatly improved. During the 6 th and 7 th Five-Year Plan period ( & ), the CNEMC built altogether 64 monitoring stations. The national environmental monitoring networks for air, water, sand storm, and acid rain were mainly built after Furthermore, under each provincial and county/city environmental protection bureau (EPB), there is an environmental monitoring station. By 2010, there were altogether 2,492 environmental monitoring stations and related organizations and qualified environmental monitoring professionals amounted to more than 53,000 in China (Zhou 2010). By 2007, the CNEMC has established national automated water quality monitoring network comprised of 100 automated monitoring stations on the 63 rivers and 17 lakes for monitoring water temperature, PH, DO, conductivity, turbidity, permanganate index, TOC, and ammonia nitrogen. The following three indicators have been planned for future monitoring work: VOCs, biological toxicity, and Chlorophyll a. Furthermore, the CNEMC started to live broadcast the monitoring results of water quality on the Internet in Started in 2000 with 42 cities, by 2010, the national automated air quality monitoring network has gradually been extended to cover all the 113 designated key cities for environmental protection. The following three air pollutants are monitored: SO2, NO2, and PM10. The CNEMC live broadcasts the on the 2 More information is available at the website of the Department of Environmental Science and Standards of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. 3 More information is available at the website of the Department of Environmental Science and Standards of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. 4 More information about the automated national water quality monitoring network can be found at The interactive reporting and search platform for water quality of the 100 monitoring stations is available at 8

9 Internet the air quality index, primary air pollutants, overall level of air quality, and level of pollution, for those 113 cities. Moreover, there have been 180 cities of a prefectural level and above that announce daily air quality index, 90 of which are able to forecast air quality and publish the forecasts via local TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, and the Internet. 5 Pollution does not recognize geo-political or administrative boundaries. Monitoring networks for sand storm and acid rain have been established at a regional level with countries such as Korea and Japan participating in the network. Standard setting and data reporting for those regional monitoring networks have involved multilateral negotiations, technical assistance and capacity building Policy on information access and public participation The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration heralded a new era of endorsing public access to information, participation in decision-making, and access to justice on environmental matters by national governments (The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992). Following the global trend, China experimented with environmental information disclosure programs in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, and Hohhot, Inner Mongolia from 1999 to 2000 (Li 2011b). Inspired by the Zhenjiang experience, a Ministerial Circular was published by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA, upgraded to Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in 2008) in November 2005 to formally introduce technical guidelines and require all urban municipalities in China to rate industrial environmental performance and to make that information publicly available by 2010 (State Environmental Protection Administration Circular No ; State Environmental Protection Administration [2005] No ). On 5 April 2007, the State Council issued the first Open Government Information Decree in the Chinese history (State Council 2007). One week later, MEP enacted its Measures of Environmental Information Disclosure (Trial). The 2007 MEP measure required the local EPBs to publish records of enterprise violations, cleaner production audit information, environmental impact assessment reports and project completion approvals, and respond to public information requests (State Environmental Protection Administration 2007a). Before the MEP 2007 measure specifically on environmental information, there have been two laws incorporated the idea of making pollution information public and involve the public to participate in environmental decision-making. The 2003 Clean Production Promotion Law (and the related 2004 Interim Measures on Clean Production Audits) required key polluting enterprises to disclose information about emissions and other environmental data. And the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law (and the related 2006 Measures on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment) required partial public disclosure of environmental impact assessment documents. It is no doubt that the Chinese central government has placed a strong emphasis on 5 More information about the automated national air quality monitoring network can be found at The interactive reporting and search platform for daily air quality of the 113 designated important cities for environmental protection is available at 6 More information on the regional monitoring network for sand storm is available at More information on the regional monitoring network for acid rain is available at 9

10 environmental information transparency. The most recent development in this arena includes, but is not limited to the following (Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 2012): MEP issued notice [2011] No. 56, calling for enhanced pollution prevention and control by manufacturers of lead acid batteries and secondary lead. Article 5 requires the disclosure of information on those producers and welcomes monitoring and enforcement by society. MEP circular [2011] No announced the implementation status of disclosing relevant information by manufacturers of lead acid batteries. 7 MEP opened a column specially devoted to disclosing information on pollution control by important industries. 8 In light of the pollution caused by heavy metals, the State Council issued Guidelines on Enhancing Prevention and Control of Heavy Metal Pollution (State Council [2009] No. 61). Following the policy guide, in May 2011 MEP started post-ipo environmental supervision, targeting publicly listed companies that discharge heavy metals. There were altogether ten major tasks for MEP to supervise, one of which was to require those companies to disclose environmental information and publish an annual environmental report. The Supreme Court of the People s Republic of China issued judicial interpretations entitled Supreme Court Rules on Hearing Administrative Cases on Government Information Disclosure that came into effect on 13 August The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology continued to announce a name-list, which was initiated in 2010, of plants that had adopted less than desirable technologies and would thus be phased out. Furthermore, the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law explicitly required public participation in environmental impact assessment. But questionnaire surveys and public meetings are two most popularly adopted means and have been criticized as insufficient (Wu et al. 2011). The heightened public awareness of environmental degradation and increasing anxieties over health and property values drive people to fight for more political space to influence decisions that have an impact on the environment. Despite the promises one finds in the letter of Chinese laws, Chinese society lacks public consultation and engagement, even in the area of environmental protection (Li, Liu et al. 2012). 2 Status of Current Regulatory Framework in Environmental Monitoring and Public Reporting in China The MEP is in charge of formulating environmental quality criteria and pollutant discharge/emission standards at the national level, organizing environmental quality monitoring, and initiating enforcement activities together with local environmental authorities. Then the State Environmental Protection Administration enacted Measures on Environmental Monitoring in 7 More information is available at Accessed 12 December More information is available at Accessed 12 December

11 2007. This reflected the heightened awareness of the importance of environmental monitoring among officials with environmental protection agencies and an attempt to better facilitate environmental management and compliance and enforcement work with stronger scientific evidence. The CNEMC of MEP and monitoring stations of EPBs of a provincial, city, and county level carry out the following four types of monitoring work: monitoring ambient environmental quality, compliance monitoring of pollution sources, monitoring under an emergency situation, and monitoring for environmental performance evaluation and other environmental management. It is the responsibility of EPBs to establish the monitoring network, make plans for the monitoring work, and publish monitoring results. It is the responsibility of monitoring stations to operate and manage monitoring networks and other equipment, carry out the different types of monitoring work, collect and manage monitoring data, organize training for monitoring personnel, and conduct scientific research on the technology and methods for environmental monitoring (State Environmental Protection Administration 2007b). Under the National Pollutant Discharge Reporting and Registration Programme, each industrial facility has to report its raw material use, pollution discharge, and environmental management efforts. Based on the self-reported data, local EPBs are supposed to build their own pollution inventories and submit them to the MEP for compiling a national pollution registry. However, in reality, very few environmental agencies have accurate information about their regulated community due to the lack of data management. In 2008, companies across the country had to provide detailed pollutant release information for the China Pollution Source Census which will be published in There are sanctions for inaccurate reporting. Media specific environmental regulations also specify requirements on environmental monitoring and public reporting. 2.1 National level Laws, administrative procedures, other instruments AIR According to Article 6, Chapter 1 of the 2000 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set ambient air quality standards. Governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and centrally directly controlled municipalities can set local ambient air quality standards on items not covered in the national ambient air quality standards. The first national ambient air quality standards were set in 1996 (GB ) and it was updated in 2012 (GB ) that will become effective starting in The new standards adjusted the classification of air quality zones and reduced the three types of functional areas to the following two types. Type 1 is nature reserve and protected areas. And Type 2 is areas for the following functional activities necessary for human life: residential, commercial, transportation, cultural, industrial and agricultural activities. Furthermore, the new standards added limit value for the concentration levels of PM2.5 and ozone by 8-hour average. It also adjusted the limit value for the concentration levels of PM10, NO2, lead, and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) (Ministry of Environmental Protection 2012). 11

12 Thus, the rationale of setting the ambient air quality standards was to meet the functional purposes of those conservation and human economic and social activities in the two different types of areas. Different air pollutants have different time period for averaging levels of concentration such as 1 hour, highest 8 hour, 24 hour, and a year. In general, ambient air quality standards are more stringent for type 1 areas than type 2 areas (Ministry of Environmental Protection 2012). But those standards are all below the ambient air quality standards recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) based on considerations of human health risks. Article 7, Chapter 1 of the 2000 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution further prescribes, based on the national ambient air quality standards and economic and technological conditions, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set national emission standards for air pollutants. For air pollutants not covered in the national emission standards, governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and centrally directly controlled municipalities can set local standards. For air pollutants already covered in the national standards, local standards have to be more stringent than the national ones (National People's Congress 2000). Currently, there are altogether 53 air pollution emission standards targeting different sources or industrial processes, for example, coal-fired power plants. Furthermore, there are altogether 129 national standards and technical guidelines for sampling and testing methods and equipment for air pollution. 9 WATER According to Article 11, Chapter 2 of the 2008 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set ambient water quality standards. Governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and centrally directly controlled municipalities can set local ambient water quality standards on items not covered in the national ambient water quality standards (National People's Congress 2008). As mentioned, there are altogether five different water quality standards and this section focuses on surface (ambient) water quality standards. The first national ambient water quality standards were set in 1983 (GB ) and later have been updated three times in 1988 (GB ), 1999 (GHZB ), and 2002 (GB ) and have gradually become more stringent and expanded to cover more items. The new standards include limit values for altogether 109 pollutants and chemicals measured by mass per liter of water, of which 24 are essential items for ambient water quality, 5 addendum items for sources of drinking water, and 80 items specially for sources of drinking water. The rationale of setting the ambient water quality standards was to meet the functional purposes of water bodies. Those functional purposes are classified into the following five categories: Type I, origin of rivers and water in nature reserves; Type II, Level one water reserve for drinking water, habitats for endangered aquatic species, and spawning sites for fish, shirmp and other aquatic products; Type III, Level two water reserve for drinking water, habitats for fish, shirmp and other acquatic products in the winter, migration routes, acquatical farms, and swiming areas; Type IV, for industrial use and leisure that does not require human direct contact with water; and Type V, for agriculture and landscape. Thus, there are five levels of ambient water standards, with the standards for Type I water body the highest and Type V the lowest. 9 A full list of the ambient air quality standards and air pollution emission standards is available at 12

13 Article 13, Chapter 2 of the 2008 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution further prescribes, based on the national ambient water quality standards and economic and technological conditions, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set national emission standards for water pollutants. For water pollutants not covered in the national emission standards, governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and centrally directly controlled municipalities can set local standards. For water pollutants already covered in the national standards, local standards have to be more stringent than the national ones (National People's Congress 2008). Currently, there are altogether 55 water pollution emission standards targeting different sources or industrial processes, for example, steel industry. Furthermore, there are altogether 163 national standards and technical guidelines for sampling and testing methods and equipment for water pollution. 10 NOISE According to Article 10, Chapter 2 of the 1996 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Noise Pollution, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set national ambient sound/noise standards for different functional areas. Governments of county or above levels classify designated areas for each national sound/noise standard that is applicable and enforce those standards accordingly (National People's Congress 1996). The first national sound/noise standards were set in 1982, and later revised twice in1993 (GB ) and 2008 (GB ), respectively. The standards were set for the following five different functional areas: Type 0, for rehabilitation or other purposes that require an extremely quiet environment; Type 1, for residential, health care, cultural and educational, scientific research, and administrative offices purposes that require a quiet environment; Type 2, for commercial, trading, and a hybrid of residential, commercial, and industrial purposes; Type 3, for industrial, logistics and storage purposes that require noise prevention; and Type 4, for traffic artery that require noise prevention. Furthermore, Article 11 of Chapter 2 of the 1996 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Noise Pollution prescribes, competent agency of the State Council for environmental protection shall set noise emission standards. There are altogether 10 noise emission standards setting limit values for specific activities such as building construction sites, industrial enterprises, etc. Moreover, Item 26 of Chapter 2 requires noise emission limit values to be set in the future for products and industries. Currently, there are altogether 14 national standards and technical guidelines for sampling and testing methods for noise pollution. 11 SOIL There is no stand-alone regulation on prevention and control of soil pollution in China. Even so, Article 20, Chapter 3 of the 1989 PRC Law on Environmental Protection required governments of all levels to prevent and control soil pollution. The national standards on soil quality were first set in 1995, for land used for agricultural production, pasture, forests, and nature reserve. Three different sets of limit values were set for concentration levels of soil pollutants: Level I for noncontamination in nature reserve, Level II for protecting human health in using agricultural products, and Level III for maintaining normal growth of plants and productive values of 10 A full list of the ambient water quality standards and water pollution emission standards is available at 11 A full list of the ambient sound/noise standards and noise emission standards is available at 13

14 agriculture and forestry (GB ). Later on, there were four more national standards of soil quality targeting land used for: planned open areas (HJ , trial, for acceptable levels of radioactive residue), greenhouses for growing vegetables (HJ ), growing edible agricultural products (HJ ), and exhibition purposes (HJ , trial). Furthermore, there are altogether 20 technical guidelines for sampling and testing methods for soil pollution. 12 The MEP announced the Comments on Strengthening Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution in Article 10 recommended to establish regulatory measures and standards for soil quality, soil recovering, soil quality monitoring and pollution assessment. Furthermore, Article 11 recommended to incorporate the monitoring of soil quality into the existing environmental monitoring and emergency planning and to gradually establish monitoring networks at the following three levels: national, provincial, and city. Based on that, the government will publicly report information on soil quality at both a national and regional level (Ministry of Environmental Protection 2008). Given the serious soil pollution in the country, in 2011, 62 NPC representatives submitted together a proposal calling for drafting regulations specifically for preventing and controlling soil pollution. But different ministries held different views on this proposal. MEP strongly urged to have the regulation. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) suggested to focus mainly on enforcing environmental standards and regulations on pollution sources instead of enacting new laws for soil pollution, because soil is one of the final destinations for pollutants that transport in the environment (Chen 2012). SOLID WASTE National standards on solid waste can be classified into the following two categories: a total of 13 for waste treatment and disposal such as landfills and incinerators of municipal solid waste; and another total of 13 for imported wastes that can be used for raw materials for production. Furthermore, there were altogether 8 technical guidelines for distinguishing hazardous solid wastes and 18 for sampling and testing methods. 13 OTHERS There are national standards for limit values of radioactive materials, technical guidelines for sampling and testing radioactive materials, regional bio-diversity, classification of nature reserve and procedures for implementing cleaner production. 14 PUBLIC REPORTING All the media specific environmental regulations have clauses on establishing monitoring networks and public reporting of environmental information. For example, Article 23, Chapter 2 of the 2000 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution, cities of large and medium sizes shall periodically publish ambient air quality reports that cover information on major 12 A full list of the ambient soil quality standards and technical guidelines for sampling and testing is available at 13 A full list of the national standards and technical guidelines for sampling and testing is available at 14 A full list of those other standards and technical guidelines for sampling, testing, and implementation is available at

15 pollutants and how serious the air pollution is (National People's Congress 2000). More detailed prescriptions for environmental monitoring and public reporting can be found in regulations made or revised in a more recent time. For example, in Chapter 3 of the 2008 PRC Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, Article 23 requires important pollution sources to install automatic monitoring equipment and keep records of monitoring data, besides the competent agency of the State Council establishing ambient water quality monitoring networks and publicly reporting ambient water quality, as required by Article 25 (National People's Congress 2008) Overview of status, effectiveness, etc., of environmental standards and monitoring MONITORING OF AMBIENT ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY According to the national environmental regulations, ambient environmental quality standards including air and water have been set based on the classification of functional purposes of different areas. Thus, the principles and methods for classifying functional areas are critical. The Principles and Technical Methods for Classifying Air Quality Functional Areas was made in 1996 (HJ/T ) and has not been changed since then. The starting point for the classification was the regional and city development plans. Clearly, the ambient air quality standards are not directly linked to health risks associated with human exposure to poor air quality. Thus, monitoring of air pollutants was not guided by their health risks either. For example, PM10 and PM2.5 have not been included in the regular monitoring of ambient air quality or the emissions of air pollution from sources. COMPLIANCE MONITORING To ensure ambient environmental quality, it is important for pollution sources to comply with emission standards both in terms of concentration levels and total amount of discharge. Before 2003, EPBs had been mainly enforcing concentration standards in carrying out environmental monitoring and enforcement. However, as the scale of industrial production has been largely expanded in the country, even though pollution sources may have met the concentration standards, they have discharged an exceedingly large amount of pollution and caused serious degradation of environmental quality in China. Since 2003, SEPA required local EPBs to calculate the total amount of air and water pollutant discharge permissible to the areas under their jurisdictions and allocate quotas to pollution sources to regulate their pollution discharge (State Environmental Protection Administration 2003). The level of compliance by enterprises with pollution standards and permits and the payment of pollution charges are checked through environmental inspections carried out by EPBs. Private enterprises are inspected by the EPB of the jurisdiction where they are located. State-owned enterprises which are assigned a special administrative status are inspected by a respectively higher EPB. About half of all the inspections are integrated, with same inspectors covering all the media, although inspections in reaction to accidents or complaints are usually medium specific. During site visits, inspectors either use mobile monitoring equipment or take samples on-site, and then bring them to monitoring stations for analysis. (Besides EPB inspections, monitoring stations subordinated to local EPBs also conduct monthly on-site monitoring at large industrial facilities.) 15

16 While regular (unannounced) inspections are generally conducted once a year, important pollution sources listed by the MEP in accordance with their environmental impact and compliance record may be inspected up to four times a year. EPBs usually target big polluters while the majority of SMEs, especially in rural areas, are not inspected at all due to the lack of capacity, even though their aggregated pollution volume can be very large. To cope with the lack of capacity to systematically cover major pollution sources, many local EPBs have adopted inspection targeting based on citizen complaints about pollution incidents. Many EPBs have complaint divisions to hear public concerns. In many localities, there are 24- hour telephone hotlines to allow citizens to report environmental problems (provincial EPBs and the MEP have their own telephone numbers to receive complaints). Since 2002, about environmental hotlines have been established in China, covering over 70% of its territory. The complaint-based inspection approach is biased, however, because citizens usually do not have the technical knowledge to assess environmental risk, and regulatory resources tend to be primarily allocated to issues that are more visible. Almost every year, the MEP, in co-operation with local EPBs, conducts country-wide inspection and enforcement campaigns to follow up on major industrial accidents (such as the Songhua River accident in November 2005) or to address specific environmental problems such as excessive pollution from small industries, pollution from mining activities, industrial parks, urban wastewater treatment plants, etc (OECD 2009). SELF-MONITORING BY INDUSTRY Industry is required to provide pollutant discharge information to the MEP and local EPBs. The reporting frequency is usually annual but can be increased by a local EPB to semiannual or quarterly for priority facilities. In Jiangsu province, for example, continuous monitoring facilities are installed in large enterprises. Their monitoring equipment is certified every year by an official monitoring station to ensure its proper functioning. Most enterprises do not have their own monitoring equipment and contract stateowned or private monitoring service providers to take measurements and then report the data to their local EPBs. Personnel of an official monitoring station conduct regular and unannounced inspections of private monitoring service providers for quality assurance. In addition, enforcement officers conduct on-site monitoring of pollution releases to check the accuracy of self-reported pollution discharge (OECD 2009) (page 189). PUBLIC REPORTING AND INFORMATION TRANSPARENCY [Figure 1 is about here] Figure 1 illustrates the key players in the Chinese environmental governance regime who concern about environmental monitoring and reporting. Information on ambient environmental quality has been gradually made public. The CNEMC started to live broadcast the monitoring results of water quality on the Internet in Furthermore, it started to live broadcasts on the Internet the air quality index, primary air pollutants, overall level of air quality, and level of pollution, for those 113 designated key cities for environmental protection. Moreover, there have been 180 cities of a prefectural level and above that announce daily air quality index, 90 of which are able to forecast air quality and publish the forecasts via local TV stations, radio 16

17 stations, newspapers, and the Internet. However, environmental protection agencies are less willing to publish information on pollution sources. Although not only focusing on environmental monitoring data, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) developed the pollution information transparency index (PITI) in The PITI was aimed to evaluate the implementation of the SEPA measures on open environmental information among the 113 designated key cities for environmental protection. The PITI is comprised of the following 8 categories: (1) Records of Enterprise Violations (28 points) (2) Results of Enforcement Campaigns against Polluting Enterprises (8 points) (3) Clean Production Audit Information (8 points) (4) Enterprise Environmental Performance Ratings (8 points) (5) Verified Petitions and Complaints (18 points) (6) EIA Reports and Project Completion Approvals (8 points) (7) Discharge Fee Data (4 points) (8) Public Information Requests (18 points) The average PITI score for the 113 cities annually assessed has reached in 2011, which is 4 points higher than the score and 9.08 points higher than the 2008 score. The overall pattern is that the eastern regions scored higher than the central regions, and the central regions scored higher than the western regions (Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 2012). But in general, if a region has large polluting firms and that region relies on them for tax revenue and employment opportunities, the local EPBs are hesitated to disclose their records of environmental violations etc (Li 2011b) Strengths (i.e. what currently works well) The environmental regulations and standards have been set following the principle of crossing the river by touching stone. The regulators and officials with those environmental protection agencies have always beared in mind the existing socio-economic conditions when enacting laws and setting environmental standards. Thus, we have observed the gradual addition of items for environmental monitoring such as PM 2.5 and gradual scale up of coverage of monitoring networks. Furthermore, there has emerged shared responsibility of environmental monitoring among the government and pollution sources. The environmental protection agencies have been building the capacity of industry to carry out environmental monitoring and reporting pollution information. Lastly, China has institutionalized environmental information transparency. On average, the environmental protection agencies in China have made progress on proactively disclosing environmental information held since Gaps (i.e. what current does not work well; weaknesses; deficiencies) The environmental standards are delinked from the health and environmental risks associated with human exposure. Furthermore, the publicly available information on ambient environmental quality is difficult for the general public to make sense of and use that information to guide their activity levels. 17

18 Resource allocation for open environmental information is insufficient while the breadth of areas covered by environmental protection departments is ever increasing. With limited staff and resources, the singular area of enforcement includes administrative permits, administrative penalties, discharge registration, correspondence, emergency response, etc. Specific to the open environmental information initiative, there is a lot of information that needs to be processed. The allocation of internal agency responsibilities, personnel, funds, and equipment directly impacts disclosure work. In addition, in situations where there is no automatic and instantaneous pollution data monitoring, if pollution data is released to the public, the accuracy and explanatory power of such data will be called into question (Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 2012) (page 40-41). The MEP is not very active in informing industries of the developments in environmental regulations and standards. It has published guidance documents for several industrial sectors but they are considered too general and not suitable for SMEs with very diverse technologies. In recent years, the MEP has been trying to promote environmental management in industry by organising conferences. However, these conferences can only reach a small group of enterprises that have already committed themselves to environmental protection and want to do better (OECD 2009) (page 185). 2.2 Provincial, Municipal levels Laws, administrative procedures, other instruments In the centralized system in China, local governments mainly follow national environmental regulations and standards. It is very rare for local governments to make more stringent environmental regulations or standards than the national ones. However, because of the large geographical coverage and variations in monitoring capacities, even national environmental regulations and standards have been usually first implemented in more economically developed regions and gradually scaled up to other parts of the country. For example, the monitoring of PM2.5 are currently being carried out in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and it is expected to be carried out in all prefectural level cities by Strengths (i.e. what currently works well) Localities with higher capacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing have become forerunners in environmental monitoring and reporting in the country. That also facilitated environmental enforcement by both the government and the public Gaps (i.e. what current does not work well; weaknesses; deficiencies) The regional disparities in level of economic growth, environmental monitoring capacities, and public environmental awareness and demand for a clean environment, the national environmental regulations and standards are sometimes not faithfully followed at a local level. 2.3 International conventions 18

19 ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING Monitoring networks for sand storm and acid rain have been established at a regional level with countries such as Korea and Japan participating in the network. Standard setting and data reporting for those regional monitoring networks have involved multilateral negotiations, technical assistance and capacity building. PUBLIC REPORTING A global trend has emerged to provide the public with open access to environmental information and further involve them in environmental decisionmaking. Responding to devastating environmental accidents, the US passed the Emergency Response and Community Right to Know Act of 1986 followed by the implementation of the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) in The Council Directive 90/313/EEC on the freedom of access to information on the environment first formally requested the European Community member governments to provide the public with adequate access to environmental information. The principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992 by the General Assembly of the United Nations prescribed the right of the public to have appropriate access to environmental information held by public authorities and to participate in decisionmaking on environmental matters. The Aarhus Convention (1998) goes one step further to require the European Union member countries which ratified the convention to provide public access to environmental information, which is legally binding and the public can sue their governments if they find violations Impacts and effectiveness Justified on both an empirical and theoretical ground, Graham summarized succinctly in her 2002 book Democracy by Disclosure why and how an informational approach of environmental regulation is effective and different from direct regulation or financial incentive mechanisms (Graham 2002). Disclosure strategies differ from traditional government standards and financial incentives in at least three fundamental ways. First, they aim to establish levels of acceptable risk by means of public pressure rather than deliberation. Government standards specify acceptable design or performance by legislative and regulatory processes. Economic incentives specify a legislated price or quantity of acceptable risk. Disclosure, however, influences risk through the countless actions of consumers, suppliers, employees, investors, community residents, and voters that alter organizations decisions. Only the scope and character of information about pollution or errors are set legislatively. Gaining prominence during the 1990s, when public distrust of political processes was high, these systems, like the financial disclosure mechanism adopted in the 1930s, reflected a desire to skirt legislative processes to empower ordinary citizens. Second, they employ communication as a regulatory mechanism. Government standards rely on rules and the threat of sanctions to encourage organizations to reduce 19