China no longer willing to pay environmental cost

Only those who profit from the practice are likely to disagree with the proposition that those who damage the environment should bear the costs of remedying the harm they cause.

And given the fact that more than half of the country's rivers and lakes have been seriously polluted and vast stretches of farmland have been contaminated with toxic heavy metals in some provinces, the country can no longer afford to let polluters get away with their dirty deeds.

Getting industry to pay to clean up its mess has been long overdue. Now the environmental damage compensation mechanism that has been successfully trialed in Chongqing municipality and Jilin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces since 2015, is to be rolled out across the country on Jan 1, which means polluting companies and individuals will have to repair the damage they do to the environment or else pay compensation.