中國律師起訴地方政府治霾不力

A group of lawyers has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government for failing to prevent the severe smog that has covered the north over the past week, underlining the discontent voiced by tens of millions of citizens online.

因中國政府未能阻止過去一周里覆蓋中國北方的嚴重霧霾，多名律師發(fā)起了針對中國政府的訴訟，令人注意到數千萬網民發(fā)出的不滿聲音。

Beijing and many other cities in north China are entering their sixth day running of pollution “red alerts”, which have closed down schools, roads and factories. More than 350 flights were grounded in Beijing on Tuesday due to poor visibility.

北京和華北其他許多城市正在進入空氣污染“紅色預警”的第六天。這一“紅色預警”導致了諸多學校、公路和工廠關閉。周二，由于能見度太差，北京市有超過350架航班不能起飛。

“Progress on air pollution has been lots of talk and hardly any action for the past few years,” wrote Cheng Hai, a Beijing-based lawyer, in the preface to the lawsuit. He is one of five lawyers bringing a case against the local governments of Beijing, Tianjin and Heibei — three major regions in the smog-afflicted north — for failing to implement their own environmental laws.

北京律師程海在訴狀的序言中寫道：“霧霾治理近幾年雷聲大雨點小。”程海是因北京、天津和河北地方政府未能實施環(huán)保法律而起訴這些地方政府的五名律師之一。北京、天津和河北是受霧霾影響的中國北方的三個主要地區(qū)。

"This is the first time that lawyers have used an administrative lawsuit to protest the government's treatment of air pollution,” said Wu Qiang, a former lecturer in politics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University who writes on political protests. “It marks a new stage in the environmental movement.

北京清華大學(Tsinghua University)前政治學講師吳強表示：“這是首次有律師動用行政訴訟手段來抗議政府治理空氣污染不力。它標志著環(huán)保運動進入新階段。”吳強撰文評述各種政治抗議活動。

“Pollution affects everyone, across different classes, different backgrounds — and people are becoming more aware of the issue.”

“污染會影響不同階層、不同背景的每個人——人們越來越注意到這個問題。”

The lawyers’ letter was shared on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, but several posts have since been deleted. These posts can still be seen on FreeWeibo.com, a website that tries to save censored Weibo posts before they are taken down.

在中國版Twitter——新浪微博(Weibo)網站上，五名律師的信被四處分享。不過，自那以來已有多個帖子被刪。這些帖子在FreeWeibo.com網站上仍然可以看到，這是一個試圖在受到審查的微博帖子被刪前將其保存的網站。

“Severe pollution” is one of the top ten trending topics on Weibo, with over 230 million readers.

“最嚴重霧霾”是微博十大熱門話題之一，讀者人數超過2.3億(截止出版時，該話題排名第13位，讀者2.4億——譯者注)。

Links to several local media articles of the letter can no longer be opened, suggesting that these articles have also been deleted.

幾家中國國內媒體有關這封信的文章鏈接已無法點開，意味著這些文章也已被刪除。

A popular documentary on air pollution, called “Under the Dome”, was pulled by censors last year after racking up over 160 million views.

去年，一個有關空氣污染、名為《穹頂之下》(Under the Dome)的高人氣紀錄片，曾在累積逾1.6億次點擊后被審查機關撤下。

“Outside of protests, there is still a lot of room for the environmental laws to be implemented,” said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) in Beijing, a non-governmental organisation.

北京非政府組織——公眾環(huán)境研究中心(Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, 簡稱IPE)主任馬軍表示：“除了抗議以外，環(huán)保法律還有很大實施空間。”

Although China’s environmental laws ask for city governments to compel polluting firms to release public data on their emissions, this has not been implemented since the law came in force at the start of the year, Mr Ma said.

馬軍說，雖然中國的環(huán)保法律要求市政府迫使排污企業(yè)公布關于各自排放量的公開數據，但這一點自該法今年初生效以來尚未得到執(zhí)行。

“The cost of implementing real-time emissions disclosure would be much less than the cost of restricting the number of cars on the road,” argued Mr Ma. Beijing is currently halving the number of vehicles allowed on its roads, a usual procedure during heavy smog alerts.

“實施實時排放量披露的成本遠遠低于限制上路汽車數量的成本，”馬軍辯稱。目前，北京將允許上路車輛減少了一半，這是嚴重霧霾預警期間的通常做法。

Mr Ma hopes that a recent rise in online reporting of pollution incidents by citizens can put pressure on governments and companies to clean up.

馬軍希望，最近公眾在線報告污染事件增加，可能對政府和公司施加壓力，要求它們進行清理。

IPE has launched a “micro-reporting” app which allows its 3m users to access real-time air pollution data from the 3,000 companies that do comply with the emissions disclosure law, and to post complaints on Weibo or to the relevant government ministry.

公眾環(huán)境研究中心推出了一個“微舉報”APP，讓其300萬用戶訪問由3000家確實遵守了排放披露法律的公司發(fā)布的實時空氣污染數據，并在微博上或向相關政府部門投訴。

But it is likely that the court will reject the lawsuit, said Qiao Mu, professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

但北京外國語大學(Beijing Foreign Studies University)副教授喬木說，法院很可能會拒絕受理這類訴訟案。

“As in previous cases, anything related to politics, information disclosure, censorship et cetera, they have usually rejected,” Mr Qiao said, adding that details of how Beijing’s anti-pollution budget is spent are never disclosed.

喬石說：“與以往的案子一樣，任何與政治、信息披露和審查等相關的案子，法院通常都會拒絕受理。”他接著說，北京污染治理預算的支出細節(jié)從未披露過。

The central government is trying to move the country’s electricity supply from coal power to renewables, and is slowly allowing heavy industry in the north-east with overcapacity to close down. But experts reckon that it will take at a couple of decades for the country to reach international standards for air pollution.

中國中央政府正在努力把該國的電力供應從煤電轉向可再生能源，并正緩慢地讓東北地區(qū)產能過剩的重工業(yè)停產。但專家們認為，中國將需要20年時間才能達到空氣污染方面的國際標準。

On red alert days, and on special occasions such as the Beijing Olympics, local governments close smoke-belching factories and halt construction. But these measures deal a blow to the government’s much-watched GDP figures.

在發(fā)布紅色預警的日子，以及在北京奧運會(Beijing Olympics)等特殊場合，地方政府會關閉那些排放濃煙的工廠，并叫停建筑施工。但這些措施對政府十分關注的國內生產總值(GDP)數字造成了打擊。

“The only outlet for the public now is to take advantage of social media platforms and the media to impose pressure on the government, and in some cases protests are even allowed on the streets,” Mr Qiao said. “But overall the policy direction is not right for fixing the air problem.”

“現在公眾唯一的發(fā)泄渠道是利用社交媒體平臺和媒體對政府施加壓力，在某些情況下，甚至能夠獲準上街抗議，”喬木說。“但總體而言，當前政策方向不利于解決空氣污染問題。”