中国工业化的环境账
黄安伟 报道 2013年04月01日
北京——中国一家官方媒体上周报道，2010年，中国环境退化成本约为2300亿美元（15389.5亿元），占中国国内生产总值的3.5%，以人民币计算相当于2004年的三倍。
上述数据来自中国环境保护部环境规划院所做的一项研究。
2300亿美元（1.54万亿元人民币）的数字是根据生态环境遭到污染和破坏而引发的成本计算的，是中国为自己的快速工业化付出的代价。
"这触及中国面临的经济挑战的核心：如何从过去30年的爆炸式增长转变到未来30年的可持续增长，"研究公司环球通视(IHS Global Insight)关注中国的经济学家阿利斯泰尔·桑顿(Alistair Thornton)说。"先挖个大坑，再把坑填平就会产生GDP的增长，但这样做并不会带来经济价值。过去几年，中国的大量经济活动都是挖坑再填坑，从救助岌岌可危的太阳能企业，到无视经济增长的'外部性'，概莫能外。"
他表示，成本可能比环保部的估计还要高。2300亿美元这个数字是不全面的，因为研究人员并没有完整的数据。桑顿称，因此，进行类似的计算"异常困难"。
环保部下属的一份报纸上周一报道了2010年的相关数据，到目前为止，这项研究只公布了部分结果。2006年，环保部开始发布由环境退化造成的成本的估计数字。环保部只是间断性地发布数据，不过其最初目标是为所谓的"绿色GDP"进行年度核算。
全国范围内环境迅速遭到破坏，这已经成了许多中国人最为关注的问题。今年1月，中国北方的空气污染程度达到了创纪录的水平，远远超出了西方环保机构所认为的危险水平，导致民怨沸腾。公众的愤怒迫使宣传部门的官员允许中国官方新闻机构更坦率地报道污染问题。
主张环保的政府官员想要实行缓解污染的政策，但石油及能源产业的国有企业却总是加以阻挠。
公众对水污染和土壤污染也一直存在忧虑。在为上海提供饮用水的河流中，发现至少1.6万头死猪，这给上海敲响了警钟。上周，中国中央电视台报道，河南省某村农民使用造纸厂的废水灌溉小麦。但是一位农民说，他们自己不敢吃这些小麦。这些小麦被卖到村外，最终可能流向城里，而农民们种植自己吃的小麦时用的是井水。
上周五，中国官方英文报纸《中国日报》报道，北京市政府于周四公布了一项三年计划的具体措施，该计划旨在遏制各种形式的污染。报道援引北京市长王安顺的话说，污水处理、垃圾焚烧和植树造林工程将花费至少160亿美元（约合1000亿元人民币）。
2006年，环境部称，2004年的环境退化成本超过620亿美元，占GDP总量的3.05%。2010年，环境部公布了2008年环境退化成本的部分结果，总计约为1850亿美元，占GDP的3.9%。一些外国学者对中国研究人员的计算方法提出了批评，称他们在计算中没有包含一些关键的环境退化指标。
现在人们一致认为，中国近几十年来两位数的经济增长造成了巨大的环境代价。但是增长仍然是首要目标，共产党执政的合法性很大程度上依赖于经济的迅速增长，而且中国官方预计，今年的GDP增长将为7.5%，在截止于2015年的五年计划里，年均经济增长率为7%。2012年，中国GDP总量约为8.3万亿美元。德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)上个月发布的一份报告称，当前的增长政策，将使环境在未来十年中继续急剧恶化，特别是考虑到预期煤炭消耗量，以及预计汽车销量会激增的情况下。
2013年04月01日
Cost of Environmental Damage in China Growing Rapidly Amid Industrialization
BEIJING — The cost of environmental degradation in China was about $230 billion in 2010, or 3.5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product — three times that in 2004, in local currency terms, an official Chinese news report said this week.
The statistic came from a study by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, which is part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The figure of $230 billion, or 1.54 trillion renminbi, is based on costs arising from pollution and damage to the ecosystem, the price that China is paying for its rapid industrialization.
"This cuts to the heart of China's economic challenge: how to transform from the explosive growth of the past 30 years to the sustainable growth of the next 30 years," said Alistair Thornton, a China economist at the research firm IHS Global Insight. "Digging a hole and filling it back in again gives you G.D.P. growth. It doesn't give you economic value. A lot of the activity in China over the last few years has been digging holes to fill them back in again — anything from bailing out failing solar companies to ignoring the 'externalities' of economic growth."
And the costs could be even higher than the ministry's estimate, he said. The $230 billion figure is incomplete because the researchers did not have a full set of data. Making such calculations is "notoriously difficult," Mr. Thornton said.
The 2010 figure was reported on Monday by a newspaper associated with the ministry, and so far only partial results of the study are available. In 2006, the ministry began releasing an estimate of the cost of environmental degradation. The ministry has issued statistics only intermittently, though its original goal was to do the calculation — what it called "green G.D.P." — annually.
The rapidly eroding environment across the country has become an issue of paramount concern to many Chinese. In January, outrage boiled over as air pollution in north China reached record levels, well beyond what Western environmental agencies consider hazardous. The public fury forced propaganda officials to allow official Chinese news organizations to report more candidly on the pollution.
Chinese state-owned enterprises in the oil and power industries have consistently blocked efforts by pro-environment government officials to impose policies that would alleviate the pollution.
There have also been constant concerns over water and soil pollution. The discovery of at least 16,000 dead pigs in rivers that supply drinking water to Shanghai has ignited alarm there. This week, China Central Television reported that farmers in a village in Henan Province were using wastewater from a paper mill to grow wheat. But one farmer said they would not dare to eat the wheat themselves. It is sold outside the village, perhaps ending up in cities, while the farmers grow their own wheat with well water.
The Beijing government on Thursday released details of a three-year plan that is aimed at curbing various forms of pollution, according to a report on Friday in China Daily, an official English-language newspaper. The report quoted Wang Anshun, Beijing's mayor, as saying that sewage treatment, garbage incineration and forestry development would cost at least $16 billion.
In 2006, the environmental ministry said the cost of environmental degradation in 2004 was more than $62 billion, or 3.05 percent of G.D.P. In 2010, it released partial results for 2008 that totaled about $185 billion, or 3.9 percent of G.D.P. Several foreign scholars have criticized the methods by which Chinese researchers have reached those numbers, saying some crucial measures of environmental degradation are not included in the calculations.
There is consensus now that China's decades of double-digit economic growth exacted an enormous environmental cost. But growth remains the priority; the Communist Party's legitimacy is based largely on rapidly expanding the economy, and China officially estimates that its G.D.P., which was $8.3 trillion in 2012, will grow at a rate of 7.5 percent this year and at an average of 7 percent in the five-year plan that runs to 2015. A Deutsche Bank report released last month said the current growth policies would lead to a continuing steep decline of the environment for the next decade, especially given the expected coal consumption and boom in automobile sales.
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