Focus on Arts and Ecology

The big environmental stories in the Chinese media (29 January - 4 February) 

Environmental protection inspectors working for China’s highest political entities – the Party Central Committee and State Council – have for the first time targeted a central government agency, the National Energy Administration (NEA). The inspectors issued a scathing report on the top energy regulator’s multiple failings to reflect the top leadership’s environmental priorities in its policy-making.
 
The report, made public by the NEA itself on 29 January, listed numerous cases where the regulator had ignored or even sabotaged the environmental agenda in its decision-making. Examples include massive development of coal power capacity in key regions for air-pollution control, ignoring the central government’s policy of concentrating such developments in designated energy bases in China’s sparsely populated western regions. Inspectors also pointed out how the NEA had watered down environmental requirements in the drafting of energy-related laws and regulations.
 
“The NEA’s misguided thinking that ensuring energy supply is more important than protecting the environment and that other departments and local governments are responsible for imbalances in energy planning is the main reason behind the unbridled development of China’s energy sector in the past years,” the inspectors wrote. The NEA was given 30 working days to come up with a correction plan on all the problems identified by the inspectors, to be submitted to the Party Central Committee and State Council.
 
Since 2016, the “central environmental disciplinary inspection” has played a pivotal role in bringing local governments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in line with the top leadership’s environmental vision. For a long time, China’s central environmental laws and policies suffered from weak implementation on the ground, due to local governments prioritising economic growth over environmental protection and the lack of leverage over the provinces and SOEs by the central environmental agency, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. (Chinese provincial governors and bosses of major SOEs enjoy the same ranks as central government ministers.) The inspections are an “innovation” not only because they represent the top political level but also because they incorporate disciplinary measures into policy implementation checks, which used only to be applied in corruption cases. 
 
Since beginning five years ago, the inspections have been a major shock to “business as usual” in China’s vast bureaucracy, directly linking environmental performance to officials’ political careers. According to one Chinese media outlet, more than 12,000 government officials have been disciplined since the launch of the inspections. But up until the end of 2020, such inspections were mainly focused on ensuring central–local alignment. The inspection on the NEA for the first time puts the policy of a central government agency under scrutiny.
 
Analysts predict that the unprecedented move will significantly change calculations at the NEA, as it prepares for the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) on China’s energy sector. “Many approved coal-fired power plants that have yet to start construction might be cancelled,” wrote online outlet EKnower. “Renewable energy and ultra-high voltage transmission lines will see a huge boost.” The latter will be used to transmit electricity from energy bases in China’s west to the coastal regions, where development of power generation infrastructure will now be heavily restricted due to space constraints and air pollution concerns. 
 
In a briefing paper shared with China Dialogue, Dimitri de Boer, chief representative of ClientEarth in China, also anticipated that carbon emissions will be the next key item to be included in such inspections in the near future, based on public remarks by Ministry of Ecology and Environment officials.

We will soon be following up on these developments with an article-length analysis. Here is one our earlier articles on the centralisation of environmental oversight in China.

(Sources: China Dialogue)