Environmentalists Cautiously Optimistic About China’s Economic Policy Plan

(Bloomberg) --

In late May, the National People's Congress (NPC) meeting was held after a two-month delay. China's annual parliament meeting is a chance for thousands of the country's lawmakers and top government officials to gather in Beijing to review the past year's economic policies and achievements and make plans for the current year.

To the surprise of many, China announced it will not set an annual GDP target this year for the first time in decades. Instead, it will prioritize employment and poverty alleviation. Climate experts say the change could help the nation abandon its traditional approach of recovering the economy at steep environmental costs.

The decision to drop the GDP target is a “bold and important one,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

“It gives the government space to respond to the crisis in ways that can better address the actual needs of affected people—things like jobs, health care, spending power—and clean air and clean water,” he said.

Another significant move at the meeting came when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the country needs to “strive for a further drop in energy consumption per unit of GDP” but gave no specific percentage decrease to aim for. This worried many environmental advocates—with no new goal, the focus on saving energy could slip.

Many other troubling trends remain. China is still adding coal power plants at a breakneck pace—and has already approved more so far this year than in all of 2019—while the rest of the world is phasing out that particular fossil fuel. April's air quality is worse than the same time last year, even though not all business is back to normal.

“Managed badly, the policy framework set up this year may hardly alleviate the country's economic pain, while at the same time exacerbating a crisis on the environment,” said Li Shuo, a policy adviser from Greenpeace China. “The ‘infrastructure fever' and the loosening up of environmental oversight should be scrutinized closely.”

With assistance from Bloomberg