A report from Working Conference on National Environment Protection held in Beijing on December 21st, 2011 said that China 2012 emission reduction tasks had been determined, compared with 2011, the emission load of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand was expected to reduce by 2%, emission load of ammonia nitrogen by 1.5%, and emission load of nitric oxides was expected to keep zero increase.
“Emission reduction is critical now, just as sailing against the current, not to advance is to go back, so we shall pay more attention to it, said by Zhou Shengxian, Minister of Ministry of Environment Protection of the People’s Republic of China, in 2011, the pollutant and emission reduction tasks have been firmly pushed forward, the emission load of chemical oxygen demand and sulfur dioxides falls consecutively in first three quarters, the decline rate of the whole year is expected to reach about 2%, better than our objective of 1.5%. However, the emission load of ammonia nitrogen is only reduced by 0.9%, and the emission load of nitric oxides is increased by 7.2%.
Zhou Shengxian pointed out that our tasks would be more arduous in 2012, should lay stress on assessment and accountability, strictly perform “Regional Limit Approved” and “Industry Limit Approved” for local governments and corporations who can not fulfill the tasks, and ask the responsibility of the concerned persons in charge.
In 2012, China will deeply implement three emission reduction measures, highlight the structure emission reduction, perfect outdated capacity exit mechanism, and rigorously perform the forward assessment on aggregate indicators of construction projects to reduce pollutant emission fundamentally, continue to strength engineering emission reduction and management emission reduction, accelerate pollutant treatment and construction of important pollutant control projects, flue gas desulfurization and denitration and sewage treatment, enhance emission reduction of motor vehicles, develop reduction of agricultural and rural pollution, strictly supervise and ensure normal running of pollution control facilities, boost pollution treatment potentials, and improve pollution treatment efficiency.
China will enrich and perfect the emission reduction policies, well control desulfurization electricity price and denitration electricity price, and coordinate with the departments concerned to unveil supervision methods on running of denitration facilities, research to put forward fiscal incentives policies on emission reduction in agriculture and motor vehicles, research measures that take cost of sludge disposal into sewage treatment cost, and unveil guidance on paid use and trade experimental units of pollution discharge rights.
In 2012, China will well complete heavy metal pollution prevention and concentrated management for regions, industries and enterprises highly requiring pollution prevention, and take measures of stop production for consolidation and even closure and banning for enterprises which fall short of requirements. At present, over 80% lead accumulator enterprises across the country have been closed or stopped production, which is unprecedented.
Environment protection bureaus will boost experimental units to control emission of Dioxin in some important industries, establish lifelong responsibility investigation system and full-process administrative accountability for chemicals, continuously pay attention to management of hazardous wastes, recovery processing of waste electric and electronic products, and enlarge the supervision on imported wastes in later period.
Otherwise, Zhou Shengxian said, “we are paying close attention to perfection of environment quality assessment system. First, unveil the system as soon as possible, second, perform it by stages, third, organize and develop the related research, finally, gradually bring it in line with international practices.
He especially remarked that “the important regions as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta should be first to implement new standards on environment air quality, reach the international standards early, and make monitoring results in line with experience of the populace.”