Lookout

Out-going Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has told China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) – the country’s rubber-stamp legislature – that the government should adopt effective measures to prevent and control pollution in response to peoples’ expectations of having a good living environment. This obvious assertion came as Wen delivered his final work report to the NPC, which opened for its annual meeting this week. Next year China’s premier-in-waiting, Li Keqiang – who takes over as the head of China’s government at the close of this NPC session at the end of next week – will be delivering the work report.

In what must be considered his boldest appointments since he took office at the beginning of July, Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung has appointed Christine Loh as the Under-Secretary for the Environment in his new administration. Loh was formerly the chief executive of Civic Exchange, the Hong Kong-based think tank she co-founded in 2000, and a staunch but constructive critic of the Hong Kong Government’s environmental policies.

It is, of course, a rhetorical question. The plan to hold this year's United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has been underway for years. However, were the Earth Summit to be held in the capital city of the US state of Alabama from mid-September onwards, any delegates without diplomatic passports might be a little concerned by the implications of Alabama Senate Bill 477. It was signed into law by the state's governor last week and comes into effect three months later, having been unanimously whisked through both chambers of Alabama's legislature in the space of six weeks.

The move this week by the US Consulate in Shanghai to monitor and publish the level of fine particulate matter, less than two microns in diameter (PM2.5), in the air around its office has caused a certain amount of confusion and consternation among local residents and officials. The US diplomats are in part to blame for this because, although their measurements are no doubt sound, their data presentation in somewhat misleading. Following in the footsteps of the country’s embassy in Beijing, the Shanghai consulate now publishes the concentration of PM2.5 in micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m3) on an hourly basis and also publishes the average over the previous 24 hours at noon and midnight each day.

It’s silly season in China again; that time (which elsewhere in the world coincides with national legislatures going into recess for the summer) when the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) get together for their annual two-week hoedown. CPCC members, taking up their advisory role on the national stage, seem particularly “full of notions”, as my grandmother was fond of saying. For example Chen Bingde, chief engineer of Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC) and a member of the CPPCC National Committee told China Daily on Saturday that: "In the near future, nuclear plants can be built right next to cities."