Xi warns officials they'll be held responsible for pollution 'for life'

Government officials will be held responsible "for life" if they approve a project that causes serious pollution, President Xi Jinping said yesterday.

An environmentalist said it was the toughest warning yet linking officials' political future to their stewardship of the environment.

In a Politburo study session on environmental issues, Xi said pollution had become a major concern of the people and China could no longer develop its economy by sacrificing the environment. "The government must create a system of accountability," he said.

"Those [officials] who make blind decisions that cause serious consequences due to negligence towards the environment must be held responsible - lifetime responsibility."

Xi also admitted that current evaluation and promotion benchmarks for officials were incomplete. He urged the addition of new criteria - such as the exhaustion of natural resources, environmental damage and protection efforts - to reviews of officials' political performance to encourage them to be environmentally responsible.

The call for lifetime accountability and inclusion of green appraisals was flagged in the party congress report in November. But Li Bo , a senior adviser to Friends of Nature, a major environmental NGO, said: "This sounds like a new attitude and we welcome it."