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http://econews.com.au/news-to-sustain-our-world/china-imposes-tougher-penalties-on-polluters/As China continues to take its pollution problems seriously the country has now passed amendments to environmental protection laws that will impose tougher penalties on polluters in the most sweeping revisions to the law in 25 years.
The much-anticipated amendments signal the close of a two-year debate among scholars, the government and state-owned enterprises over changes to the environmental protection law.
Reuters Newsagency reports they come in response to public anger over widespread pollution that has choked the country.
The revisions will go into effect on January 1 next year, the official newsagency Xinhua said.
China’s pollution epidemic has finally spurred the country’s leadership to declare a war on smog as citizens have become increasingly angry about what’s going into their lungs.
At the same time, a recent government report said pollution had left 16 per cent of the country’s land unfit for use.
Much of that pollution can be traced back to the billowing smoke stacks attached to China’s fleet of coal-fired power plants, and as the country steps up its fight against pollution, then these ageing plants will be on the front line.
Global coal producers, especially those in Australia, are already sitting up and taking notice.
China relies on coal for roughly three-quarters of its power generation.
Its coal-fired power plants combust nearly as much coal as the rest of the world put together.
Coal prices, for their part, are already tumbling in part due to a slowdown in China’s economic growth.
Spot prices at Newcastle, Australia, the world’s largest thermal coal exporting terminal, have plunged from a monthly average high of US$142 a tonne in January 2011 to US$78 a tonne last month.
A glut of coal is translating into falling coal prices and serious losses for global coal producers.
In Australia, mining giant Glencore Xstrata is closing its Ravensworth mine, while BHP Biliton recently shuttered its Gregory and Norwich Park mines, while the same is happening in Canada.
China’s environmental track record may not inspire much confidence that real change is in the offing.
Investors in coal companies, however, would be wise to listen to what Premier Li Keqiang is saying.
China’s newly unveiled environmental protection laws are expected to give Premier Li the tools he needs to clean up the country’s air.
The Premier, who plans to be in power for a long time, has identified pollution as a national priority.
Unlike the modus operandi of western democracies, China’s communist government has the clout to steamroll through whatever changes it believes are necessary.
Authorities have already shut down a number of carbon-belching coal and steel plants that ring some of the country’s major cities.
China’s sudden interest in combating pollution isn’t a result of external pressure to comply with an international climate change agreement nor does it stem from a newly heightened sense of moral obligation to Mother Nature.
China marches to its own drummer and the horrendous air quality engulfing its major cities has simply become too problematic to ignore.
This degree of unacceptable air is there for all to see, and more importantly breathe, in the country’s two premier cities, Beijing and Shanghai.
Increasingly, people living in those centres of economic and political power are demanding action.
Markets can expect China’s leadership to respond to those demands.
As a result China’s slowing economy and its emerging war on pollution will put the reins on global coal demand.
As that happens and prices go lower, mining companies will be forced to close more mines, which will curtail production as well as profits.
