Beijing has been declared the most transparent city out of the 120 analyzed in terms of information regarding pollution in 2015, a newly released report stated on Monday. This is in contrast to many other Chinese cities, where pollution data remains more limited and murky.
According to the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) jointly released by two non-governmental organizations on Sept. 12, the capital ranked first in all-around performance, with a score of 77.1. The maximum PITI score is 100, though only 21 cities on the list earned scores of over 60. More than half scored below 50, apparently failing to provide the public with important pollution bulletins.
"The public should have timely and open access to information regarding pollution. This will not weaken the government's environmental supervision, but can actually encourage society to participate in environmental protection," said Jia Feng, director of the Center for Environmental Education and Communication under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, at a press conference on Sept. 12.
Jointly issued by the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) located in New York, PITI was first released in 2009. Cities are evaluated on factors including the disclosure of environmental violations and the availability of enterprises' emissions data.
No cities in central or western China have met even the minimum standard for pollution disclosure since PITI was released seven years ago. Those cities that scored above 60 are all developed cities in eastern China, noted Wang Can, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law. Wang made his remarks during an interview with thepaper.cn on Sept. 12.
"The Ministry of Environmental Protection should establish its own evaluation system for the disclosure of information regarding pollution. This would create public access to such information in central and western China," Wang suggested.
