Wu Xiaoqing, deputy minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that China has always attached importance to environmental protection and listed it as a basic national policy. Governments at all levels have taken some strong measures in recent years to vigorously promote environmental protection.
Wu Xiaoqing, vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Department, pointed out at the Wuhan Circular Economy Forum on the 12th that China has always attached importance to environmental protection and listed it as a basic national policy. Governments at all levels have taken some strong measures in recent years and vigorously promote environmental protection. In particular, the work on pollution reduction has been strengthened.
Wu Xiaoqing pointed out that in the past 30 years, China has formulated more than 30 environmental protection laws and regulations. The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put environmental protection in a more important strategic position, explicitly requested the construction of a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society, and building an ecological civilization. This year, in the reform of the State Council, the former Environmental Protection Agency was upgraded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which fully demonstrated China's emphasis on environmental protection.
In recent years, Chinese government departments have adopted a highly stringent environmental impact assessment system such as “restrictions on regional approvals†and “industry-restricted approvals†to control the discharge of new pollutants. The pollution control projects such as coal-fired unit desulfurization and sewage treatment were increased. In the first three quarters of 2007 alone, the total installed capacity of new coal-fired desulphurization units nationwide was 74.12 million kilowatts, which exceeded the total since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The newly-built and expanded sewage treatment capacity was nearly 900. Million tons daily. By adjusting industrial institutions and controlling the excessive growth of high-energy-consuming and high-pollution industries, a large number of small thermal power units were shut down, and a large number of small ironmaking, small steelmaking, small coking, and small cement were eliminated.
At the same time, we have formulated and implemented financial, fiscal, taxation, and trade policies that are conducive to emission reduction, and strictly enforced environmental law enforcement, so as to promote the nation’s emission reduction projects to achieve positive results.
Although China's emission reduction work has made gratifying progress, the current situation of emission reduction is still very serious and there is still a long way to go before the completion of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†target. To this end, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will actively promote the development of circular economy by promoting legislation, carrying out cleaner production, expanding and deepening pilots, and advocating environmentally friendly consumer methods.
In the coming period, the national environmental protection department will promote the development of recycling economy and strengthen the review of cleaner production of key enterprises across the country, especially the heavily polluting industries such as electric power, iron and steel, chemical industry, nonferrous metals, printing and dyeing, food, and papermaking. Strengthen environmental impact assessment, increase enforcement efforts and penalize illegal activities, formulate environmental standards for relevant industries, promote environmental protection, and enhance sustainable development.