CHINA – In a move, which will open the door to public participation in the country’s new environmental direction, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection has begun to implement new guidelines which guarantee access to environmental information collected by State agencies. 

The “Measures on Open Environmental Information”, were first published on February 8, 2007, as an internal document by State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) - before it was upgraded to Ministerial level in May this year - but remained in the discussion phase until 1 May 2008 when they were released guidelines for implementation on a trial basis.

According to the Ministerial circular, the guidelines have been introduced “In order to propel and regulate the disclosure of environmental information by administrative departments in charge of environmental protection by enterprises to maintain the rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations to obtain environmental information and promote public involvement in environmental protection”.

The Right to Information

Under the guidelines; ‘Citizens, legal persons and other organizations may request environmental information and data from government departments to obtain government environmental information’ though these are to be released without prejudicing the state interests, public interests and lawful rights and interests of others

Largely directed at opening up China’s often-secretive bureaucracy, the Ministry instructions direct all Environmental Protection departments to observe ‘the principles of justice, fairness, convenience towards the people’. They are to ‘Maintain objectivity and disclose government environmental information promptly and accurately’.

Looking beyond the government sector, the Ministry calls on all enterprises to disclose environmental information promptly and accurately under a ‘principle of combining voluntary disclosure with mandatory disclosure’ – a reference to the now mandatory Environmental Impact Studies which cover new industrial facilities. 

General Office of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China coordinating office in charge of this Open Government Environmental Information

A wide scope

The scope of disclosure, which is required to be made public, is highly detailed and covers:

• Laws, regulations, rules, standards and other regulatory documents with respect to environmental protection; Environmental protection plans, quality status, statistics and environmental investigation information.
• Emergency plans for and forecast, occurrence and handling of sudden environmental events;
• Information on type, volume and disposal of solid waste produced in medium to large cities;
• Information on the acceptance of environmental impact assessment documents of construction projects, results of the examination process, details of environmental protection inspection and approvals – particularly with regard to completion of construction projects - items, basis, conditions, procedures and results of other environmental protection administrative licenses issued;
• Items, basis, standards and procedures with respect to the collection of pollutant emission fees, amount of pollutant emission fees payable by and the amount actually imposed on polluters and information on exemption, reduction and postponement of payment of pollutant emission fees.

In addition the disclosure extends to revealing calls and complaints from the public about environmental issues and the outcome of investigations into environment pollution incidents caused by enterprises, administrative penalties, lawsuits and enforcement of compulsory measures;

Name and Shame

The Ministry will publish regular lists of enterprises judged to have caused severe pollution and whose emission of pollutants is greater than the national or local emission standard or whose total emission of pollutants is greater than the quota of total controlled emission determined by local authorities. Those, which have caused serious or extraordinarily serious environmental pollution accidents. Also to be listed are enterprises that have refused, or failed, to enforce effective environmental administrative penalty decisions 

Failsafe Measures

Prior to disclosing government environmental information, the Ministry will review the information to guarantee that it is in accordance with the provisions of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding State Secrets

However, having passed the ‘secrecy test’ local environmental protection departments’ are encouraged to take the initiative and use government websites, government gazettes, press conferences as well as through newspapers and other publications, radio, television to distribute the information.

The Grand Scheme

That China was mulling the principal of The Public Right to Know first emerged in China’s Packaging Recycling Master Plan, which contained two clauses:

Article 9: Obligations and Rights of the Public

The public shall improve the consciousness of saving resources, protecting environment, and consume and save resources reasonably.  The public shall adopt simple packaging and appropriate packing as soon as possible, reject excessive packing, classify garbage voluntarily and reduce the production and discharge of waste.

The public shall have the right to report actions of wasting resources, damaging environment and excessive packing, and have the right to know relevant information and propose relevant suggestions.

Article 37: Public Supervision

The governments encourage the public to participate in recycling of packaging materials, and the public has the right to disclose the conduct committed by relevant government department, enterprises, and individuals for their breach of this Method. 

The governments should protect the informants and give necessary rewards to them according to the law. 

The method and standard for reward shall be formulated by local people’s governments.

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