Beijing tops ‘green friendly’ index but locals unsatisfied
Print Edition
CHINA published its first “green development” index yesterday, listing regional governments which promote environment friendly development, with Beijing coming out top, though it came second-to-last in a survey of public satisfaction.
The nation’s capital was first in the ranking of 31 provinces and regions for 2016, which was published by the National Bureau of Statistics, followed by Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, while Tibet and Xinjiang were the lowest ranked regions.
Hebei Province, which surrounds Beijing and is home to several cities with some of the worst air pollution in the world, was ranked 20th.
“By measuring overall progress on ecological civilization construction over the last year, the annual evaluation guides all regions to push forward green development, and implement ecological civilization construction,” statistics bureau head Ning Jizhe wrote in a note along with the data release.
The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Communist Party’s Organization Department jointly published the data with the statistics bureau.
While Beijing was top in the green index, the capital came in 30th out of 31 regions in a separate survey of public satisfaction with the environment published along with the green index data on the statistics bureau website.
Tibet came in first in public satisfaction with the environment, followed by the provinces of Guizhou and Hainan. Hebei Province and Tianjin City were at bottom.
In explaining the discrepancy, Ning wrote that the two indicators measured different things. The green development index came from “objective evaluation” while the public survey reflected “subjective feeling,” Ning said.
The green index was based on 55 statistical parameters and took into account investment in cleaning up the environment and use of resources, and reflected progress on moving towards a better environment.
China plans to conduct the evaluation annually, Ning said.
The evaluation system will be used to review local government performance on ecological development, and the results will be a key reference in the promotion of officials and punishment for wrongdoing.
The green development index system comes amid efforts to push high-quality development and shift away from the practice of pursuing fast economic growth at the expense of the environment.
Tackling pollution has been listed as one of “the three tough battles” that China aims to win in the next three years, according to the Central Economic Work Conference that concluded last week.
Yang Weimin, deputy head of the office of the central leading group on financial and economic affairs, said China did not have the conditions to pursue high-speed growth, due to upgraded consumption, a shrinking labor force, financial risks, as well as resource and environmental constraints.
“If China ignores these realities and continues to be obsessed with fast growth rates, the concomitant risks will outweigh GDP growth,” Yang said.
The country’s economic development has entered a “new era,” and the basic feature is that the economy has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality development, according to a statement issued after the annual Central Economic Work Conference.
To adapt to the transition, the country will create new indicators, policies, standards, statistical and performance assessment systems, according to the conference.
“The evaluation system based on the green development index, which coordinates economic and social development with environmental improvement, meets the requirement for pushing high-quality development,” said chief statistician Sheng Laiyun of the National Statistics Bureau.
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