China says key pollution indicators improve

BEIJING—Two major pollution indicators have dropped in China for the first time in several years as steps taken to clean up the nation’s devastated environment kicked in, the government said Wednesday.
Emissions of sulfur dioxide, a key air pollutant, declined 1.81 percent in the first nine months of the year, while chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, was 0.28 percent lower, said Zhou Shengxian, director of the state environment watchdog. The two key measures had become symbols of China’s inability to curb the rampant fouling of its air and water.
China had set a target of reducing each indicator by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010, or an average decline of two percent a year. But embarrassed officials admitted earlier this year that both had risen in 2006.
In a statement posted on the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) website, Zhou credited this year’s reductions to a campaign to install more desulphurising facilities in the coal-fired power plants on which China relies for about 70 percent of its electricity. He also cited increases in sewage-handling capacity and said large numbers of polluting factories had been closed in a crackdown.
“Our battle against illegally polluting enterprises has seen step-by-step progress,” he said. Through the end of September, authorities had carried out more than 690,000 special inspections of various businesses, uncovering 10,000 cases of illegal polluting, according to the statement.
“We are pursuing cases against 429 people responsible for this to strike sternly against environmental violators,” Zhou said. However, Zhou warned that the outlook for meeting the original goals by 2010 offered “no cause for optimism”.
A SEPA report in September had said China was finding it increasingly hard to achieve more than fleeting success in the pollution fight as the country’s industrialisation hurtles forward. China’s booming growth has ravaged the environment, with about 70 percent of its waterways polluted and urban air quality among the worst in the world.
“Sulfur dioxide emissions in China fell a year-on-year 1.81 percent in the first three quarters. The COD (a measure of water pollution) dropped 0.28 percent,” said Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), in Henan Province. Facing huge pressure to curb the deterioration of its environment, China committed to improving its energy efficiency by cutting energy consumption by 20 percent per unit of GDP, along with a 10 percent cut in major pollutants, between 2006 and 2010.
However, it missed both the government’s energy conservation and discharge reduction targets last year. The country’s discharge of sulfur dioxide and COD saw year-on-year increases of 1.2 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, in 2006. In June, China issued a work plan on energy conservation and pollutant discharge reduction that pledged the country would reduce its discharge of sulfur dioxide from 25.49 million tons in 2005 to 22.95 million tons in 2010. COD would also be reduced from 14.14 million tons to 12.73 million tons during the period.
Zhou attributed the current decrease in the two major pollutants mainly to the installation of more desulfurising facilities in coal-fired power plants, the increase of sewage handling capacity and the closure of a large number of polluting factories. From January to September, 74.12 million-kilowatts of coal-fueled power generators were installed with desulfurizing facilities. The country’s daily sewage handling capacity in cities went up nine million tons during the same period, Zhou said.
He added 253 small coal-fired generating units, with a combined capacity of 9.03 million kilowatts, were shut down. Operations in more than 900 paper mills were also suspended while they were renovated or were asked to improve their waste-water processing facilities. SEPA also tightened its monitoring of violators of environmental regulations.
“By the end of September, we had inspected more than 690,000 enterprises nationwide and dealt with more than 10,000 environmental violation cases. A total of 429 people were punished,” Zhou said. With intensive efforts to curb pollution and the drop of major pollutant emissions, China hopes that the quality of all its key drinking water resources would reach national standards by 2008.
Investigations have shown that most of China’s rivers and lakes were polluted. In addition, almost half the ground water in urban areas was heavily polluted. Of 222 drinkable water resources in 113 major Chinese cities, 72 percent reached national standards.—APP