Environmental News Quick Facts|Continue to fight the battle to defend the blue sky (People's Daily)
The State Council recently issued the Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan") to make comprehensive arrangements for continuous improvement of air quality. On December 11, the Information Office of the State Council held a regular briefing on the policies of the State Council, and Liu Bingjiang, chief engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment, introduced the relevant situation.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has successively issued the "Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control" and the "Three-year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense War", and the air quality has improved significantly. Liu Bingjiang said: "The successful experience can be summarized as focusing on the three major structural adjustments of industry, energy and transportation, and promoting coal reduction, post-elimination, vehicle control, pollution control and dust suppression. The key lies in 4 aspects. ”
First, China's natural gas consumption has doubled. Natural gas consumption doubled from nearly 170 billion cubic meters in 2013 to 2020. The new natural gas is mainly used for urban residential consumption and coal-to-gas conversion. In eight years, more than 400,000 coal-fired boilers and furnaces have been reduced across the country, 25 million rural households have bid farewell to the smoky and fire-burning mode of energy consumption, reducing coal consumption by 500 million tons and carbon dioxide emissions by 1 billion tons.
Second, China's steel industry and coal industry to resolve excess capacity. Reduce steel production capacity and coal production capacity, and clean up and rectify "scattered and polluted" enterprises and clusters. In addition, thousands of chemical enterprises along the Yangtze River have been relocated, upgraded and transformed. These measures have led to significant reductions in air pollutants.
Third, science and technology in the field of air pollution control have been continuously improved. Scientific and technological workers have independently developed large-scale and high-level treatment facilities, which have greatly improved the level of air pollution control in China. For example, China's advanced coal-fired power enterprises have reached the emission level of natural gas power plants, iron and steel enterprises have started ultra-low emission transformation, and the world's advanced air quality prediction and forecasting model has provided a scientific basis for solving the long-distance and cross-regional air pollution transmission and coping with the heavy pollution process.
Fourth, the establishment and implementation of the central ecological and environmental protection supervision system. Under the promotion of the inspectors, the requirements of local governments to take overall responsibility for air quality have been implemented, and each measure has been laid out and carried out to the final implementation, forming a closed-loop management.
"China has become the country with the fastest improvement rate of air quality in the world, and coal-source pollution has basically been solved. Liu Bingjiang said that at the same time, the inflection point of air quality from quantitative to qualitative change has not yet arrived, heavy pollution weather is still frequent and frequent, the industrial structure is biased towards chemicals, the energy structure is biased towards coal, and the transportation structure is biased towards highways has not been fundamentally improved.
On the basis of summarizing the air pollution control work in the past 10 years, the Action Plan inherits and continues the effective experience and practices, and coordinates the promotion of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion and growth, with the improvement of air quality as the core, the reduction of heavily polluted weather and the solution of outstanding atmospheric environmental problems around the people as the focus, with the reduction of PM2.5 concentration as the main line, vigorously promote the reduction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, and solidly promote the green and low-carbon transformation of industry, energy and transportation, so as to achieve environmental benefits. Win-win economic and social benefits.
The Action Plan clearly states that by 2025, PM2.5 concentrations in cities at and above the prefecture level will be reduced by 10% compared with 2020, the proportion of days with severe pollution and above will be controlled within 1%, and the total emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds will be reduced by more than 10% respectively.
The Action Plan optimizes and adjusts the key areas of air pollution prevention and control, and puts forward improvement targets respectively. Cities in southern Shandong and central and southern Henan with high PM2.5 concentrations will be included in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas, and the adjusted Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas will be changed from "2+26" cities to "2+36" cities.
The Action Plan puts more emphasis on the green and low-carbon transformation of the transportation sector, and promotes the coordinated emission reduction of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants.
To continuously improve air quality, we need to play a good role in the "combination of the rule of law", the market, science and technology, and policy.
Over the past 10 years, the central government's air pollution prevention and control funds have increased year after year, with a total of more than 200 billion yuan, giving full play to the role of fiscal and financial guidance. The implementation of the desulfurization, denitrification, dust removal electricity price and ultra-low emission electricity price policies has promoted China's clean coal-fired power generation scale to become the largest in the world. Since the implementation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law, the principle of paying more for more emissions and paying less for less has greatly enhanced the motivation of enterprises to control pollution and reduce emissions, and promoted a significant reduction in the emission of major air pollutants.
"We will continue to coordinate resources in various fields, cooperate with relevant departments in various localities, and work together to promote continuous improvement of air quality through the rule of law, markets, science and technology, policies and other means. Liu Bingjiang said.
This year, the central government has allocated 33 billion yuan in air pollution prevention and control funds, one of the key points is to support clean heating in the northern region in winter. According to reports, in order to carry out clean heating in an orderly manner and ensure that the masses are warm for the winter, they will adhere to the actual situation and the steady implementation of the new clean heating transformation according to local conditions.
China's air pollution control has entered a critical period of moving forward with heavy loads and climbing over hurdles. The fluctuation of air quality this year reflects the long-term and arduous nature of air pollution control. Liu Bingjiang said that he will adhere to precise, scientific and law-based pollution control, fully implement the measures of the Action Plan, and promote continuous improvement of air quality.
