China’s New Platform to Track Polluters

China has announced to set up a new information platform for tracking emissions of polluting enterprises. This platform will allow the public to track the emissions of such enterprises and will also help the authorities prosecute those breaking rules.

Key Points

• As per the Environment Ministry of China, a new information platform will be set up to allow authorities and the public to monitor real-time emission levels and check historical data in order to determine whether rules are being breached.
• The platform will come into effect on March 1.
• A total number of 2.36 million industrial facilities, companies, and institutions in China are legally required to obtain permits to emit pollutants like wastewater or sulphur dioxide.
• However, the country has faced problems in collecting the required information and come up with a system. This has also resulted in data fraud in some polluting companies.
• Now, with the new platform, the collection of information and monitoring of emissions will become easier.
• As per the ministry, for illegal activity like the discharge of pollution without permits, penalties will be issued on a daily basis.
• Along with this, the firms will also be ordered to decrease production or shut down.
• The companies which will repeatedly exceed allocations will be subject to more frequent inspections and more scrutiny.

Polluting enterprises are required to install monitoring equipment and keep at least maintain the data for five years. Failing to do so will attract fines of 200,000 yuan ($31,000). Fines of 1 million yuan will be imposed on enterprises that pollute without permission.