China, the world’s biggest emitter, slapped a fine of $654 million on polluters in 2015, an increase of 34 per cent over 2014, the government said on Friday.
The environmental authorities delivered more than 97,000 punishment notices to polluters, Minister of Environmental Protection Chen Jining said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC).
“They also worked with police and judicial agencies so that serious offenders not only faced administrative punishment but also criminal penalties,” he said. Polluters involved in 2,079 cases were placed under police detention and those in 1,685 cases were prosecuted.
About 1.77 million enterprises were inspected, with 191,000 of them punished, 20,000 closed and 34,000 suspended production. “I would like to stress that severe punishment is not an end but a means to have enterprises understand the importance of abiding by the law,” Chen said.