As the 39th World Environment Day is approaching, the Ministry of Environmental Protection released the 2009 China environmental situation bulletin on the 3rd.

From the communique, we are pleased to see that in response to the challenges of the international financial crisis, China's pace of environmental protection has become more firm. The implementation of the Eleventh Five Year Plan for environmental protection has met the progress requirements, and some indicators have been exceeded, making steady progress towards the goal of environmental protection planning.

Pollution reduction continues to maintain "double decline"

This year is the eleventh five year plan. Whether the binding target of reducing the total emission of major pollutants by 10% can be completed is the focus of social attention.

The communique shows that the total emission of chemical oxygen demand in China in 2009 was 1277. 50000 tons, down 3% from the previous year. ２７％； Total sulfur dioxide emission 2214. 40000 tons, down 4% from the previous year. 60%, maintaining a good trend of double decline.

It is noted that compared with 2005, China's total chemical oxygen demand and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by 9% respectively in 2009. 66% and 13. 14%. The sulfur dioxide emission reduction target of the eleventh five year plan was achieved one year ahead of schedule, which laid a solid foundation for the full completion of the emission reduction target of the eleventh five year plan. 

The achievements have benefited from strong measures. According to Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of the Ministry of environmental protection, last year, the Ministry of environmental protection decided to return the report, refuse to reply or suspend the approval of the EIA documents of 49 projects with a total investment of 190.5 billion yuan. At the same time, we carried out special law enforcement activities in high pollution industries, investigated and dealt with 1824 projects that were not approved and 3167 projects that did not implement the "three Simultaneities" requirements, and urged rectification in place.

Strict assessment and accountability mechanisms have also played a role. Public notification of areas and enterprises with prominent problems and written early warning of provinces (regions) with slow emission reduction progress... Under these measures, all localities have innovated and strengthened measures, which has effectively promoted the in-depth development of emission reduction.

In addition, the three major measures of Engineering emission reduction, structural emission reduction and management emission reduction are steadily bringing benefits into play. In terms of project emission reduction, the country has added 13.3 million tons of daily urban sewage treatment capacity and 1 million tons of coal-fired desulfurization machine assembly capacity. 0.2 billion kw, and a number of advanced wastewater treatment projects and flue gas desulfurization facilities for steel sintering machines have been built. In terms of structural emission reduction, the installed capacity of small thermal power was 26.17 million kilowatts, 21.13 million tons, 16.91 million tons, 18.09 million tons and 74.16 million tons of backward production capacity such as ironmaking, steelmaking, coke and cement were eliminated, and more than 1200 enterprises such as papermaking, chemical industry, alcohol, monosodium glutamate and brewing were closed. In terms of management and emission reduction, since 2007, a total of 60 funds have been allocated for the construction of "three systems" of emission reduction. With 600 million yuan, 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 a number of measures to achieve leapfrog economic development and achieved remarkable results in environmental governance.

The communique shows that China has actively implemented the concept of "let rivers and lakes recuperate" and made new breakthroughs in pollution prevention and control in key river basins and regions. China has comprehensively established the water quality assessment system of provincial boundary sections in key river basins, which has become an important starting point for the prevention and control of water pollution in key river basins. By the end of 2009, 1762 of the 2714 pollution control projects arranged in the eleventh five year plan had been completed; Among the 156 water quality monitoring and assessment sections, 125 sections meet the water quality standard, accounting for 80. １％。

A number of prominent environmental problems related to people's livelihood have been solved. Last year, the Ministry of environmental protection, in conjunction with nine departments, carried out 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 banned and closed, and 641 were shut down for rectification. Relevant departments also launched a national special action to rectify illegal sewage discharge enterprises and ensure people's health and environmental protection in 2009. More than 98000 enterprises were inspected and more than 10000 environmental violations were investigated and dealt with.

Rural environmental conditions have attracted much attention in recent years. In 2009, China promoted the extensive development of rural environmental protection through the policy of "promoting governance with awards". The central government set up a special fund for rural environmental protection, invested 1.5 billion yuan, supported more than 2160 villages to carry out comprehensive environmental improvement and ecological demonstration construction, promoted local investment of 2.5 billion yuan, and directly benefited 13 million farmers. A number of prominent environmental problems strongly reflected by the masses have been solved, and the appearance of many villages has improved significantly.

The communique also shows that the three basic strategic projects of China's environmental protection - the general survey of pollution sources, the research on China's macro environmental strategy and the "special water project" are progressing smoothly** The second national pollution source survey has been successfully completed. More than 570000 people have been organized and mobilized to investigate more than 5.92 million census objects in four categories: industrial sources, agricultural sources, domestic sources and centralized pollution control facilities, and have a comprehensive grasp of the basic situation of pollution source emissions in China. The research on environmental macro strategy has completed the established tasks and formed a series of important achievements. The "water project" has entered the stage of full implementation, and the project initiation and demonstration of all projects and topics have been basically completed. 32 projects and 230 topics have been launched, accounting for 96% of the topics to be launched in the eleventh five year plan. ６％。

Environmental protection still has a long way to go

While seeing the achievements, we also see such data in the bulletin: in 2009, the Ministry of environmental protection received and properly handled 171 environmental emergencies, an increase of 26 over the previous year. ７％。 Among them, there were 80 water pollution incidents, 61 air pollution incidents, 3 solid waste pollution incidents and 16 soil pollution incidents.

Frequent environmental emergencies show that there are still many problems in China's environmental protection, and the environmental situation is still very serious——

China's surface water pollution is still relatively heavy. The seven major water systems of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, 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 Taihu Lake and Dianchi Lake is generally inferior to class V, and there is no significant change in water quality compared with the previous year.

The air quality of cities in China is generally good, but some cities are still seriously polluted; The distribution area of acid rain in China remains stable, but the acid rain pollution is still serious. In 2009, the proportion of ambient air quality standards in cities at and above the prefecture level in China was only 79. ６％。

The rural environmental problems are still prominent, which are manifested in the weak foundation of rural domestic pollution control, the increasing non-point source pollution, the prominent rural industrial and mining pollution, the accelerated transfer of urban pollution to rural areas, and the rural ecological degradation has not been effectively curbed 

In addition, people are more concerned about whether the emission reduction targets of the eleventh five year plan can be successfully completed. Zhang Lijun believes that since the beginning of this year, due to the excessive growth of the output of China's resource-based industrial products, the severe drought in the southwest, the slow progress of some emission reduction projects and the relaxation of some local governments and enterprises, new pressures and difficulties have been brought to the emission reduction work.

"Especially in the first quarter of this year, judging from the dispatch of provinces by the Ministry of environmental protection, sulfur dioxide has increased * * times since 2007. Sulfur dioxide has increased by 1.2% over the same period last year. This has sounded an alarm for our emission reduction work and shows that the emission reduction situation is not optimistic." Zhang Lijun said.

Seize the day and go all out. It still needs the joint efforts of governments at all levels, enterprises and the public to fight a decisive battle for pollution reduction and ensure the full completion of the emission reduction targets of the eleventh five year plan.

In the longer term, China's environmental protection work still has a long way to go. However, 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, with the implementation of a series of strong measures, the bright future of clear water, blue sky and ecological civilization will not be far away.