China News Service, Beijing, January 30 (Reporter Yuan Xiuyue) What progress will be made in ecological and environmental protection in 2023? The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" was recently released. What are the specific arrangements for the next step?
On January 30, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment held a regular press conference for January to respond to public concerns.
The conference site. Photo by Yuan Xiuyue
The national good-quality days ratio in 2023 will be 85.5%
At the press conference, Pei Xiaofei, the new director of the Publicity and Education Department and spokesperson of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, introduced that in terms of atmospheric environment quality, the average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in cities at the prefecture level and above nationwide in 2023 will be 30 micrograms/cubic meter, which is better than The annual target (32.9 micrograms/cubic meter) is approximately 3.0 micrograms/cubic meter, a decrease of 16.7% compared to 2019. The national good-quality days ratio in 2023 is 85.5%, and after excluding abnormal sand and dust exceeding the standard, it is 86.8%, which is 0.6 percentage points better than the annual target and an increase of 3.5 percentage points from 2019. The national rate of heavily polluted days was 1.6%, and after excluding days with unusually heavy pollution from sand and dust, it was 1.1%, which is the same as the annual target.
In terms of water environment quality, the proportion of national surface water quality sections with excellent surface water quality (Class I-III) in 2023 was 89.4%, a year-on-year increase of 1.5 percentage points, and the proportion of sections with poor surface water quality of Class V was 0.7%, which was the same as the same period last year. In terms of soil environmental quality, the safe use of contaminated farmland and key construction land nationwide will be effectively guaranteed in 2023.
Pei Xiaofei said that in 2024, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will make every effort to carry out eight key tasks: actively promote the construction of Beautiful China pioneer areas, persevere in the battle against pollution, actively promote green, low-carbon and high-quality development, increase supervision of ecological protection and restoration, and ensure Nuclear and radiation safety, strengthening ecological environment supervision and law enforcement and risk prevention, vigorously promoting scientific and technological innovation in the field of ecological environment, and accelerating the improvement of modern environmental governance systems.
Will study and formulate evaluation methods for the effectiveness of building a beautiful China
Pei Xiaofei said that the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of Beautiful China" was recently released, making systematic arrangements for comprehensively promoting the construction of Beautiful China in the new era and new journey. It is a programmatic document that guides the comprehensive promotion of the construction of Beautiful China.
Sun Shouliang, director of the Comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will work with relevant departments to speed up the establishment of an implementation system and promotion mechanism for the construction of Beautiful China, speed up work scheduling, and strengthen tracking and evaluation; study and formulate an evaluation indicator system and assessment system for the effectiveness of the construction of Beautiful China methods to ensure a smooth transition and orderly connection between the implementation of the “15th Five-Year Plan” and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the pollution prevention and control campaign.
Sun Shouliang said that Article 17 of the "Opinions" proposed to build a beautiful China pioneer zone, which is an important focus of the current stage of work. In the next step, we will study and formulate guidance documents on strengthening regional strategic ecological environmental protection to promote the construction of beautiful China pilot areas, and actively cultivate a number of role models that support high-quality development with high-quality ecological environment.
31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have issued synergistic work plans for pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
The synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction is an important task measure to actively and steadily promote carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Sun Shouliang said that seven departments including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Synergetic Efficiency of Pollution Reduction and Carbon Reduction". At present, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have issued synergistic work plans for pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
He said that collaborative governance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction is in full swing and has achieved significant results. After calculations, in the ten years from 2013 to 2022, while sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by 85% and 60% respectively, carbon emission intensity decreased by 34.4%.
In terms of air pollution prevention and control in autumn and winter, Pei Xiaofei said that since the autumn and winter of 2023, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has coordinated more than 2,400 backbones of the national ecological environment system business, mobilized more than 9,700 local law enforcement personnel, and carried out 8 rounds of on-site and remote supervision and assistance for air pollution. More than 16,000 companies with problems were identified, and more than 32,000 gas-related environmental problems were solved.
It was found that some enterprises had 4,254 problems such as fraud, excessive emissions, illegal discharges, and failure to implement emission reduction measures in heavily polluted weather. Among them, interference with automatic monitoring, falsification of test reports, and falsification of ledger records were serious and harmful violations of laws and regulations. There were 537 issues, 17 were transferred to the judiciary, 25 people were detained administratively, and 3 people were detained criminally. Preliminary estimates indicate that supervision and assistance will promote a total reduction of approximately 393,000 tons of pollutant emissions in 2023. (over)