China’s government is deploying environmental “SWAT teams” to impose strict new pollution rules in an effort to wean itself off coal and meet December’s Paris climate accord, according to a senior attorney with a prominent environmental group. Yet, even with strict enforcement, it is still to be seen if the country will be successful.
China’s government has “set up SWAT teams … in the last few months and have increased the fines” for regions that do not comply with strict new rules to reduce coal consumption, Barbara Finamore, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Asia director and senior attorney, said on a call Friday to talk about China’s latest five-year environmental strategy.
China issued its 13th five-year plan recently, spurring optimism from environmental groups but also some skepticism based on the challenges the country faces in meeting its ambitious goals. China’s success in improving its environmental record is widely seen as key to meeting the goals of the climate change deal that President Obama agreed to in December and plans to sign next month.
Obama has touted his dealmaking with the Chinese in getting them to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, while upping renewable energy development. But Republicans say China’s commitments mean little in terms of real improvement, saying Obama agreed to a plan in which the U.S. will do most of the heavy lifting.
Many scientists blame the emissions for causing manmade changes in the Earth’s climate, resulting in more severe weather, droughts and flooding.
Although Finamore calls China’s latest strategy the “greenest five-year plan ever,” she underscored the number of challenges the country faces in meeting its aggressive goals. And that is where the “SWAT teams” come into play.
She says to meet its environmental goals, the government has promised “heavy blows” to polluters and swift punishment if they continue to pollute under newly amended environmental protection laws that are very aggressive.
The so-called SWAT teams were ramped up over the past two years, with increasing levels of authority and ties to the central government.
A primer she shared explains that a special working group was created to oversee China’s transition from coal to cleaner energy. The group is composed of personnel from “key national and regional government bodies” and charged with evaluating the progress being made, with the ability to do spot checks.
Last spring, an “inter-ministry team,” led by China’s central economic planning department, “one of the country’s most powerful political bodies,” gave local governments the added ability to conduct their own on-site inspections of coal plants and other facilities and the “power to impose penalties like punitive energy price increases or closure of plants which exceed energy efficiency standards.”
These types of strict enforcement actions are expected to increase as China’s state-owned fossil fuel companies likely resist the new, more stringent environmental and coal-reduction rules, Finamore and other environmental groups said on the call.
She pointed out that one of the bigger challenges for China will be cutting emissions from its growing transportation sector, where cars and increased urbanization are increasing vehicle emissions.
“Transportation is an area where they are only beginning to focus,” Finamore said. But the potential exists that the private sector will fight compliance, with “likely resistance from state-owned oil companies.” Those factors make any prediction of China meeting its obligations under the Paris deal — which is nonbinding — premature, she added.
“What China is going to do to reduce its reliance on oil will be key,” Finamore said. The decline in carbon dioxide emissions from coal in recent years has been offset from China’s consumption of oil, she said.
