CHINA:China will increase its spending on environmental protection to 1.35 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) each year for the next three years as part of efforts to combat worsening pollution.
China's cabinet, the State Council, announced the addition to the five-year environmental protection plan for 2006 to 2010, Xinhua news agency reported.
"Most of the investment will go to treating water pollution," said Zou Shoumin, director of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, who took part in drafting the plan.
Water pollution has reached horrific levels in the cities. Twenty-six per cent of surface water cannot be used for any purpose, 62 per cent is not suitable for fish and 90 per cent of the rivers running through cities are polluted.
The plan breaks down into 640 billion yuan (€59 billion) on treating water pollution, 600 billion yuan (€55 billion) on air pollution and 210 billion yuan (€28 billion) on solid waste.
The five-year plan sets out some ambitious targets on pollution control, including cutting chemical oxygen demand (COD), a major index of water pollution, and sulphur dioxide emissions by 10 per cent by 2010.
By that year, three-quarters of China's large cities will enjoy more than 292 days of good air quality a year, compared to 69.4 per cent in 2005.
The targets will be greeted with a certain amount of scepticism by environmentalists, as the government has failed to come close to meeting green targets in the past and the environment has borne the brunt of China's runaway economic growth.
"The country failed to meet the target of reducing sulphur dioxide emissions, mainly because of the unexpected increase in energy demand between 2000 and 2005," said Mr Zou.
The State Council will also monitor the performance of local governments in assessing their implementation of the plan and name and shame major polluters in a twice-annual report.
It's not all bad news on China's environment. The Worldwatch Institute recently issued a report showing that China's renewables sector was growing and the country was likely to achieve - and may even exceed - its target of obtaining 15 per cent of its energy from renewables by 2020.
The announcement of the environmental plan coincides with a change in opinion on the world's largest dam, the Three Gorges Dam. Despite a raft of warnings that the project was dangerous and an announcement that millions more people would have to be moved, officials now say the project is safe and not the reason for geological "abnormalities".
The announcement came a week after a landslide in the area killed more than 30 people.