Formed March, 2008 Minister responsible Chen Jining | Headquarters Beijing Parent agency State Council | |
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Preceding agency State Environmental Protection Administration Jurisdiction People's Republic of China | ||
The Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China (MEP), formerly State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), is a cabinet-level ministry in the executive branch of the Government of China. It replaced the SEPA during the March 2008 National People's Congress sessions in Beijing.
Contents
- History
- Organization
- Leadership
- Regional centers
- Areas of activities
- Economic development
- North Korean nuclear test
- References
The Ministry is the nation's environmental protection department charged with the task of protecting China's air, water, and land from pollution and contamination. Directly under the State Council, it is empowered and required by law to implement environmental policies and enforce environmental laws and regulations. Complementing its regulatory role, it funds and organizes research and development. In addition, it also serves as China's nuclear safety agency.
History
In 1972, Chinese representatives attended the First United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Sweden. The next year, 1973, saw the establishment of the Environmental Protection Leadership Group. In 1983, the Chinese government announced that environmental protection would become a state policy. In 1998, China went through a disastrous year of serious flooding, and the Chinese government upgraded the Leading Group to a ministry-level agency, which then became the State Environmental Protection Administration.
Organization
There are 12 offices and departments under MEP, all at the si (司) level in the government ranking system. They carry out regulatory tasks in different areas and make sure that the agency is functioning accordingly:
Leadership
Minister Xie Zhenhua resigned in December 2005 amidst an industrial pollution scandal by PetroChina, a Chinese national oil company, on the Songhua River in the northeastern province Heilongjiang; local environmental protection officials were accused of protectionism, while senior officials at SEPA were blamed for their underestimating and ignoring the matter.
The Vice-Minister, Pan Yue (潘岳), who has served in SEPA with Xie and is still in power, has been one of the most vocal high-level officials in the Chinese government critical of the current development model. He warned during an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel in 2005 that "the Chinese miracle will end soon" if sustainable issues were not addressed urgently.
Regional centers
In 2006, SEPA opened five regional centers to help with local inspections and enforcement. Today, the five centers are direct affiliates of MEP:
Areas of activities
MEP regulates water quality, ambient air quality, solid waste, soil, noise, radioactivity. In the area of R&D activities, MEP has funded a series of "Key Laboratories" in different parts of the country, including: Laboratory for Urban Air Particles Pollution Prevention and Control for Environmental Protection, Laboratory on Environment and Health, Laboratory on Industrial Ecology, Laboratory on Wetland Ecology and Vegetation Recovery, and Laboratory on Biosafety.
In addition, MEP also administers engineering and technical research centers related to environmental protection, including: Center for Non-ferrous Metal Industrial Pollution Control, Center for Clean Coal and Ecological Recovery of Mines, Center for Industrial Waste Water Pollution Control, Center for Industrial Flue Gas Control, Center for Hazardous Waste Treatment, and Center for Solid Waste Treatment and Disposal of Mines.
China is experiencing an increase in environmental complaints: In 2005, there were 51,000 disputes over environmental pollution, according to SEPA minister Zhou Shengxian. From 2001 to 2005, Chinese environmental authorities received more than 2.53 million letters and 430,000 visits by 597,000 petitioners seeking environmental redress.
Economic development
Vice minister Pan Yue, a former journalist, said in an interview with http://www.chinadialogue.net that the fundamental cause of the worsening global environmental crisis "...is the capitalist system. The environmental crisis has become a new means of transferring the economic crisis.". He believes China's role in the environmental crisis "... has arisen, basically, because our mode of economic modernisation has been copied from western, developed nations. In 30 years, China has achieved economic results that took a century to attain in the West. But we have also concentrated a century’s worth of environmental issues into those 30 years. While becoming the world leader in GDP growth and foreign investment, we have also become the world’s number one consumer of coal, oil and steel – and the largest producer of CO2 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions.".
North Korean nuclear test
After a North Korean nuclear test, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a press release "to reassure residents that no radioactive particles had been detected in aerosol samples collected" in the Northeast region.