China's environmental woes are steadily growing and costing the economy around US$200 billion each year, the government said yesterday, and degradation is worsening despite official efforts to curb pollution.
"The trend of increasing environmental degradation has not been effectively controlled," the State Environmental Protection Administration said in its first China Ecological Protection report, released on World Environment Day.
"The conflict between environment and development is becoming ever more prominent," the paper said.
The conflict is obvious in urban centers such as Beijing, where 1,000 new vehicles take to the road each day. To mark World Environment Day, about 250,000 people pledged to take up a local initiative to leave their cars at home.
But in the city of more than 16 million, there was little discernible impact on the capital's smoggy skies and the evening rush hour was as congested as ever.
Auto emissions would only get worse, the China Daily said in an editorial, warning that even better fuel standards would have limited impact in the face of car ownership that is likely to double in the next decade.
Economic growth was also straining resources, the Cabinet paper warned: "Relative shortage of resources, fragile ecology and insufficient environmental capacity are becoming critical problems hindering China's development."
About 90 percent of China's natural pasture land, which makes up 40 percent of the nation's territory, is facing degradation and desertification, leading to more sand and dust storms, it said.
"If the economy is growing too rapidly, environmental resources will be faced with tremendous pressures and therefore such development is not sustainable," said Zhu Guangyao (祝光耀), a vice minister at the State Environmental Protection Administration.
Considerations of land and other resources would play a more prominent role in the approval process for large-scale projects, Zhu told a news conference.
He said implementing central government guidelines would be a challenge for local officials, some of whom were working against environmental laws.
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