China silences green GDP study, report says - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

China silences green GDP study, report says
Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:42AM EDT

BEIJING, July 23 (Reuters) - China has stopped the public release of
an official study putting a cost to the nation's environmental damage,
a government researcher told a Chinese newspaper, blaming official
reluctance to confront pollution.

The Beijing News reported on Monday that the release of a "green GDP"
report computing the cost of pollution and ecological degradation in
2005 had been "indefinitely postponed".

Wang Jinnan, a senior expert at the Chinese Academy for Environmental
Planning who was technical head of the project, said publicly spelling
out the cost of bad air, water and soil had drawn fierce opposition from
local officials eager to maintain growth.

"Taking out the costs of environmental damage would lead to a huge
fall in the quality of economic growth in some areas," Wang told the
paper.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSPEK20496620070723

---

Source: China Daily

Green GDP in the works
By Yuan Wu (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-23 06:34

The green gross domestic product (GDP) for last year is being prepared
despite the indefinite postponement of the 2005 report's release, a top
green GDP accounting expert said yesterday.

"Although there is no internationally recognized methodology for the
accounting (of green GDP) and there are lots of difficulties in
technologies, systems and understandings, China should not give up its
efforts to devise a suitable accounting system," Chinese Academy for
Environmental Planning Vice-President Wang Jinnan told China Daily.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/23/content_5441104.htm

[Lasher]

1. Looks like they've taken a few notes from Junior (EOM)