Officials rated on environment

Officials who perform incompetently in environmental protection will be disciplined, Beijing's municipal Party secretary said Thursday morning.

Guo Jinlong, secretary of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Party of China, said at a press conference Thursday that the government will include environment protection as an index to assess officials' performance, according to the Beijing Evening News.

"We should build sound systems for environmental protection. Those officials who perform poorly and passively in their job will be held accountable," said Guo during the conference.

Hou Jianmei, media officer with the Beijing government, told the Global Times he cannot provide further details about the punishment system.

Zhai Xiaohui, media officer with Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), said that they have not yet received any announcement related to Guo's statement.

"It's the Beijing government's job to punish those officials who have done poorly in environmental protection. We don't have such a right," said Zhai.

Zhang Kai, a campaigner with Greenpeace, said that establishing a disciplinary system of punishment should be based on the setting up of appropriate environment protection goals.

"Take the EPB's goal of decreasing the worst pollutants by 2 percent in 2013 for example, this goal was set too conservatively. It will take more than 20 years for Beijing residents to see a result at this pace," said Zhang.

Zhang said that it is better for government to include third-party environmental protection experts and conduct regional cooperation in setting the city's environmental protection goals.

"The punishment should be decided according to the degree of the violation of the goals," said Zhang.

According to the Beijing Evening News on Thursday, deputy mayor Zhang Gong said that Beijing will enact seven pollution control measures in 2013, including control of fume pollution in catering, banning outdoor barbecues and decreasing vehicle emissions.