A Study Of Basic Environmental Public Services

The function of basic environmental public service is to distribute environmental benefits and environmental risks equally to protect citizens'health rights. Citizens are the subjects to enjoy rights; governments are responsible for offering services. There are several distribution methods, including corporate, NGO, and individual methods, to offer basic environmental public services. These services include environmental supervision, environmental health services, environmental management, environmental information services and environmental emergency services.Environmental public services now face various problems, including deficiency and inequitable distribution."Deficiency" refers to the depletion of basic environmental public services allocated by governments, which results in environmental degradation."Inequitable distribution" refers to the inequitable allocation of basic environmental public services among regions and communities, which results in environmental injustice.The problems mentioned above can be attributed to the following reasons. On one hand, the root of the problem is the governance model that is called "fiscal decentralization, Chinese style." China has adopted the unified governance system of fiscal federalism and vertical political governance, which will lead to an inverted relationship between the government's responsibility and its financial power. The local government takes economic development as its core objective and will not develop itself into a "versatile" government. Moreover, there is a fierce competition between local governments and they lack oversight and restraint mechanisms, which leads to local governments having no capacity or will to assume responsibility for protecting the environment. Ultimately, therefore, environmental problems cannot be resolved. On the other hand, China's energy consumption structure, natural resource exploitation system and urban-rural dualism also restrain reasonable allocation of services.We can draw the conclusion that most countries have passed a series of policies to protect the environment, according to various relevant foreign studies. Among these policies, which China should consider, are regional environmental governance, regional integration, ways to promote environmental public services, financial security for services, and convenient information disclosure.To find the path to equally allocate basic environmental public services, we need to refer to relevant theories, including environmental justice theory, distributive justice theory, new public service theory and risk society theory. Furthermore, we not only need to follow the equity, difference, compensation, and precautionary principles, but also legalize intergovernmental relations, promote environmental democracy, legalize environmental management, and promote equalization of basic environmental public services policy.