Don't blame China for the eco woes——查字典英语网_其他

Don't blame China for the eco woes——查字典英语网

If one table leg is longer than the others, the table is unbalanced and society is far from harmonious.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told China Daily last month her country and Europe "didn't know any better" about protecting the environment during their industrialization and development, and urged the Chinese not to make the same mistakes they did.

The Chinese people, from the Environment Minister down to grass-roots citizens, know change must come. And they are learning from their own mistakes, too.

After people protested over work on a $1.4 billion chemical factory near Xiamen, Fujian province, the project was halted and the local environmental agency was planning to review a proposal to relocate the plant to a neighboring city.

Deputy Environment Minister Zhang Lijun recently admitted serious problems remained in China and that local governments were not putting enough pressure on businesses to control pollution. His ministry is powerful and environmental laws have been toughened, but enforcement still relies on local officials and not enough has been done to fix China's air, lakes and rivers.

Local officials face a conflict of interest because heavily polluting industries offer more jobs and more taxes, which allow local governments to improve their regions - but at what cost?

A report from Zhang's department revealed nearly a quarter of the monitoring stations along China's major rivers found water quality was "worse" than ever, while another survey of five cities said the average air quality in two ranged from "polluted" to "hazardous".