The announcement this week of the government's long-postponed plans for environmental protection for 2006-2010 was scrutinized by environmentalists for signs of whether the country can finally get its act together. Zou Shoumin, director of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning and one of the plan's authors, told the state-run Xinhua news service that the government will spend $85 billion on cleaning up water pollution, $80 billion on air pollution and $28 billion on solid waste. In total the cleanup costs will equal about 1.35% of China's GDP. That's slightly more than what China spent under the previous five-year plan.


However, the amount may well be short of what it will need to turn things around, say Wang Canfa, who heads the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, a Beijing-based NGO. For China to begin serious cleanup it needs to spend 2-3% of GDP on environmental protection, he says. Even the money China now spends could be used more efficiently, argues Wen Bo, the China program manager for Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based NGO. "In the past many such huge investments didn't result in real cleanups. They became a hotbed for corruption," he says.

The State Council's plan puts new emphasis on fining polluters, monitoring local governments and controlling greenhouse gases. The government administrative body also called for a 10% reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions, the same amount that was proposed but not reached in the previous five-year plan.