Institutionalized supervision needed for long-term environmental health

THE FOURTH BATCH of Central Environmental Protection Inspection teams started informing eight provincial-level regional governments of the results of their inspections on Friday. A total of 6,471 people are being held accountable in 335 environmental pollution cases that are under investigation by the judicial and supervision authorities. Guangming Daily commented on Sunday:

The two-year inspection organized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which was initially termed “environmental storm” to check serious environmental pollution and deal with some local governments’ malfeasance, has come to its end.

True, the inspection has awakened local governments to the urgency and necessity of environmental protection because of the intensive pressure from the central authorities and the public. But there is still a long way to go for many of them to take the initiative and sacrifice short-term economic gain for long-term environmental benefits.

The environmental authorities should also keep in mind that getting rid of industries with overcapacity, which the local governments are being compelled to do under the new normal of the economy, has contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution over the past two years.

Despite this, the worsening of the environmental conditions last year in many places has yet to be reversed. According to a report by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the air quality in 75.1 percent of the 338 cities it monitors remained harmful to people’s health.

It is true too that almost without exception local governments instinctively regard the inspection teams as their opponents, if not troublemakers. Some of them try their utmost to show the best conditions of local environment that often comes from “emergency actions”, for instance, shutting down all polluting factories temporarily.

The ministry should continue its tough stance and increase the pressure on local governments so they change their mindset and implement comprehensive environmental governance and industrial planning.