Experts are concerned that the country's plan to reduce major pollutants by 2 percent this year might have set the bar too high.

The target is part of a five-year effort to reduce pollution by 10 percent and clean up the country's environment.

"China has set a very ambitious goal for itself," said Zhou Dadi, director of the National Development and Reform Commission's Institute of Energy Research.

The National Development and Reform Commission is China's top economic policy-making body.

"It will be hard for China to reduce pollution by 10 percent by 2010 while at the same time trimming energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent given that the country's GDP growth is so rapid," Zhou said at a symposium organized yesterday in Beijing by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

Most of the experts in attendance expressed similar sentiments.

SEPA has been sounding out experts in an effort to avoid repeating its failure to reduce pollution last year. The organization missed its target of reducing sulphur dioxide (SO2) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, by 2 percent last year. Nor did it succeed in its goal to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by 4 percent.

"Such targets are very hard to hit at a time when the economy is growing at a rate of more than 7.5 percent per year," said Yin Ruiyu, a researcher at the Central Iron and Steel Research Institute.

When China drew up its pollution reduction and energy conservation plans, it was assumed that the country's annual GDP growth rate was 7.5 percent. At that rate, coal consumption was expected to grow to 2.56 billion tons by 2010, while installed power-generating capacity was expected to be 700 million kilowatts.

Under those conditions, and if all new development projects met modern environment-protection standards, the country would easily meet its 10 percent pollution-reduction target, as well as cutting SO2 emissions by 5 million tons.

However, the landscape has changed. Experts have suggested that China's GDP could continue growing at a rate of 9 percent through 2010. Every percentage point of GDP growth would increase coal consumption by 20 million tons and SO2 emissions by 300,000 tons.

China's GDP grew by 10.7 percent last year. The country consumed 2.3 billion tons of coal during the period. Coal-fired power plants released 2.8 million tons of SO2 last year.

Meanwhile, China produced more than 58 million tons of paper products, one of the major causes of COD, last year, representing an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. As a result, COD grew by 1.2 percent last year, SEPA figures showed.

"Local governments should bear in mind how much pollution one percentage point of GDP growth can cause," said Sun Youhai, a member of the Environment and Resources Protection Commission under the National People's Congress, the country's top legislator.

He criticized local governments for pursuing GDP growth at the cost of all other considerations.

Experts have said that China would not meet its pollution-reduction goals if the country did not find a more sustainable way to spur GDP growth.

"If SEPA cannot stop new sources of pollution from popping up, it does not work," said Hao Jiming, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Experts who attended the SEPA symposium also called for closer supervision of sulphur-removal facilities and wastewater treatment plants, saying that some facilities had been closed in a bid to save money.

(China Daily February 13, 2007)