China may expand environmental watchdog early '08

PROVIDENCE, R.I., - China's environmental watchdog could be expanded or given Cabinet-level status by March to enforce policies aimed at fighting chronic pollution, a top Chinese government adviser said on Friday.

Environmental groups are seeking more status and power for China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), and there has been speculation it could happen as early as next year.

That recommendation was one of dozens in an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report this year that said China's environmental protection efforts have been ineffective and inefficient largely because the central government has been unable to implement its policies.

The Paris-based group brings together 30 industrialized countries but does not include China.

"It is still under discussion how the new organization should be," said Xia Guang, director of the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, a think tank within SEPA.

"Some people believe that the new organization should include all the responsibilities of the different departments together, making a new comprehensive one," he told Reuters in an interview after speaking to students at Brown University in Providence.

"Others suggest that it can be done by just raising SEPA's position without connecting other responsibilities to them," he added. "In March of next year we'll decide this matter."

China is poised to overtake the United States as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, and Beijing faces rising international calls to accept mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions from factories and vehicles.

"At this moment SEPA is already at the ministry level but it is not a member of Cabinet. It's just a department under the state council. Normally it has less than 300 people," he said. "So some people think it should be expanded."

SEPA's vice minister, Zhou Jian, said in July the expansion of power would strengthen China's ability to implement comprehensive environmental policies.

The country is struggling to meet energy-efficiency goals in the face of unbridled economic growth.

About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking contaminated water, according to a recent World Bank study.

Authorities are closing down dirty industrial plants, raising car fuel-efficiency standards and tweaking taxes to discourage energy-intensive production.

China has also introduced higher drinking water standards, but state media report severe pollution of China's vast lakes and rivers on an almost daily basis.