The State Council distributed the "12th Five-Year National Plan for Environmental Protection (Guofa No. [2011]42) (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) on January 17. Relevant official of MEP said, the Plan is an important document for facilitating "adherence to the policy of environmental protection during development and development during environmental protection, active exploration of new path to environmental protection that is small in cost, good in benefits, low in emission and sustainable in development"; an important document for promoting harmonious environmental, economic and social development and an important document for promoting environmental protection work during the historical course of developing Xiaokang society in an all round way and socialist harmonious society.
This official said, the Plan requires that in the 12th Five-Years, we will practically address preeminent environmental problems affecting scientific development and threatening public health; strengthen innovation and capacity building in system & mechanisms; make more efforts in reduction of total amount of major pollutants, improve environmental quality; prevent environmental risks; comprehensively facilitate historic transformations of environmental protection; actively explore a new path to environmental protection that is small in cost, good in benefits, low in emission and sustainable in development; and accelerate the development of resource-saving and environment-friendly society. It is planned that by 2015, there will be significant reduction of total discharge of major pollutants, 8% reduction of COD discharge and SO2 emissions as well as 10% reduction of ammonia nitrogen and NOx compared with that of 2010; effective guarantee of environmental security of urban-rural drinking water source areas with big improvement of water quality; less than 15% of surface water sections under national monitoring program failing to meet Grade V standard and over 60% of the water sections of the seven big waters under national monitoring program meeting at least Grade III water quality standard; over 80% of the cities at or above prefecture level meeting Grade II national air quality standard; effective control of heavy metal pollution; remarkable achievement in prevention and control of pollution by POPs, toxic chemicals and hazardous waste; improvement of both construction and operation of urban environment infrastructure; reverse of degradation trend of eco environment; significance enhancement of the capacity in supervision on nuclear and radiation safety with higher nuclear and radiation safety and improvement of environment supervision system.
The Plan requires that we should make more efforts in economic restructuring, focus on reduction of COD and ammonia nitrogen in water pollutants and SO2 and NOx emissions in air pollutants; facilitate the reduction of major pollutants and promote green economy. Focusing on addressing preeminent environmental problems threatening public health such as unsafe drinking water and air & soil pollution, we will strengthen comprehensive environmental control and significantly improve eco environment quality. Taking nuclear and radiation, heavy metals, hazardous wastes, POPs and hazardous chemicals as the focuses for preventing environmental risks, we will address environment security issue during industrialization process and safeguard environment security. We should improvement the basic public environmental service system dominated by the government with same standard and grading and zoning and facilitate balanced development. The investment in environmental protection should prioritize eight environmental protection key programs such as reduction of total discharge of major pollutants, improvement of the environment for the public, rural environmental protection, protection of eco environment, prevention of environmental risks in key fields, guarantee of nuclear and radiation safety, public service of environment infrastructure as well as development of professionals and workforce for environmental supervision. We should make full use of market mechanism, develop diversified input pattern and ensure the project investment in place. We should conduct regular assessment of project performance and raise investment benefits.
To ensure smooth implementation of the Plan, the State Council requires that as the main body for implementing plan, local government should integrate the plan objectives, tasks, measures and key projects into local master plan for national economic and social development and regard plan implementation as an important component for comprehensive examination of local government leaders. All relevant departments of the State Council should act according to their duty with close cooperation, improve relevant systems and mechanism, make more investment and promote the implementation of the Plan. By the end of 2013 and 2015, we will carry out interim assessment and final examination on the implementation of the plan, report to the State Council of assessment and examination results, make them to the public, which will serve as important components for examining the performance of local governments.