China's emission of major pollutants -- sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (COD) -- over the first nine months of the year dropped for the first time in several years, a senior official with the state environmental watchdog said here on Wednesday.
"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.
Experts predicted that rapid economic and social development would further worsen the water supply situation in the next five years, making the control of water pollution a critical challenge.
In July, SEPA launched a new campaign to force local authorities in areas along the country's four major rivers to prioritize its environmental protection above economic gain.
Local authorities in six cities, two counties and five industrial zones -- all in the vicinity of the Yellow, Yangtze, Huaihe and Haihe rivers -- were given three months to rectify their "environmental problems".
The campaign has led to the closure and suspension of more than 600 enterprises and projects. About 7 billion yuan (about 946 million U.S. dollars) of delayed pollution fees were also recovered.
Zhou said that starting from next year, his administration would begin regular inspections and assessments of the quality of cross-province rivers.
Provinces that are lax in water protection or fail to effectively curb pollution, will not be allowed to start new projects that might increase pollutant discharge, he said.
A previously released SEPA report said China's overall environmental situation was still "serious" with frequent pollution accidents affecting the quality of life for many.
Last year, 842 pollution accidents were reported, including 482 cases of water pollution and 232 cases of air pollution.China View
