Beijing appears to have scaled down its ambition in cutting pollution by setting a much lower target for a key water pollution indicator for the next five years than in the previous five-year programme.
The proposal by the Ministry of Environmental Protection - which would halve the target for chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution - came as a surprise to environmentalists, who said the country's worsening pollution has yet to be brought under control.
COD is one of only two pollution control targets Beijing set for the 11th Five-Year Programme, which ends on December 31.
Citing ministry sources, the 21st Century Business Herald reported yesterday that Beijing planned to curb COD emissions by 5 per cent by 2015 from the 2010 level and set a 10 per cent control target for acid-rain-causing sulphur dioxide, the other binding indicator in the current plan.
'It is quite shocking to see such a big drop in the proposed COD targets for the next five-year plan,' the report quoted an unnamed scholar at the Policy Research Centre for Environment and Economy, a ministry think tank, as saying.
Dr Chen Sai, another researcher at the centre, confirmed the reported targets, saying they were based on comprehensive studies of the country's environmental capacity and economic development.
'It is right to say that it would become a lot more difficult to substantially cut pollution on the basis of what we have achieved in the past years, which is quite remarkable in our eyes,' she said.