Abstract

Environmental problem is one of the most rigorous challenges that China has to face in the 21st century. Environmental protection, the key of long-term and steady economic increase and sustainable development, is a basic national interest. In China, the solution of environmental problems has great impact on its national security, its international image and the fundamental interest of public as well as the realization of comparatively well-off society. It is a basic responsibility and duty of government to provide a good resource and environmental base and to let all the people have clean air, clean drinking water and safe food.

International experiences indicate that government plays a dominant role in the area of environmental protection, which means efficient environmental administration institution is the precondition of environmental improvement and sustainable development. In the past 20 years, especially during 1990s, China made achievement in the area of environment and resource protection. To some extent, pollution discharge has been controlled, the discharge volume did not increase with the economic development. Meanwhile, ecological conservation and exploration went into a new era. These achievements, to some extent, came from the constantly improvement of environmental administration system and relevant institutional arrangement.

In accordance with social economic changes, environmental protection work also steps into the phase of transition. We are now facing a very complicated situation with problems of multi-environmental pollution and ecological degradation. The development future is not optimistic. Compared with the situation of 20 years ago, lots of changes of environmental issues occurred including changes in type, structure and region. Comprehensive type of resource and environmental problems (normally raised in the stage of transition) happened during the time of low economic development phase. The severity not only involve in the increase of pollutant discharge and enlarge of ecological degradation scope, but also involve in the interaction between resource, environment, and socio-economic development. The pressure of social, economic and global environmental problems will last for a long period of time. China is now facing a situation that had never happened in any other countries. As a large and responsible developing country, China has to make right response and reasonable choice to cope with the new phase of environment and development.

In order to cope with the multi-challenge of environment in the new century, and to realize the comprehensive goals of sustainable development, new type of resource/environment administration institution and relevant mechanism should be established. Current resource/environment administration institution has problems of less comprehensive and coordinating capacity and incomplete instrument and lack of unified supervision mechanism. In the strategic report that recently published by the World Bank and UNDP on the environmental issues of China, environmental institutional arrangement and governance reform were put as the top priority.

New resource/environment administration institution should reinforce mechanism of unified supervision and the one of coordination to avoid the problems of function overlapping, cross-sector management and unclear definition of administration. With unified, coordinating, integrated and transparency concept in mind and with the help of unified supervision, coordination, comprehensive decision-making and public participation mechanisms, environment administration institution can be well run and its goals can be realized. And this kind of institution can also reflect the integrity, comprehensive and coordination requirements of environmental protection and sustainable development.

To establish a coordinating organization is very necessary for new type of resource/environment administration institution. Constrained by its characters and rank of government, environment protection or resource management department doesn’t have the independent ability to do the inter-ministry coordinating work. It is necessary to set up a coordinating mechanism at national level, such as environment and resource protection committee under the leadership of the State Council.

In the new situation, it is necessary to adjust the environmental protection strategy; to start from the driven force that cause resource/environmental problems to set up environmental friendly and life-cycle socio-economic system through institutional reform and policy innovation which integrates environmental protection into development; to improve governance of environmental protection and to encourage stakeholders get involved in decision-making and increase the capacity building of environmental NGO and to strengthened international cooperation.

PART A: Environmental protection and economic development are two sectors that supplement each other. Environmental protection administration institution, which consists effective administration organization and healthy institution, is the center for the work of environmental protection and sustainable development. In terms of environmental protection, environmental administration should not be weakened but enhanced.

1．Environmental protection is the fundamental benefit and one of the basic goals of long-term development of China, and sustainable development is still the challenge that China has to face. Environment and development are two factors that supplement each other. Environmental protection is one important part of development. Development will be decreased without necessary environmental protection; there will be no enough financial guarantee for environmental protection if economic development is not strengthened. In the situation of developing country, conflicts always exist between development and environmental protection. Economic growth may increase environmental pollution and the degradation of resource, it may also bring a better environment, the selection of institution and policy play a very important role in this case. To integrate development and environmental protection and search the way of sustainable development will definitely have to pay; the key work to achieve sustainable development is to keep the balance among economic development, social development and environmental protection and the way to integrate these three components.

2．An effective administration institution, healthy mechanism and good policies are the foundation to realize goals of environmental protection and sustainable development. Government is the key body of macro-institution establishment, policy making and incentive mechanism implementing; government structure will not only be constrained by regulations, it will also be adjusted with the change of time. The innovation of administration institution should not only be made based on the experiences and lessons, more importantly, it should also be made to deal with all conflicts and challenges people has to face in the new century. Therefore, as a country in the phase of transition, it is a very important task to find out a better administration institution, and mechanism innovation and a set of development policies to improve environment and to achieve sustainable development.

3．Environmental protection should be an area where government plays important role. There is no doubt that market failure and government failure are the two reasons leads to resource damage and environmental pollution. Private factor could almost not provide any innovation activities to improve environment; the externality of social economic activity and the public goods character of the environment require the public actions to solve environmental problems. Unreasonable institution and policies are also the basic driven forces for environmental degradation. Therefore, to a large extent, the work of environmental protection relies on government, and to set up a strong environmental administration institution with constantly improved governance will provide precondition for environmental improvement.

4．The institution establishment for environmental protection enhancement and sustainable development is an international topic. In the “Plan of Implementation” of World Submit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg), one chapter was used to describe the institution framework for sustainable development, from which we can see the importance of it for sustainable development. In this plan, an effective institutional framework at all level (international, regional and country level) is considered as a key to sustainable development. It also emphasizes that good governance is the fundamental of sustainable development and requires all countries to set up sustainable institution framework at national level in a unified and coordinating method including the establishment/enhancement of necessary decision-making, coordinating and enforcement organizations.

5. In the past more than 20 years, the achievement of national environmental protection and sustainable development, to a great extent, was attributed to the constantly improvement of environmental administration institution and related institution arrangement. Under the pressure of rapid economic development and large amount of population, China is now facing the most comprehensive environmental problems in the world. A series of measures have been taken in China, inter alias, considering the situations in response to particular situation of the country and feature of environmental problems, making fully use of the dominant role of governments with limited capacities of state finance, grasping industrial pollution as the most important environmental problem during the middle and end of the 20th century, formulating laws, perfecting policies, strengthening law enforcement, perfecting monitoring system, improving technological capacities and collecting environmental protection funds through various channels, especially strengthening the functions of government on environmental protection at the twice government’s restructurings in 1993 and 1998 respectively, etc., which had contributed a lot to control the trend of more serious environmental pollution. The dominating function of government at population, resource, and environmental protection is a very important experience we learnt through the work sustainable development.

6.Compared with the development of other issues, environmental protection work and the legislation and institution have been enhanced. Until now, besides the Environment Protection Law of People's Republic of China (1989), 8 specific laws on environmental protection and more than 20 other laws were stipulated and added some items in relation to environmental protection. In order to enforce the national environmental protection law, the state council has promulgated more than 30 rules of law on environmental protection or in relation to environmental protection. Up to 2001, the number of all kinds of environmental standards has reached 459. By passing these laws and regulations, a basic environmental protection law system with China’s characteristics has been established to provide powerful law and policy supports for setting up, carrying out and developing national environmental protection system.

7. Through constantly adjust the way of thinking, work of environmental protection and sustainable development present the concepts of “advance with the times”, current resource/environment administration institution still needed to be reformed and strengthened. Basing on the development of environmental situation, the key efforts of environmental protection were transformed from original point pollution source control to combination of point pollution source control with comprehensive prevention and control, as well as to combination macro environmental management with control of key regions and river basins. During the ninth five-year plan period, the environmental protection guideline pointed that pollution prevention and control should be paid equal attentions. And actions have been taken to promote total amount control, to promote environmental model cities, to strengthen ecological conservation, etc. During the ninth five-year-plan period, the amount of 12 key pollutants discharged was reduced 10-15% respectively with 8% rapid economic growth rate in China. At the same time, a set of actions and policies have been taken by the government for the purpose of sustainable development, all which made China achieved great progress on the areas of population control, human resource development, resource and energy conservation, poverty release and agricultural development. However, on the view of the trends of environment problem change or on the view of social economic development, current resource/environment administration institution and some development policies can not meet requirements of new situation, therefore, the resource/environment administration and development mode should be reformed and strengthened.

Part B: During the last ten years, the character of environmental problems changed sharply, China is in a stage with multi-environmental problems, which bring long-term and deep impact and risks to eco-system, people's health, economic development and even to the national security.

8．From point pollution pattern to a comprehensive one which combines point and non-point pollution. In the past, industrial point pollution was the key one. Since the 1990s, point pollution has been basically controlled and non-point pollution has gradually become a new problem of pollution control. In the eastern part of China, non-point pollution, which is caused by over or unreasonable use of fertilizer and pesticide together with pollutants from rapidly developed intensive livestock operation as well as urban and rural sewage, is becoming more and more significant. At present, non-point pollution covers half pollution load of the total. In urban areas, the number of automobiles goes up rapidly with the increase of average income and tail gas becomes the most difficult one to be treated. Compared with point pollution, the individual discharge amount of non-pollution is smaller, but the accumulated discharge scope is big and covers large amount of areas. There is no effective measure to control this kind of pollution under the current administration institution and policies.

9. From single industrial pollution pattern to the one with industrial and domestic pollution at the same time. Another character of the environment change in China is that urban industrial pollution has been controlled primarily while the weight of domestic pollution has increased sharply. Due to the improvement of people's lives and the change of consuming pattern, the volume of urban domestic solid waste and sewage increase sharply and the discharge of urban waste is one of key problems of city. In 1999, it was the first time that the volume of urban sewage exceeded that of industrial wastewater, but the second grade treatment rate of sewage was up to only 20%. The composition of wastewater changed due to the increase of chimerical usage, together with the change of chemicals and nutrition in sewage make it more difficult to be treated. Meanwhile, industrial pollution form changed also, the pollution from the state-owned industries has been controlled, while the pollution from township and village industries is becoming more severe and will be the domination industrial pollution in the future.

10. New pollutants emerged constantly, we are in the phase of pollution transition. With the strengthening of industrial pollution control and the increase of income, even though some traditional pollution has been controlled, newly emerged pollutants, such as incretion interferon and POPs, become the new risk of environment and peoples’ health. Air pollution in urban areas is now transferring from the pattern of coal smog to the mixture of coal smog and tail gas. Water pollution is from the type of organic pollution to the one of eutrophication. In the stage with new type of pollution and some traditional one, which has not been controlled completely, therefore, more advanced technology and cost are required as well as more comprehensive administration instrument.

11. Long-distance/trans-boundary pollution is becoming more serious. Traditional industrial pollution, which affects local environment quality, has been basically controlled through these years' hard work by taking the concept of total amount control. With the increase of industrialization and rapid development of township industries, pollution impact has enlarged. In recent years, long-distant and trans-boundary pollution (such as acid rain) and watershed pollution problems (such as Haihe River, Huaihe River and Taihu Lake) are becoming more and more significant but not effectively controlled. Local environmental problems cannot be solved by only control local pollution.

12. Ecological problems become more and more significant, which have influenced the security of regional and watershed ecological system and sustainable development. After the enormous flood in 1998 and frequent sand storms happened in recent years, ecological degradation problems especially in the Western Area are becoming more severe; degradation degree and scale as well as the difficulties of ecosystem restoration make ecological issue more and more significant among all the environmental issues. Ecological problems not only cause the degradation of nature, which is the base of regional subsistence and development, but also cause large scale ecological unbalance, etc. increase the crises of flood and ecosystem and also impair the ecological foundation barrier for economic development social stability. Although ecological conservation has been given top priority, presses and risks of ecological degradation caused by improper activities still exist. Besides all these, bio-safety, invasive species are the new task for ecological conservation.

13. The pressure caused by global environmental issues has direct impact on each area such as political, economic and social life. Global warming, which is caused by the emission of green house gases, is now becoming the most important environmental problem in the world. China is currently the second large country of CO2 emission in the world，more and more responsibilities that China is asked to take as a big developing country. Global and international environmental issues, especially the convention implementation of Climate Change, Desertification, ODS, POPs, Bio-diversity have or will have great impact on national environment security and long term social and economic development and will be an issue of national benefit. Therefore, how to deal with the global environmental issues and take the opportunity of international convention implementation will influence many issues in political, economic and social prospects.

14. It is a long-term task to optimize energy structure and to solve environmental problems. Although, energy is no longer a bottle-neck for economic development through years hard work, China still has to face the situation of lack of high quality energy supply as well as the energy and environmental problems caused by coal-dominating energy structure. At present, 85% SO2 and 28% TSP are caused by coal-burning, all which lead to decline of air quality and land degradation (30% of total) caused by acid rain. China’s CO2 emission accounts for about 14% of the world total and it is directly related to the energy consumption. With the constantly increase of energy consumption, it will be a hard work to solve environmental problems by cost-effective and environmental friendly methods.

15. Nuclear safety problems are more and more severe. Nuclear safety is one of the special one among all the environmental security problems. At present, there are seven nuclear power generators are under operation. It is estimated that, by the end of the Tenth Five-year Plan, another four will be put into operation to generate electricity. In China, there are different types of reactors in different areas, all these will bring many difficulties of management in the future. Once a large nuclear accident happened, it will not only be a disaster of China, but also of the world nuclear industry. And there is no appropriate method to treat nuclear waste so far, therefore, ten years later, when the capacity of spent fuel storage is fully reached, the waste disposal and transportation will be a very difficult issue to be dealt with. It is not an easy work to safely have the current plant operated and decommission and safe waste disposal. Nuclear safety will be one of the key environmental challenges we have to face.

16．Environmental health has been put into schedule, the issues of cleaner air, drinking water and food safety get more and more attentions from public. With the development of economy and the improvement of people’s life, the type of environmental health risk has changed from traditional one (caused by the lack of infrastructure, such as unclean drinking water, infected disease) to the type of modern one (caused by environmental pollution). Many incident of food pollution have been reported and many shocking figures can be found from some representative investigations. According to the human capital method, it is estimated that the economic loss related to the impact of unexpected death and disease caused by out door air pollution is about 0.6% of GDP (WHO/UNDP, 2001).