The seventh meeting of the Regional Cooperation Team for Air Pollution Control in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area is held in Beijing on Oct. 20. Minister Chen Jining speaks at the meeting. (Photo by Deng Jia, CENEWS)
Chinese report by Wang Kunting, CENEWS
BEIJING, Oct. 20-The seventh meeting of the Regional Cooperation Team for Air Pollution Control in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area was held in Beijing today, in an effort to convey the instructions of Zhang Gaoli, a standing member of the Politburo and Vice Premier of the State Council, on air pollution control in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, wrap up the progress made so far this year in major tasks, study and make deployments for the air pollution control in the upcoming winter and the spring that follows. Guo Jinlong, a member of the Politburo and Secretary of the CPC Beijing municipal committee, Chen Jining, MEP Minister, and Zhang Qingwei, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Hebei provincial committee and Governor of the provincial government, attended the meeting.
The meeting heard report on the progress made in the prevention and control of air pollution in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area and the next work plans. The persons in charge of the air pollution control in each of the seven provinces (region, municipalities) Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, and Henan reported the local progress made so far this year in key tasks and the overall arrangements for the air pollution control in the upcoming winter and the spring that follows.
In his remarks, Guo noted that the environment implies the people’s living conditions and blue sky means happiness. Air pollution governance is something very important to the people’s living conditions and development, and the public are full of expectations in this regard. For the moment, the control of area-wide air pollution has entered a crucial stage for more in-depth development, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area remains the worst air polluted area, and air quality has become one of the close public concerns. To win the battle of environmental governance and come onto the center of the world arena in the image of a beautiful country, in the historic moment of completing the building of a beautiful country in China, is very realistic and has profound historic significance. We will be more voluntary to align our thoughts and actions with the decisions and deployments of the central authorities, work with perseverance to advance air pollution control, generate more outputs that can be perceived and felt by the people and that benefit the people, and live up to the expectations of the central authorities and the people.
Guo also pointed out that air pollution governance is both the shared responsibility of a region and the needs of local areas. We should give full play to the role of the regional cooperation mechanism, make concerted efforts, work with whatever is ready, and carry out the shared tasks. We should observe the deadlines for accomplishing all objectives and tasks, pay close attention to implementation, pinpoint our efforts, make tremendous efforts in putting up with three battles against coal burning pollution, emission from elevated point sources, and mobile pollution sources, and make sure the reduction measures are implemented before deadlines and with good quality.
Moreover, Guo emphasized that heavy air pollution affects both the accomplishment of the objectives and tasks of the whole year, and the “sense of gain” of the people in air pollution control, so it has to be put on a more prominent position. In order to tackle heavy air pollution, we should make greater efforts in its forecast and early warning, gain the initiative, and make sure all emergency response measures are fully implemented. We will strengthen collaboration, further improve the mechanism for joint response to area-wide heavy air pollution, and make earnest efforts in uplifting the response level. We will work harder on the publicity of the response measures specified in the contingency plans, do a good job in guiding the public opinions, take the initiative to respond to the social concerns, and enable all stakeholders in society to be aware that emergency response is a shared responsibility, so as to amass positive energy and create good environment.
Chen said that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council highly value the air pollution control effort. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli made specific instructions on this meeting and fully recognized the achievements made over the past period. Since the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Air Pollution was implemented, MEP has coordinated and collaborated with the local governments and departments, enabled the environmental responsibilities of local governments and departments to be fully implemented, made earnest efforts in facilitating key treatment projects, and established a basic framework for the integrated “sky-earth-space” environmental monitoring. And the monitoring data indicated that by Oct. 19, the mean PM2.5 reading in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area had plummeted 14.3 percent year by year, higher than the national average of 8.5 percent. However, the industrial structure, energy mix, and transportation framework and methods of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and surrounding area make it certain that the prevention and control of area-wide air pollution is chronic and complicated. In particular, there are some problems and difficulties such as little relevance of the governance measures, imbalance in the progress made by different industries in pollution control, still poor management of the vehicles, and the inefficient response to heavy air pollution.
Chen stressed that confronting the grave circumstances, we will further align our thoughts, raise our awareness, strictly implement the tightened measures for prevention and control of air pollution in winter, accelerate the treatment of scattered coals, enable the flying dust management to be more delicate, implement the staggering operation system of industrial enterprises, work harder on vehicle control, and tighten the supervision over environmental enforcement. In particular, we will give the top priority of air pollution control to the response to heavy air pollution in the heat supply season this year, and take the people’s sense of gain and sense of happiness as the cutting point for tackling heavy air pollution. We will make strenuous efforts to enable the early warning and forecast of heavy air pollution to be more accurate, and correctly forecast the hourly peak reading and duration of the heavy air pollution. We will make earnest efforts to enable the contingency plans to be more feasible, and specify the reduction measures. We will energetically make the joint response efforts to be more synchronized, and give accurate instructions to local areas in order for them to activate reduction measures and redefine the pollution control priorities. Furthermore, we will make strenuous efforts to enable the public opinions to be more effective, launch publicity activities on a stage-based basis and lay emphasis on particular aspects, and address the public concerns in a timely fashion.
