Cost of Environmental Damage in China Growing Rapidly Amid Industrialization

中國工業化的環境賬

黃安偉 報道 2013年04月01日

Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

在北京東部，一座發電廠濃煙滾滾，工人們正在拆除一棟房子的牆壁。國有企業一再對遏制污染的政策加以阻撓。

北京——中國一家官方媒體上周報道，2010年，中國環境退化成本約為2300億美元（15389.5億元），佔中國國內生產總值的3.5%，以人民幣計算相當於2004年的三倍。
上述數據來自中國環境保護部環境規劃院所做的一項研究。

2300億美元（1.54萬億元人民幣）的數字是根據生態環境遭到污染和破壞而引發的成本計算的，是中國為自己的快速工業化付出的代價。
“這觸及中國面臨的經濟挑戰的核心：如何從過去30年的爆炸式增長轉變到未來30年的可持續增長，”研究公司環球通視(IHS Global Insight)關注中國的經濟學家阿利斯泰爾·桑頓(Alistair Thornton)說。“先挖個大坑，再把坑填平就會產生GDP的增長，但這樣做並不會帶來經濟價值。過去幾年，中國的大量經濟活動都是挖坑再填坑，從救助岌岌可危的太陽能企業，到無視經濟增長的‘外部性’，概莫能外。”

他表示，成本可能比環保部的估計還要高。2300億美元這個數字是不全面的，因為研究人員並沒有完整的數據。桑頓稱，因此，進行類似的計算“異常困難”。

環保部下屬的一份報紙上周一報道了2010年的相關數據，到目前為止，這項研究只公布了部分結果。2006年，環保部開始發佈由環境退化造成的成本的估計數字。環保部只是間斷性地發佈數據，不過其最初目標是為所謂的“綠色GDP”進行年度核算。

全國範圍內環境迅速遭到破壞，這已經成了許多中國人最為關注的問題。今年1月，中國北方的空氣污染程度達到了創紀錄的水平，遠遠超出了西方環保機構所認為的危險水平，導致民怨沸騰。公眾的憤怒迫使宣傳部門的官員允許中國官方新聞機構更坦率地報道污染問題。

主張環保的政府官員想要實行緩解污染的政策，但石油及能源產業的國有企業卻總是加以阻撓。

公眾對水污染和土壤污染也一直存在憂慮。在為上海提供飲用水的河流中，發現至少1.6萬頭死豬，這給上海敲響了警鐘。上周，中國中央電視台報道，河 南省某村農民使用造紙廠的廢水灌溉小麥。但是一位農民說，他們自己不敢吃這些小麥。這些小麥被賣到村外，最終可能流向城裡，而農民們種植自己吃的小麥時用 的是井水。

上周五，中國官方英文報紙《中國日報》報道，北京市政府於周四公布了一項三年計劃的具體措施，該計劃旨在遏制各種形式的污染。報道援引北京市長王安順的話說，污水處理、垃圾焚燒和植樹造林工程將花費至少160億美元（約合1000億元人民幣）。

2006年，環境部稱，2004年的環境退化成本超過620億美元，佔GDP總量的3.05%。2010年，環境部公布了2008年環境退化成本的 部分結果，總計約為1850億美元，佔GDP的3.9%。一些外國學者對中國研究人員的計算方法提出了批評，稱他們在計算中沒有包含一些關鍵的環境退化指 標。

現在人們一致認為，中國近幾十年來兩位數的經濟增長造成了巨大的環境代價。但是增長仍然是首要目標，共產黨執政的合法性很大程度上依賴於經濟的迅速 增長，而且中國官方預計，今年的GDP增長將為7.5%，在截止於2015年的五年計劃里，年均經濟增長率為7%。2012年，中國GDP總量約為8.3 萬億美元。德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)上個月發佈的一份報告稱，當前的增長政策，將使環境在未來十年中繼續急劇惡化，特別是考慮到預期煤炭消耗量，以及預計汽車銷量會激增的情況下。

黃安偉(Edward Wong)是《紐約時報》駐京記者。Patrick Zuo對本文有研究貢獻。
翻譯：陳亦亭、梁英

Cost of Environmental Damage in China Growing Rapidly Amid Industrialization

By EDWARD WONG April 01, 2013

 

BEIJING — The cost of environmental degradation in China was about $230 billion in 2010, or 3.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product — three times that in 2004, in local currency terms, an official Chinese news report said this week.
The statistic came from a study by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, which is part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The figure of $230 billion, or 1.54 trillion renminbi, is based on costs arising from pollution and damage to the ecosystem, the price that China is paying for its rapid industrialization.
“This cuts to the heart of China’s economic challenge: how to transform from the explosive growth of the past 30 years to the sustainable growth of the next 30 years,” said Alistair Thornton, a China economist at the research firm IHS Global Insight. “Digging a hole and filling it back in again gives you G.D.P. growth. It doesn’t give you economic value. A lot of the activity in China over the last few years has been digging holes to fill them back in again — anything from bailing out failing solar companies to ignoring the ‘externalities’ of economic growth.”

And the costs could be even higher than the ministry’s estimate, he said. The $230 billion figure is incomplete because the researchers did not have a full set of data. Making such calculations is “notoriously difficult,” Mr. Thornton said.

The 2010 figure was reported on Monday by a newspaper associated with the ministry, and so far only partial results of the study are available. In 2006, the ministry began releasing an estimate of the cost of environmental degradation. The ministry has issued statistics only intermittently, though its original goal was to do the calculation — what it called “green G.D.P.” — annually.

The rapidly eroding environment across the country has become an issue of paramount concern to many Chinese. In January, outrage boiled over as air pollution in north China reached record levels, well beyond what Western environmental agencies consider hazardous. The public fury forced propaganda officials to allow official Chinese news organizations to report more candidly on the pollution.

Chinese state-owned enterprises in the oil and power industries have consistently blocked efforts by pro-environment government officials to impose policies that would alleviate the pollution.

There have also been constant concerns over water and soil pollution. The discovery of at least 16,000 dead pigs in rivers that supply drinking water to Shanghai has ignited alarm there. This week, China Central Television reported that farmers in a village in Henan Province were using wastewater from a paper mill to grow wheat. But one farmer said they would not dare to eat the wheat themselves. It is sold outside the village, perhaps ending up in cities, while the farmers grow their own wheat with well water.

The Beijing government on Thursday released details of a three-year plan that is aimed at curbing various forms of pollution, according to a report on Friday in China Daily, an official English-language newspaper. The report quoted Wang Anshun, Beijing’s mayor, as saying that sewage treatment, garbage incineration and forestry development would cost at least $16 billion.

In 2006, the environmental ministry said the cost of environmental degradation in 2004 was more than $62 billion, or 3.05 percent of G.D.P. In 2010, it released partial results for 2008 that totaled about $185 billion, or 3.9 percent of G.D.P. Several foreign scholars have criticized the methods by which Chinese researchers have reached those numbers, saying some crucial measures of environmental degradation are not included in the calculations.
There is consensus now that China’s decades of double-digit economic growth exacted an enormous environmental cost. But growth remains the priority; the Communist Party’s legitimacy is based largely on rapidly expanding the economy, and China officially estimates that its G.D.P., which was $8.3 trillion in 2012, will grow at a rate of 7.5 percent this year and at an average of 7 percent in the five-year plan that runs to 2015. A Deutsche Bank report released last month said the current growth policies would lead to a continuing steep decline of the environment for the next decade, especially given the expected coal consumption and boom in automobile sales.

Patrick Zuo contributed research.