New Report Finds Increased Environmentalism in China

While China has formidable environmental problems, there are unacknowledged signs of improvement, according to the 2006 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The Index (available at www.pacificresearch.org), for more than a decade has provided an annual review of the positive trends occurring in key areas of the environment including climate change, air quality, water quality, toxic chemicals, and biodiversity.

“Nowhere is pessimism about the world’s environmental prospects greater than in China,” said Dr. Steven F. Hayward, author of the Index, senior fellow at PRI, and F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI. “Although environmental trends in China are serious and deteriorating, some unappreciated signs of improvement are appearing.”

China's gains can be attributed to a willingness to replicate environmental laws that resemble landmark legislation introduced during the 1970s in the U.S. and Europe. China's State Environmental Protection Administration reports that spending for environmental projects is increasing about 15 percent a year. China has boldly created its own version of the American NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act), requiring construction projects to perform an environmental impact assessment as part of the planning and building permit process. As a result, in 2004 over 320,000 construction projects went through the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) review process.

“Environmental review may not meet the standards of either the U.S. EPA or the Sierra Club, but the Chinese have moved a quantum leap forward by embracing Western reforms which recognize that economic growth and markets are the prerequisites to environmental improvement,” said Dr. Hayward. “If China responds to its environmental challenges with administrative decentralization and greater use of market mechanisms and property rights, who knows where that might lead?”

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About PRI
For 27 years, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed freedom, opportunity, and individual responsibility through free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. For more information please visit our web site at http://www.pacificresearch.org/

About AEI
Founded in 1943, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy’s research is dedicated to preserving and strengthening the foundations of freedom, limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense - through scholarly research, open debate, and publications.