Challenges to
Environmental
Policies &
Management
SONG Guojun
Renmin University of China
2007-10-19
Beijing
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Challenges to Environmental
Policies & Management
Water and air pollution in China
 Challenges to Environmental Policies
and Management
 key water and air pollution control
policies to be study

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Water quality in China

Official water quality data
 In general, water quality is deteriorated in
 Area of water body
 More pollutants
 degree
 Time period
 The quality of water quality data monitored by water
supply company is best
 The quality of water quality data monitored by SEPA
sector and MWR sector is not very good
 Only
several automatic monitoring stations
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Water quality in China

My observation
 Limited water quality data
 Limited monitoring sections
 Large rivers, large Lakes
 No monitoring for rural small river
 A few underground monitoring
 Lower sampling frequency
 Every two month
 SEPA has no monitoring capacity
 The monitoring behavior of local EPB affected by
local interest
 The situation is more serious than that from officials
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Water effluents in China

Official effluent data
Not under control
Most effluent data is self report by industries
Local EPB has no enough incentives to
conduct enough monitoring and verification
The data quality of water effluents is bad
The concept is not clear
The statistical process need to redefine also
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Water effluents in China

My observation
Not under control also
 Industrial enterprises
 Urban domestic waste water plants
 Village and town enterprises
The real effluent is much larger than official
data
There is few guidance to ensure the effluent
data quality
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Air pollution in China

Urban air quality
 PM10 improved in most cities
 SO2 improved also
 NOx increase in some megacities

Air pollutant emission
 Centralized emission
 Higher
 larger
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Air pollution in China

Acid rain control
Acid rain area enlarged
Some places more seriously

Acid substance emission is not under
control
Official state
There is no seriously verification
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Challenges to Environmental
Policies and Management

Water pollution control policy
General framework
Pollution sources’ control
pollutants

Air pollution control policy
Urban air pollution control
Acid rain control
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Water pollution control policy

Mainly end-pipe control
 Effluent standards
 Meeting discharge standards

Urban waste water treatment plant is a key
measure
 Need fund from central government


Cleaner production and circular economy are
just beginning
Non-point sources pollution do not start yet
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Air pollution control policy


“meeting discharge standards” is the main policy for point sources
Urban infrastructure building contribute the air quality much
 Air quality monitoring
 Air quality questionnaire
 Urban environmental examine system
 Pilot environmental protection city system

EIA, Three simultaneous system
 New sources

“Total Emission Control” has little effect
 There no strict permit system

Focus on conventional pollutants
 PM10, SO2, NOx
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Air pollution control policy

There is no strong instrument for SO2
emission control
No permit system
 No regulation
Total emission control is similar to a slogan
EIA has demand all new coal power plants
build FGD but there is no regulation to
ensure their operation
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Environmental institutional
arrangement in China

SEPA
 Propose law and regulation
 Make guidance

All enforced by local government
 Municipal government
 County government
 The targets are industrial sources

There is no effective instrument to urge local
government to enforce the regulations fully
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Environmental institutional
arrangement in China

SEAP
 Making policies
 Water quality statistics
 Water effluents statistics
 If water quality is above ambient water standards
 Urge local government to comply with the standards
 Central government has no capacity for
 Monitoring
 Taking direct actions
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Environmental institutional
arrangement in China

Local government is responsible for
enforcement and implementation
 Monitoring ambient water quality
 Follow the national guidance
 Fund by local government
 Pollution control
 Meeting discharge standards for industrial sources
 Meeting discharge standards for other sources
 Pollution levy and relocate
 EIA for new sources
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Key water and air pollution
control policies to be study
Strict permit system for large point
sources
 Special national fund for domestic waste
water treatment and solid waste
treatment
 Non-point sources control policy
 Circular economy policy
 Public participation

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permit system

Strict permit system for large point sources
 Industrial sources

Local EPB
 Urban waste water treatment plant

Central or provincial government
 Coal fire power plant for acid rain control



Central government
Regulation study
Guidance study
 monitoring
 verification
 evaluation
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Special national fund for domestic
waste water treatment and solid
waste treatment
How to convince the decision makers the
necessary
 How to design
 How operate
 How much

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Non-point sources control policy

Regulation design
subsidy
Government purchase
compensate
Urbanization strategy
 Industrial park
 Small cities
 Middle size cities
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Circular economy policy

Discharge standards reform with circular economy
thinking
 Product life circle



Raw materials
Production
Consumption
 Landfill
 Environmental techniques renovation policy


Encourage market to participate
Refine the role of government




Research
Direct investment
Subsidy
education
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Public participation

Information management
 regulation
 Data base
 Data standards
 Data quality improvement

Decision making mechanism study
 Transparent

Policy evaluation
 Professional information publishing
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Thank you for your attention!
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