Originally planned to be published in March of this year, the 2005 green GDP report has been suspended. According to one source, differing opinion over the provincial rankings has caused debate over whether or not to release it. The report is being prepared by the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
Green GDP is calculated by deducting the costs of environmental pollution and losses to natural resources from GDP. It is a major indicator of sustainable development.
The EO has learned that the report had already been completed this past December.
September's 2004 green GDP report revealed that for that year, economic losses from pollution totaled 511.8 billion yuan, standing at 3.05 percent of the nation's GDP. This was the first time that China has released green GDP data.
Wang Jinnan, technology chief of the study group that prepared the report, says, 'Two departments are involved in this, and we have to wait for their results.' As to why the report wasn't published until now, he says that he is also unclear.
However, one source involved in the assessment divulged that both agencies had difficultly coming to consensus over the green GDP rankings for each province. This delayed its release.
This source also revealed that the 2005 report already had each geographic unit's pollution-related losses and GDP deductions, adding, 'SEPA wanted to publish the rankings, but the National Statistics Bureau believed that the ranking methodology wasn't mature, and thus didn't want to publish it.'
SEPA wanted to release the report in order to urge local governments to correct their self-evaluations and pursue healthy development models. The Statistics Bureau knows that SEPA will wait for the State Council's response to the report before ultimately deciding whether or not to release it.
The scope of 2005's report has increased over 2004's, expanding from ten trial provinces to the thirty-one in this round. Economic losses due to pollution as a proportion of GDP were greater in 2005 than in 2004.
The source also says that after reading the 2005 report, it's clear that China has two outstanding problems: structural pollution and regional environmental damage gaps. Paper, mining, power, food products, and metallurgy industries are all high polluters and consumers with large GDP deduction indexes. Among them, paper manufacturing is the most serious offender. The second problem is that not only are regional economic gaps widening, so are the costs of environmental damage. One classic example of this is that environmental damage in the Midwest greatly exceeds that of the East, with Midwest regional GDP deductions two percentage points higher than those of the East. And the provinces with the most costly environmental damage are all located in the Northwest.
According to the source, although air pollution cleanup costs have taken on a greater role in the assessment, the costs of resource depletion, ground water pollution, and indoor air pollution are still absent in this latest report.
Both agencies have been working on green GDP research since March 2004, and they have frequently released discordant assessments.
There has been no response from either agency regarding the reasoning behind the delay.
'Research reports are not the same as government work reports, and I personally believe that it isn't that important who releases them,' says Wang. He attaches more importance to the methodology and value of the report, and is waiting anxiously for its publication.
