On the occasion of the 39th World Environment Day, the Ministry of Environmental Protection released the "2009 China Environmental Status Bulletin" on the 3rd.

We can be pleased to see from the communique that in response to the challenges of the international financial crisis, China's environmental protection has become more resolute. The implementation of the "Eleventh Five Year Plan" environmental protection plan has reached the progress requirements for the first time, and some indicators have been exceeded, steadily moving towards the environmental protection planning goals.
 Pollution reduction continues to maintain a 'double decline'

This year is the last year of the 11th Five Year Plan, and whether the binding target of reducing the total emissions of major pollutants by 10% can be achieved is a focus of social attention.

According to the bulletin, the total chemical oxygen demand emissions in China in 2009 were 12.775 million tons, a decrease of 3.27% from the previous year; The total amount of sulfur dioxide emissions was 22.144 million tons, a decrease of 4.60% from the previous year, continuing the good trend of double decline.

People have noticed that compared to 2005, China's chemical oxygen demand and total sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by 9.66% and 13.14% respectively in 2009. The sulfur dioxide reduction target for the 11th Five Year Plan was achieved one year ahead of schedule, laying a solid foundation for the comprehensive achievement of the target.

The achievement of results is due to strong measures. According to Zhang Lijun, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection made a decision to return the environmental impact assessment documents of 49 projects with a total investment of 190.5 billion yuan, refuse to approve or suspend approval. At the same time, special law enforcement activities were carried out in high polluting industries, investigating and punishing 1824 projects that were built without approval and 3167 projects that did not implement the "three simultaneities" requirements, and urging rectification to be in place.

The strict assessment and accountability mechanism has also played a role. Publicly reporting areas and enterprises with prominent problems, and issuing written warnings to provinces (regions) with slow emission reduction progress... Under these measures, various regions have innovated and strengthened measures, effectively promoting the in-depth development of emission reduction work.

In addition, the three major measures of engineering emission reduction, structural emission reduction, and management emission reduction are steadily exerting their benefits. In terms of engineering emission reduction, the country has added 13.3 million tons of daily urban sewage treatment capacity, 102 million kilowatts of newly assembled coal-fired desulfurization machines, and also built a batch of deep wastewater treatment projects, steel sintering machine flue gas desulfurization facilities, etc. In terms of structural emission reduction, the installed capacity of small thermal power plants has been shut down to 26.17 million kilowatts, and outdated production capacities such as ironmaking, steelmaking, coke and cement have been eliminated, with 21.13 million tons, 16.91 million tons, 18.09 million tons and 74.16 million tons respectively. More than 1200 enterprises in papermaking, chemical, alcohol, monosodium glutamate and brewing industries have been closed. In terms of managing emissions reduction, since 2007, a total of 6.06 billion yuan has been allocated for the construction of the "three major emission reduction systems", 306 pollution source monitoring centers have been built, and automatic monitoring has been implemented for nearly 13000 key enterprises.

Multi pronged approach to ensure clear water and blue sky

In recent years, governments at all levels and environmental protection departments have taken multiple measures to ensure that the people have access to clean water, fresh air, and leave green mountains and clear waters for future generations. While achieving leapfrog economic development, significant achievements have been made in environmental governance.

The bulletin shows that China has actively implemented the concept of "Let Rivers and Lakes recuperate", and new breakthroughs have been made in pollution prevention and control in key river basins and regions. China has comprehensively established a water quality assessment system for key river basin provincial boundary sections, which has become an important lever for water pollution prevention and control in key river basins. As of the end of 2009, 1762 out of 2714 pollution control projects arranged in the 11th Five Year Plan had been completed; Among 156 water quality monitoring and assessment sections, 125 sections meet the water quality standards, accounting for 80.1%.

A number of prominent environmental issues related to people's livelihoods have been resolved. Last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, in conjunction with nine departments, conducted a special inspection of heavy metal polluting enterprises. A total of 9123 enterprises were inspected, 2183 environmental illegal enterprises were investigated and dealt with, 231 were shut down, and 641 were shut down for rectification. The relevant departments also launched the 2009 national campaign to rectify illegal polluting enterprises and ensure public health and environmental protection. Over 980000 enterprises were inspected in various regions, and more than 10000 environmental violations were investigated and dealt with.

The rural environmental conditions have received much attention in recent years. In 2009, China promoted the widespread development of rural environmental protection work through the policy of "rewarding for governance". The central government has set up a special fund for rural environmental protection, investing 1.5 billion yuan to support more than 2160 villages in carrying out comprehensive environmental improvement and ecological demonstration construction, driving local investment of 2.5 billion yuan and directly benefiting 13 million farmers. A group of prominent environmental issues strongly reflected by the masses have been resolved, and the appearance of many villages has significantly improved.

The communique also shows that China's three fundamental environmental protection strategic projects - pollution source survey, China's macro environmental strategy research, and the "water special project" - are all progressing smoothly. The first national survey of pollution sources has been successfully completed, mobilizing over 570000 people to investigate more than 5.92 million survey objects in four categories: industrial sources, agricultural sources, domestic sources, and centralized pollution control facilities, comprehensively grasping the basic situation of pollution source emissions in China. The macro strategic research on the environment has completed its established tasks and produced a series of important achievements. The "Water Special Project" has entered the comprehensive implementation stage, and all project and research topic proposals have been basically completed. 32 projects and 230 research topics have been launched, accounting for 96.6% of the planned projects for the 11th Five Year Plan.

Environmental protection still has a long way to go
While seeing the achievements, we also saw data in the bulletin: in 2009, the Ministry of Environmental Protection received and properly handled 171 sudden environmental incidents, an increase of 26.7% compared to the previous year. Among them, there were 80 water pollution incidents, 61 air pollution incidents, 3 solid waste pollution incidents, and 16 soil pollution incidents.

The frequent occurrence of sudden environmental incidents indicates that there are still many problems in China's environmental protection work, and the environmental situation is still very severe——

The surface water pollution in China is still relatively heavy, and the seven major water systems of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the the Pearl River, the Songhua River, the Huaihe River, the Haihe River and the Liaohe River are generally slightly polluted. The eutrophication of lakes (reservoirs) is prominent. The water quality of the Taihu Lake Lake and Dianchi Lake is generally inferior to Class V. Compared with the previous year, the water quality has no significant change.

The overall air quality in cities across the country is good, but some cities still have heavy pollution; The distribution area of acid rain in the country remains stable, but acid rain pollution is still relatively heavy. In 2009, the compliance rate of environmental air quality in prefecture level and above cities nationwide was only 79.6%.

The environmental problems in rural areas are still prominent, manifested by weak foundations for rural life pollution control, increasing non-point source pollution, prominent industrial and mining pollution in rural areas, accelerated transfer of urban pollution to rural areas, and ineffective control of rural ecological degradation

In addition, people are more concerned about whether the "Eleventh Five Year Plan" emission reduction targets can be successfully achieved. Zhang Lijun believes that since the beginning of this year, the rapid growth of China's resource-based industrial product production, the severe drought in the southwest region, slow progress in some emission reduction projects, and some local governments and enterprises showing a relaxed attitude have all brought new pressure and difficulties to emission reduction work.

Especially in the first quarter of this year, based on the dispatch of various provinces by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, sulfur dioxide has shown an upward trend for the first time since 2007, with a 1.2% increase compared to the same period last year. This has sounded the alarm for our emission reduction work and indicates that the emission reduction situation is not optimistic, "said Zhang Lijun.

Seize the day and give it your all. To win the decisive battle of pollution reduction and ensure the comprehensive achievement of the "Eleventh Five Year Plan" emission reduction targets, it still requires the joint efforts of governments at all levels, enterprises, and the general public.

In the long run, China's environmental protection work still has a long way to go. But people have reason to believe that with the attention and efforts of the whole society on the journey of exploring a new path of environmental protection with Chinese characteristics, and with the implementation of a series of strong measures, the beautiful future of clear waters, blue skies, and ecological civilization will not be far away.