The Ministry of Environmental Protection has established a comprehensive detection system to improve the management, supervision and enforcement of pollution controls, according to the China Youth Daily.

At a forum on Environment and Development, Zhao Hualin, head of the statistical department of the Ministry, expressed his determination to fight against fraudulent environmental statistics reported by local governments and enterprises.

"Statistics will no longer be the only index used to evaluate the environmental protection work of local governments. A blue sky doesn't lie, and people can tell whether the environment is improving," said Zhao.

China's 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) set ambitious goals to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent and major pollutant discharges by 10 percent, per unit of GDP by 2010.

The plan, approved during an executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao on September 26, 2007, ordered central government and local governments at all levels to make "prevention and control of pollution" their focus.

According to a recent report, jointly released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of 2008, the discharge of two major pollutants, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide has decreased markedly.

But things may not be as they seem. "Some local departments and enterprises are dishonest in their statistics. In 2005, we had three sets of data, from the statistical department, local governments, and the environment ministry, which made it difficult to calculate the overall pollution figure," Zhao noted.

Now, with the new detection system, the government has two ways to uncover cheats. One is a system of warnings, in which dishonest enterprises will be blacklisted and subjected to detailed inspections; the other is to check if the environment has actually improved. "If the environment is deteriorating in contrast to the statistics, then the statistics are wrong," Zhao explained.

(China.org.cn by Xiang Bin October 20, 2008)