China asks EU for aid in curbing pollution

China has asked the European Union to help it tackle some of its most severe pollution problems, the EU’s environment commissioner said on Thursday, underscoring Beijing’s concerns about addressing a key source of social discontent.

The European Union and China, the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter, have frequently clashed over climate policy. But both sides recently agreed to co-operate, striking a deal last September to cut greenhouse gases through projects including the development of Chinese emissions trading schemes.

Janez Potocnik, the EU Commissioner for the Environment, said that China had asked the European Union for help in tackling pollution related to heavy metals and water and waste treatment.

“That’s one of the projects through which we try to help China to address and solve some of the problems, which they have identified as the core problems we are focusing on at home,” Potocnik said during a two-day visit to promote green economic growth.

“We are focusing on three areas, one will be pollution with the heavy metals, one is water pollution, and one is waste treatment.”

Potocnik, also accompanied by more than 50 European and national industry associations and companies, said the EU was investing about 10 million euros (HKD$101.57 million) in this scheme, known as the EU China Environmental Sustainability Project, to be launched on Friday.

China’s leaders, he said, now recognised the seriousness of pollution issues. A blanket of smog over a string of northern cities in January generated widespread public anger as did the discovery of the rotting corpses of thousands of pigs in March in a river that supplies Shanghai’s water.