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Reuters: China Officials Vow Stricter Environmental Curbs
CHINA: March 6, 2007
BEIJING - Chinese officials fanned out at the start of the annual session of parliament to pledge concrete steps to implement Premier Wen Jiabao's demand that China do more to protect the environment while keeping the economy growing.
China last year missed its goals of cutting by 4 percent the amount of energy it uses to generate each unit of national income and of reducing emissions of key pollutants by 2 percent.
Wen said in his work report at the opening of the National People's Congress on Monday that those were steadfast aims that could not be compromised.
A senior official with the Ministry of Land and Resources said several government agencies were working on a plan to completely halt issuing land-use permits for new investment projects in highly polluting, energy-intensive industries.
The ministry had already set up a task force to inspect such projects and had sent teams to nine provinces to check whether newly approved investment projects met the necessary criteria, the official told Reuters.
"Last year, we already introduced many measures to control the supply of land, but they weren't implemented very effectively. So this year, one of our biggest priorities is to make sure they are effectively carried out," he said.
China last year said it would make less land available for resource-hungry projects that cause pollution, but the official said the new initiative would be much stricter.
Other officials promised further measures in their own areas.
PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Speaking over the weekend, Pan Yue, deputy head of the State Environmental Protection Administration, called for officials to be evaluated according to their environmental record.
"Given the way things work in China, if you really put such things into officials' appraisals, that can help effect a fundamental change in the system," Pan told reporters.
China has experimented with a system for assessing local officials on the basis of "green GDP", a measure of economic output that takes into account the environmental costs of growth.
Beijing has also begun to make energy-saving and control of air pollution key to officials' career prospects, aiming to reverse the single-minded focus on economic growth that has long been the ticket to success.
But Pan said more needed to be done.
Because the green GDP concept was not yet mature, he said the government should judge officials by existing, measurable criteria such as air quality, investments in environmental technology and their record in implementing regulations.
Beijing was planning to roll out a scheme, which has already been piloted, whereby it would withhold approval for projects in regions or industries that had missed their environmental targets, he said.
The government might repeal honorary titles for environmental performance, such as "green city", if local governments slacked off on pollution and energy targets -- a potentially potent weapon in a face-conscious country like China.
To show that the agency was serious, Pan said it had rejected 160 billion yuan in investments on environmental grounds last year in response to public complaints.
Zhang Jianyu, China programme manager for US-based non-governmental organisation Environmental Defense, said that while it was good to improve enforcement of environmental laws, Pan's proposals did not cut to the root of the matter.
What China really needed to do, Zhang said, was to increase what he called "tragically low" penalties for violators -- currently capped at 200,000 yuan for normal violations under the Water Law, and at 1 million yuan for extreme cases.
Story by Jason Subler and Eadie Chen _____________________________________________________________________________
Agence France-Presse : Premier hiver sans neige de l'histoire à Tokyo
Tokyo
La ville de Tokyo a connu le premier hiver sans neige de son histoire, aucun flocon n'étant encore tombé sur la capitale au 28 février, date officielle de la fin de l'hiver au Japon, a annoncé jeudi l'Agence météorologique nationale.
C'est le premier hiver sans neige observé à Tokyo depuis que les relevés météorologiques ont commencé à être archivés en 1876.
«Le phénomène El Nino pourrait être une cause. Une autre théorie est que le flux saisonnier vers le sud des masses d'air froid des régions arctiques a été faible et irrégulier», a expliqué un porte-parole de l'Agence.
«C'est un raccourci un peu hâtif que de relier ça au réchauffement climatique mondial. Mais ce qui est sûr, c'est que l'hiver a été très doux», a-t-il souligné.
On enregistrait jeudi une température de 13,2 degrés dans le centre de Tokyo, alors que la moyenne pour un 1er mars est de 11,0 degrés.
L'Agence a toutefois averti de la possibilité de neiges tardives, en raison de l'arrivée prévue de masses d'air froid vers la mi-mars.
Des chutes de neige pourraient même se produire après la floraison des cerisiers, auxquels les Japonais vouent un véritable culte.
«Dans le passé on a vu de la neige à Tokyo jusqu'au 17 avril», a rappelé le météorologiste.
Un récent rapport de l'ONU a estimé que le facteur humain dans le réchauffement du climat est certain à plus de 90%, contre 66% en 2001 lors de la précédente estimation.
Les températures moyennes du globe devraient augmenter de 1,8 à 4 degrés Celsius d'ici la fin du siècle et le niveau des océans devrait monter de 18 à 59 cm sur la même période.
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BBC: Ethical Man's top ten tips for ethical living
5 March 2007
Justin Rowlatt and his family were told to "go green" for an entire year to see by how much they could cut their carbon footprint.
You can find out how they got on by watching BBC One's Panorama at 2030 GMT on Monday.
In the meantime, here are Justin Rowlatt's top 10 tips for ethical living (in no particular order):
1. GIVE UP YOUR CAR
Experiment with giving up your car, you may find it easier than you think. Our cars produce 11% of the country's carbon emissions so there are big savings to be made here. We never thought that we would be able to give up the family car permanently ссылка скрыта Of course adjusting to a life without our motor took a bit of time - and a few stressful moments - but shank's pony and public transport have seen us right. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Remember cars cost a lot of money - I reckon we're saving £2,000 a year - so don't worry about treating yourself by jumping in the odd taxi when you can't face the bus. Why not join the local car club so you've got wheels on hand when you really need them and, if you want a weekend away and taking the train isn't practical, just hire a car.
2. INSULATE YOUR HOME
Our homes produce a quarter of the UK's carbon emissions. You should consider insulating your home but, as I discovered, that ссылка скрыта So why not try draught-proofing your windows and just turn down the thermostat by a degree or two and put on a jumper. If you can afford it you could line your curtains - that'll stop draughts and save almost as much heat as double glazing your windows. Consider buying a rug or carpeting your floors, that also helps keep rooms warm. We did all these things and cut our gas usage by 15%. That has saved us real money - I reckon over £50 in one year.
3. MOVE THE ELECTRICITY METER FROM UNDER THE STAIRS
I've bought a little gadget on the internet that has certainly cut our electricity use - proving that gadgets can help save the world. It's a little device that takes the electricity meter out from under the stairs to tell you how much electricity you are using as you are using it. It has found a permanent home on the kitchen worktop and I can now tell which appliances and lights are on around the house just by looking at it.
4. START COMPOSTING
I have taken great delight in my compost bin. It doesn't save much carbon but cuts the amount of waste we send to landfill. The handful of worms I was given by the country's composting king, ссылка скрыта, have multiplied and now happily devour all our kitchen waste. We are a family of five but thanks to the efforts of my worms, a year of green living and the compost bin is still less than half full.
5. EAT MORE VEGGIES
Our veggie box has proved a revelation. It is delivered once a week and contains locally produced organic vegetables. We've had vegetables delivered that I have never heard of before so it forces you to try things you'd normally walk straight past in the supermarket. It also means I have developed quite a repertoire of recipes for cabbage and courgettes.
6. EAT LESS MEAT
Farming animals produces an astonishing 18% of world emissions of greenhouse gases - much of it from the burps, farts and poos of the world's three billion cows and sheep. I tried going ссылка скрыта It wasn't easy, you'd be amazed how many products contain animal products in one form or another. I shed two kilos and saw my cholesterol levels fall from a worrying 5.5 to just 3.4. But I love meat and am eating animals again, though not so many.
7. USE WASHABLE NAPPIES
The weather is now too bad to hang out our bamboo nappies on the line for our ссылка скрыта
We now get washable nappies delivered by a local company, Nappy Ever After. I'm still learning some of the more complicated folds.
8. BUY ENERGY-SAVING LIGHT BULBS
I was very sceptical about energy-saving light bulbs when we launched this project at the end of February last year. I thought the light they gave out was cold and couldn't believe that they'd make any significant savings in power use. But the bulbs have got much better and our electricity bill shows the difference they can make. We changed most of our bulbs - we've still got six halogens in the kitchen (down from 12) - and, thanks to my portable meter gadget (see tip 3), we've got much better at turning appliances off stand-by and we've slashed our electricity use by 22%. That's £100 worth.
9. TRY TO FLY LESS
What my year of green living really brought home was just how polluting ссылка скрыта. I pretty much bust my family's carbon budget, undoing many of the careful carbon savings we'd made, by jetting off to Jamaica to explore carbon offsetting. My carbon guru was very strict: he said if you've pumped the CO2 into the atmosphere it has to be counted, even if you pay someone else to cut their carbon by the same amount. So my advice is to try to fly less. Instead of jetting off to some European capital why not take a break here in Blighty?
10. TURN OFF THE TAPS
As climate change alters weather patterns, water use is increasingly becoming an issue as well as carbon. In The Gambia people use an average of 4.5 litres of water a day. Here in Britain we use an average of 150 litres a day. I've got water butts in the garden and have tried (not always successfully) to remember to do the little things like turning the tap off when I brush my teeth. My composting guru even persuaded me that we could use the toilet less by urinating in our compost bin. I did try this out but since our compost bin is in the front garden it wasn't - how shall I put this - something you'd want to do every day.