How can China continue to fight the blue sky defense war?

(Economic Watch) How can China continue to fight the blue sky defense war?

Beijing, 3 Mar (ZXS) -- How can China continue to fight the battle of defending the blue sky in depth?

China News Agency reporter Ruan Yulin

From the rare 11-day "New Year's Eve haze" at the beginning of the year to widespread severe sand and dust pollution in China in March, indicators of major pollutants such as fine particulate matter (PM3.2) have increased this year. Faced with the dual pressure of relatively unfavorable meteorological conditions and significantly increased pollution emissions, how can China continue to fight the battle for blue skies this year?

The most productive decade

In 2013, China issued the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, a major strategic deployment of the CPC Central Committee to resolutely declare war on pollution, and the first action plan for China to comprehensively address prominent environmental problems. In 2018, China promulgated and implemented the Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky War, making comprehensive arrangements to consolidate the results of air quality improvement.

In 2022, the proportion of good days in cities at the prefecture level and above in China will be 86.5%, exceeding the schedule by 0.9 percentage points; the proportion of heavily polluted days will drop to less than 1% for the first time. The national average concentration of PM2.5 was 29 micrograms per cubic meter, which was reduced to less than 30 micrograms per cubic meter for the first time.

From 2013 to 2022, China's ecological civilization construction and ecological environmental protection were the decade with the deepest understanding, the greatest intensity, the most practical measures, the fastest promotion and the most remarkable results. In ten years, PM2.5 concentrations in key cities across the country have fallen by 57%, and China has become the fastest improving air quality in the world.

Analysis of the governance situation in recent years

In recent years, although pollution control has continued in various places, the emission of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, two precursors of ozone (O3), is still at a high level, at the level of 2022 million tons. From the end of 2023 to the beginning of 5, an 11-day heavily polluted weather process occurred in China's five provinces of Heilu, Yu, Jin, and Shaanxi, with air quality in 44 cities reaching severe pollution and 20 cities experiencing severe pollution, which is rare in recent years.

Since the beginning of this year, China has faced the dual pressure of relatively unfavorable meteorological conditions and significantly increased pollution emissions, and the situation of air quality improvement is relatively serious. Monitoring shows that as of March 3, the national average concentration of PM20.2023 in 2 increased by 5.6% year-on-year, the average concentration of inhalable particulate matter (PM7) increased by 10.23% year-on-year, and the proportion of good days decreased by 9.2 percentage points year-on-year.

"In recent years, with the solid progress of the blue sky defense battle, the quality of the atmospheric environment has shown a continuous improvement trend, blind optimism has emerged in some places, and there is insufficient understanding of the long-term, complex and arduous nature of the battle against pollution," said Liu Bingjiang, director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment of China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Some local party committees and governments even require law enforcement to impose zero penalties on enterprises.

How to continue to fight the blue sky defense in depth?

"China's air quality improvement results are not yet stable, and the long-term, complex and arduous nature of air pollution prevention and control still exists." Liu Bingjiang said that it is necessary to adhere to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, give more prominence to precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and management of pollution according to law, continue to fight the blue sky defense battle in depth, and promote the continuous improvement of air quality across the country.

For how to continue to fight the blue sky defense in depth? Liu Bingjiang said that it is necessary to continue to deepen air pollution control and emission reduction. Promote clean heating in the northern region according to local conditions, and steadily promote the zeroing of loose coal in the plains of key areas. Strengthen the supervision of the whole chain of diesel vehicles, non-road mobile machinery and refined oil products.

At the same time, regional joint prevention and control and response to heavily polluted weather should be strengthened. Strengthen supervision and law enforcement of air pollution prevention and control. Guided by the basic elimination of heavily polluted weather, strengthen the performance grading and differentiated management and control of heavily polluted weather, and further improve the level of PM2.5 and O3 pollution prediction and forecasting capabilities.

In the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with relevant departments, prepared and reported the Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality. Liu Bingjiang revealed that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is promoting the introduction of an action plan for continuous improvement of air quality, comprehensively promoting the implementation of various tasks and measures for the prevention and control of heavy pollution weather, ozone pollution and diesel truck pollution control, and achieving synergy in pollution reduction and carbon reduction. (End)