School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Feb 4;15(2):266. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15020266.
Given its serious impacts on the public's health, air pollution in China is a matter of strong public concern, particularly in reference to malodorous waste gas. Petition letters related to atmospheric pollution accounted for about 40% of the total petition cases. However, scholarly views differ on whether the Chinese government responds to public opinion on the environment and seeks to improve its environmental governance behavior. For this study, data from national surveys on the public's environmental satisfaction administered during the period 2011-2015 were analyzed to determine whether the public's dissatisfaction with the state of the environment in a given year resulted in increased investments by provincial governments in pollution governance during the following year. The study's findings revealed that governmental behavior in response to public opinion on the environment was selective within the field of environmental governance, with provincial governments being inclined to invest more in waste gas pollution control than in water pollution control. Furthermore, results from this study show that the Chinese government tends to put more efforts into the environmental field where it could more easily achieve short-term benefits.
鉴于其对公众健康的严重影响，中国的空气污染是公众强烈关注的问题，尤其是恶臭废气。与大气污染有关的请愿信约占总请愿案件的 40%。然而，学者们对于中国政府是否回应公众对环境的意见以及是否寻求改善其环境治理行为存在分歧。本研究利用 2011-2015 年期间进行的公众环境满意度全国调查数据，分析了公众在某一年对环境状况的不满是否导致省级政府在次年增加对污染治理的投资。研究结果表明，政府在环境治理领域对公众意见的回应是有选择性的，省级政府更倾向于在废气污染控制方面投入更多资金，而不是水污染控制。此外，本研究结果表明，中国政府倾向于在更容易获得短期利益的环境领域投入更多精力。
