Top legislators and experts are applauding the idea, dubbed
"green GDP assessment," as an effective way to increase local
officials' environmental awareness and spur them to action.
Pan Yue, deputy director general of the State Environmental
Protection Administration, said on Monday that the
administration is working with the Organization Department of the
Party Central Committee to introduce such a system in some
provinces.
Under the new system, performance ratings of local officials in
protecting the environment would affect future promotions.
Southwest China's Sichuan
is one of the pilot provinces where the system was implemented last
year, said provincial governor Zhang Zhongwei, who is a deputy to
National People's Congress (NPC).
He said Tuesday that the system adopted in Sichuan evaluates
officials at three grades. Those who fail to meet the environmental
protection target are downgraded, no matter how well they perform
economically.
Zhang hailed the expected nationwide introduction of the system
as good opportunity for China and an effective way of demonstrating
its commitment to a "scientific concept of development."
The new concept, advocated by top leaders like President Hu
Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, stresses sustainable economic and
social advancement together with protection of natural resources
and the environment.
"Our experience is that such an evaluation is effective in
mobilizing local officials to pursue sustainable development," said
Zhang.
Applying the plan to himself, Zhang says he has pledged specific
accomplishments in environmental protection to the provincial
people's congress, which is responsible for electing him as
governor.
"My goal is to clear the Minjiang, Tuojiang and Jialinjiang
rivers in five years," he said.
If he fails to meet the announced goals, the governor would face
censure by the congress, said Zhang.
Sichuan Province has benefited substantially from the system, he
said. A healthy natural environment builds a strong foundation for
developing tourism, which is becoming a pillar industry of the
province.
Professor Zhao Chenggen of the School of Government at Peking University said
such a system is a "very good thing'' for China.
China's rapid economic growth of past two decades has, in some
areas, come at the expense of the environment, said Zhao, who
described such growth as unbalanced development.
Environmental protection is an important component of balanced
development, he said.
However, creating a fair, impartial and easily understandable
evaluation system is not easy.
"Technically, it is one of a most difficult things to create a
system to evaluate the performance of officials, such as what kinds
of indices should be included," said Zhao.
An NPC deputy from a northwestern province told China
Daily on condition of anonymity that it is unfair to include
officials in western China in such system.
Coastal provinces made remarkable economic progress in the past
two decades with little consideration for the environment, while
the economic boom in the western provinces just begun.
The deputy complained that the coastal provinces are now able to
invest more money in environmental protection, but that western
China does not have the funds to implement more pollution control
measures.
Zhao responds that if the central government carries out the
balanced development strategy across the country, it will give more
compensation or financial aid to the western provinces to help them
realize healthy and environmentally friendly development.
(China Daily March 10, 2004)