中國(guó)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(guó)政府未能阻止過(guò)去一周里覆蓋中國(guó)北方的嚴(yán)重霧霾，多名律師發(fā)起了針對(duì)中國(guó)政府的訴訟，令人注意到數(shù)千萬(wàn)網(wǎng)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(jìn)入空氣污染“紅色預(yù)警”的第六天。這一“紅色預(yù)警”導(dǎo)致了諸多學(xué)校、公路和工廠關(guān)閉。周二，由于能見(jiàn)度太差，北京市有超過(guò)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(diǎn)小。”程海是因北京、天津和河北地方政府未能實(shí)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(guó)北方的三個(gè)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(xué)(Tsinghua University)前政治學(xué)講師吳強(qiáng)表示：“這是首次有律師動(dòng)用行政訴訟手段來(lái)抗議政府治理空氣污染不力。它標(biāo)志著環(huán)保運(yùn)動(dòng)進(jìn)入新階段。”吳強(qiáng)撰文評(píng)述各種政治抗議活動(dòng)。

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

“污染會(huì)影響不同階層、不同背景的每個(gè)人——人們?cè)絹?lái)越注意到這個(gè)問(wèn)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(guó)版Twitter——新浪微博(Weibo)網(wǎng)站上，五名律師的信被四處分享。不過(guò)，自那以來(lái)已有多個(gè)帖子被刪。這些帖子在FreeWeibo.com網(wǎng)站上仍然可以看到，這是一個(gè)試圖在受到審查的微博帖子被刪前將其保存的網(wǎng)站。

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

“最嚴(yán)重霧霾”是微博十大熱門話題之一，讀者人數(shù)超過(guò)2.3億(截止出版時(shí)，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(guó)國(guó)內(nèi)媒體有關(guān)這封信的文章鏈接已無(wú)法點(diǎn)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(gè)有關(guān)空氣污染、名為《穹頂之下》(Under the Dome)的高人氣紀(jì)錄片，曾在累積逾1.6億次點(diǎn)擊后被審查機(jī)關(guān)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(jiǎn)稱IPE)主任馬軍表示：“除了抗議以外，環(huán)保法律還有很大實(shí)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(shuō)，雖然中國(guó)的環(huán)保法律要求市政府迫使排污企業(yè)公布關(guān)于各自排放量的公開數(shù)據(jù)，但這一點(diǎn)自該法今年初生效以來(lái)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(shí)施實(shí)時(shí)排放量披露的成本遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)低于限制上路汽車數(shù)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(yán)重霧霾預(yù)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(bào)告污染事件增加，可能對(duì)政府和公司施加壓力，要求它們進(jìn)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(gè)“微舉報(bào)”APP，讓其300萬(wàn)用戶訪問(wèn)由3000家確實(shí)遵守了排放披露法律的公司發(fā)布的實(shí)時(shí)空氣污染數(shù)據(jù)，并在微博上或向相關(guān)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(guó)語(yǔ)大學(xué)(Beijing Foreign Studies University)副教授喬木說(shuō)，法院很可能會(huì)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(shuō)：“與以往的案子一樣，任何與政治、信息披露和審查等相關(guān)的案子，法院通常都會(huì)拒絕受理。”他接著說(shuō)，北京污染治理預(yù)算的支出細(xì)節(jié)從未披露過(guò)。

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(guó)中央政府正在努力把該國(guó)的電力供應(yīng)從煤電轉(zhuǎn)向可再生能源，并正緩慢地讓東北地區(qū)產(chǎn)能過(guò)剩的重工業(yè)停產(chǎn)。但專家們認(rèn)為，中國(guó)將需要20年時(shí)間才能達(dá)到空氣污染方面的國(guó)際標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。

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(yù)警的日子，以及在北京奧運(yùn)會(huì)(Beijing Olympics)等特殊場(chǎng)合，地方政府會(huì)關(guān)閉那些排放濃煙的工廠，并叫停建筑施工。但這些措施對(duì)政府十分關(guān)注的國(guó)內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值(GDP)數(shù)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(xiàn)在公眾唯一的發(fā)泄渠道是利用社交媒體平臺(tái)和媒體對(duì)政府施加壓力，在某些情況下，甚至能夠獲準(zhǔn)上街抗議，”喬木說(shuō)。“但總體而言，當(dāng)前政策方向不利于解決空氣污染問(wèn)題。”