With so much controversy surrounding the Beijin Olympics the focus of today’s green icon is Pan Yue, deputy director of China's state environmental protection administration, who has become a hero for his willingness to stand up to corporations and local governments that jeopardise public health in the rush for economic growth.
BusinessWeek online has described him as 'a courageous voice for a greener China'. While the British left-of-centre weekly politics magazine New Statesman awarded him Person of the Year 2007 saying "...a rare, if not lone, public voice within the Chinese government warning that disaster threatens unless development is checked and quoted him as saying "This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace." Pan's warnings that the economic miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace have goaded China's leadership into action.
All this has made him some powerful enemies, particularly in energy, steel and construction, who seemed to have won a victory over Pan late last year at the 17th Communist Party Congress where more business-oriented cadres were promoted, but Pan was left a deputy director and must now fight for his political life.
The International Energy Agency estimates that China has already overtaken the US as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. In November, China belatedly released a five-year plan for environmental protection, for the first time mentioning the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but it gave no targets or deadlines for doing so. "Currently the conflicts between China's economic and social development and its limited environmental resources are getting more and more serious each day," the paper said.
Pan Yue is on the front-line of that conflict. Given its global importance, the world - as well as China – really needs him to succeed.
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