In a move that the Peoples’ Daily is describing as “a milestone in China's environmental protection history,” Premier Wen Jiabao told a high-level government meeting on April 17 that environmental protection efforts will in future be factored into the performance assessment of government officials.

The announcement came as gale force winds brought seasonal sand storms to the capital, coating the city with several millimeters of fine dust. According to a Xinhua News Agency report, 380,000 tons of sand, mainly from Inner Mongolia, fell on Beijing on April 16 alone. The storms, said Xinhua, were worse than in previous years.

Chinese environmentalists and researchers have long argued for a green component in assessment of government performance. In the past, local leaders have been judged mainly for their ability to deliver social stability, economic growth, and compliance with birth control regulations.

Pressure for a tough new approach has come not just from the dust storms but from a string of calamitous accidents—such as the toxic chemical spill in the Songhua River last November—and from failure to meet previous environmental targets.

Last week the State Environmental Protection Agency announced that the 10th Five-Year Plan, covering the period 2000-2005, failed to meet 40% of its environmental targets, which included commitments to reduce emissions of global warming agents and to improve solid waste and wastewater management. For example, the Plan had set out to cut sulphur dioxide emissions by 10 per cent over the five-year period, but emissions in fact rose by 27 per cent.

The 11th Five-Year Plan, now in effect, pledges to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20%, to reduce total discharge of pollutants by 10%, and to increase forest coverage to 20% of China’s land area. But the sustained political will of senior leaders will almost certainly be necessary to make these aspirations a reality.

Premier Wen, addressing the sixth National Environment Protection Conference, which takes place only once every five years, spoke in unusually forthright terms and with apparent conviction.

In addition to the greening of cadre performance criteria, he pledged higher levels of public disclosure of environmental information. “From this year, levels of energy consumption and discharge of pollutants of various regions and major industries should be released to the public every half year to facilitate supervision,” Xinhua quotes him as saying.

The Premier also called for pollution discharge quotas, stricter enforcement of environmental impact assessment rules, and a redoubling of forest protection efforts.

His intervention is reminiscent of the crisis in 1998, when then Premier Zhu Rongji pushed through a forest protection programme to reverse upstream deforestation following unusually severe summer floods.

Report by Matt Perrement and Nick Young, April 24 2006