As part of her visit to China in March, Janet McCabe, Acting Assistant Administrator for USEPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, and several of her colleagues met with representatives of environmental non-governmental organizations in Beijing. They had a wide-ranging discussion about the environmental challenges that China faces and new opportunities for implementation of progressive policies. The NGOs represented were the Environmental Defense Fund, IGDP, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Regulatory Assistance Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Bar Association, Clean Air Asia, the Smart Freight Center, the Clean Air Alliance of China, and Energy Foundation China.
Assistant Administrator McCabe began by noting the success of COP 21 in Paris and reminding the group that the fight against climate change depends on the leadership of China and the United States. Two of the most important features of the Paris agreement, she said, are that it calls for transparency and accountability—that is, the signatories must be open about their compliance with the agreement and are therefore accountable to the other nations for their successes or failures. She noted that it is important as well, especially in countries such as China, to link climate action to progress on local air quality. Failure to do so can lead to unwanted outcomes—for example, reduced emissions of pollutants at the expense of increased emissions of carbon dioxide. She then described the status of the US Clean Power Plan (currently on hold pending judicial review) and expressed her confidence that the CPP will be upheld by the courts and implemented as designed.
Ms. McCabe asked the attendees to speak about what they are working on, what challenges they face, where new opportunities lie, and how EPA can assist their efforts. A number of themes emerged:
In China, as elsewhere, environmental and energy policy need to be fully integrated. China has recently made great strides in this regard, but there nevertheless remains too much separation between the two and therefore weaknesses in policy design, enforcement, and institutional accountability.
China’s historic approach to air quality—addressing one pollutant at a time—has not been particularly successful and therefore it is time to adopt multi-pollutant strategies.
The availability of data has been a problem, but new regulations about information transparency are making a difference.
Advances in civil society—e.g., civilian lawsuits to drive enforcement of environmental laws—are being achieved, but progress is slow.
The meeting closed with sincere thanks from Assistant Administrator McCabe for the work of the NGOs, without which recent diplomatic successes—i.e., the two Xi-Obama announcements (in 2014 and 2015) and the COP 21 agreement—would have been far less notable. She expressed a desire for continued EPA engagement and collaboration with the NGOs, which they reciprocated.
Written by Frederick Weston, principal and director, RAP China Programs
