Continue to fight the battle of blue sky in depth

Source: Economic Daily

Building a beautiful China is an important goal of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2023 proposed to continue to fight the battle of blue sky, clear water and pure land. The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" issued in January this year emphasized that by 2035, the concentration of fine particulate matter in the country will be reduced to less than 25 micrograms per cubic meter, so that the air will always be fresh and the blue sky will always be there. In this issue, invited experts will discuss related issues.

A tough battle to transform the way of development

What is the meaning of the Battle for the Blue Sky? Why is the battle for blue skies the top priority in the battle against pollution?

Wang Shuxiao (Professor of Tsinghua University, Director of the State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Compound Pollution Sources and Control): Air quality is related to the physical and mental health of the people, an adult breathes more than 20,000 times a day and inhales about 15 cubic meters of air, far more than the food and water ingested in a day. Research shows that air pollution is one of the greatest environmental threats to human health and one of the leading causes of avoidable global death and disease. The Blue Sky Campaign aims to continuously improve ambient air quality, promote the transformation and upgrading of energy, industry and transportation structure, and effectively protect the health of the people. Its key task is to reduce heavily polluted weather and solve the outstanding atmospheric environmental problems around the people, and the key measures are to coordinate and deepen the emission reduction of multiple pollutants and continuously promote high-quality economic development.

Winning the battle to defend the blue sky is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee and the top priority of the battle against pollution. In 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out when presiding over the sixth collective study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee that "efforts should be made to promote air pollution control in key industries and key regions". In the same year, the State Council issued the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution (hereinafter referred to as the "Ten Atmospheric Measures"), which was the first action plan on the mainland to improve ambient air quality PM_2. In 2017, the "Ten Atmospheric Measures" goal was achieved as scheduled. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to adhere to the common governance of the whole people, prevention and control at the source, continue to implement air pollution prevention and control actions, and win the battle to defend the blue sky. In 2018, the State Council issued the Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense War (hereinafter referred to as the "Three-Year Action Plan"), with the goal of significantly reducing the number of heavily polluted days, significantly improving ambient air quality, and significantly enhancing the people's sense of happiness in blue skies after three years of efforts.

The battle for blue skies is a long-term battle with clear objectives. After 10 years of tackling tough problems, the mainland's emissions of major air pollutants have been significantly reduced, and air quality has improved significantly. At the same time, it should also be noted that the current average annual concentration of PM_2.5 in the mainland is still high compared with that of European and American countries. In order to further consolidate the achievements of the blue sky defense campaign, the Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality issued by the State Council in December 2023 proposes that by 2025, the concentration of PM_2.5 in cities at and above the prefecture level will be reduced by 10% compared with 2020, and the concentration of PM_2.5 in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surroundings and in the Fenwei Plain will be reduced by 20% and 15% respectively. The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" issued in January this year emphasized that by 2035, the concentration of fine particulate matter in the country will be reduced to less than 25 micrograms per cubic meter, so that the air will always be fresh and the blue sky will always be there. Looking ahead, in order for the mainland to meet the World Health Organization's air quality guidelines, the emission of major air pollutants needs to be reduced by about 80%, and the goal of air pollution control needs to be clear, the direction remains unchanged, and the intensity is not reduced.

The battle to defend the blue sky is a tough battle to transform the mode of development. The mainland is the world's largest manufacturing country, and the energy structure dominated by coal, the industrial structure dominated by heavy chemicals, and the transportation structure dominated by highways have led to high air pollutant emissions. From the "Ten Atmospheric Measures" to the "Three-Year Action Plan", with the in-depth promotion of air pollution control, the emission reduction space of traditional end-of-line treatment methods is gradually narrowing, and the implementation of structural root cause emission reduction and accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation have become the key to the continuous improvement of air quality in the mainland. The Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality emphasizes the two-wheel drive of structural adjustment and terminal treatment, and deploys 14 measures from the three aspects of "optimizing the industrial structure and promoting the green upgrading of industrial products", "optimizing the energy structure and accelerating the clean, low-carbon and efficient development of energy", "optimizing the transportation structure and vigorously developing the green transportation system", and proposes 7 tasks from the aspects of strengthening non-point source pollution control and improving the level of fine management, so as to promote high-quality economic development with continuous improvement of air quality, and promote carbon reduction, pollution reduction, and pollution reduction through systematic governance. Expand greenery and growth, and achieve a win-win situation of environmental, economic and social benefits.

The battle to defend the blue sky is a defensive battle of regional coordinated governance and coordinated control of multiple pollutants. With the continuous deepening of air pollution prevention and control, the main battlefields and emission reduction targets of the blue sky defense war are also dynamically adjusted. From the perspective of the main battlefield, the "Ten Atmospheric Measures" delineate 47 cities such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta; The "Three-Year Action Plan" was adjusted to "2+26" cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas, 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta and 11 cities in the Fenwei Plain; The Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality emphasizes the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas, the Yangtze River Delta and the Fenwei Plain, but the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas have been adjusted from "2+26" cities to "2+36" cities, and the southern part of Shandong and central and southern Henan with high PM_2.5 concentrations will be included in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas, and the cities in the southern part of the Yangtze River Delta will be transferred out of the PM_2.5 stable standard, and the Fenhe Valley and the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province will be the main scope of the Fenwei Plain, aiming to highlight the key points and make precise efforts. From 2013 to 2020, the national emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter and volatile organic compounds decreased by 70%, 28%, 44% and 4% respectively, and the emissions of sulfur dioxide and fine particulate matter both dropped to one million tons, but the emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds were still at the level of 10 million tons. The Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality clearly states that it is necessary to deepen the coordinated emission reduction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which will be conducive to the coordinated prevention and control of PM_2.5 and ozone.

Overall, air pollution is one of the most challenging environmental problems in the world. In the past decade, the mainland has made remarkable achievements, but in the future, it is still necessary to focus on protecting people's health, promote structural adjustment, further tighten standards, strengthen coordinated governance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and make persistent and long-term efforts to promote the improvement of air quality from quantitative to qualitative change.

Environmental, economic and social benefits are win-win

In the 10-year battle to defend the blue sky, the mainland has become the country with the fastest improvement in air quality in the world.

Wang Xiaoli [Professor of the Department of Social and Ecological Civilization Teaching and Research of the Central Party School (National Academy of Administration)]: The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China listed the "battle against pollution" as one of the three major battles to win the battle to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to continue to fight the battle of blue sky, clear water and pure land. To this end, the mainland has strengthened regional joint prevention and control and heavy pollution weather response, prepared emergency plans for heavy pollution weather, unified the early warning and grading standards for heavy pollution weather, carried out performance grading work in key industries, and implemented differentiated emission reduction measures. At the same time, a series of policy measures have been released to drive air pollution control with quantitative indicators.

Fine particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, the main pollutants in the continental atmosphere, are highly homologous to carbon dioxide, which is partly related to the energy structure of "rich in coal, poor in oil and gas" and high in carbon industrial structure. Therefore, the focus of air quality improvement is to target the major emitters of coal-fired coal in the energy, industry, transportation, and urban and rural areas, and actively carry out clean and low-emission transformation. Over the past 10 years, the mainland has successively promoted the management of loose coal in rural areas in the north, the transformation of coal-fired power plants and iron and steel with ultra-low emissions, the clean-up and rectification of "scattered and polluted" enterprises, the elimination of yellow-labeled vehicles and high-emission old vehicles, and vigorously developed multimodal transport such as road, rail, and molten iron, and achieved positive results.

First, rural scattered coal management is one of the measures that has contributed the most to the improvement of PM_2.5 concentrations in the country and in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In the past, scattered coal was burned for heating in rural areas in the north, and the exhaust gas was directly discharged without any treatment, which was one of the important reasons for the frequent occurrence of heavy pollution weather in winter. In recent years, various localities have explored the practice of replacing traditional loose coal incineration with electricity, natural gas, industrial waste heat or renewable energy according to local conditions, and at present, about 39 million households in rural areas in northern China have completed the replacement of scattered coal.

Second, ultra-low emissions retrofits to coal-fired power plants and the steel industry have improved air quality. In accordance with the requirements of the "Work Plan for the Comprehensive Implementation of Ultra-low Emission and Energy-saving Transformation of Coal-fired Power Plants", by 2020, the qualified coal-fired power units across the country will fully complete the ultra-low emission transformation and reach the level of natural gas emissions. So far, 1.06 billion kilowatts of ultra-low emission transformation of coal-fired power plants have been completed, accounting for 94% of the total installed capacity. 250 million tons of ultra-low emission steel will be transformed, 300 million tons of excess steel production capacity will be eliminated, and the number of iron and steel enterprises will be reduced by about 20%.

Third, cleaning up and rectifying "scattered and polluting" enterprises and phasing out yellow-label vehicles and high-emission old vehicles are crucial to improving air quality in densely populated metropolises. Taking Beijing as an example, the Blue Sky Defense War has superimposed non-capital functional relief projects, with a total of more than 3,200 general manufacturing and polluting enterprises withdrawn, more than 12,000 "scattered and polluted" enterprises classified and rectified, more than 2.36 million old motor vehicles eliminated, and more than 600,000 new energy vehicles promoted. At present, new energy and China V and above motor vehicles account for more than 70%. In 2021, Beijing's air quality standards were fully met for the first time, and in 2022, the average annual concentration of PM_2.5 fell to the lowest level in a decade.

In the 10-year battle to defend the blue sky, the intensity of pollution control is unprecedented, the supervision and law enforcement are unprecedented, and the results are unprecedented.

From the perspective of environmental benefits, the battle to defend the blue sky is a battle to control pollution in the shortest time and exceed the task. From 2013 to 2023, the national PM_2.5 dropped from 68 micrograms/cubic meter to 30 micrograms/cubic meter, a decrease of 56%, and the annual average concentration of PM_2.5 has reached the target for four consecutive years. The nine binding indicators of the ecological environment set in the 13th Five-Year Plan have been exceeded, and the battle to defend the blue sky and its landmark campaign have achieved decisive results. In 2023, the average proportion of days with good air quality in 339 cities at and above the prefecture level will be 85.5%, an increase of 3.5 percentage points from 2019, and the proportion of days with severe pollution and above will be 1.6%, making it the country with the fastest air quality improvement rate in the world.

From the perspective of economic benefits, the battle to defend the blue sky is a battle to increase efficiency by forcing the transformation and upgrading of energy, industry and transportation structure. To fight the battle to defend the blue sky, it is necessary to coordinate the synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction from the source, adjust the structure of the energy industry and optimize the layout. From 2013 to 2023, the mainland supported economic growth of more than 6% per year with an average annual energy consumption growth rate of 3%, and its energy intensity decreased by 26.4%, making it one of the countries with the fastest reduction in energy intensity in the world. The mainland has built the world's largest clean coal-fired power system, gradually extended the experience of ultra-low emission transformation of coal-fired power plants to steel, cement, coke and other industries, and actively learned from the experience and practices of developed countries to implement major emission reduction projects.

From the perspective of social benefits, the battle to defend the blue sky is a battle of unity that mobilizes all forces to participate, pool wisdom and efforts, and govern and enjoy the masses. Air pollution control requires extensive participation of the whole society, taking the "Blue Map" APP as an example, this software is currently widely used in the field of ecological environment, users can timely understand the real-time environmental information of their location by taking photos and uploading. The "Blue Map" has covered 8 categories of environmental data such as air, water quality, and soil, including corporate environmental supervision records, energy consumption in provinces, cities and regions, carbon emission data and other dimensional information, focusing on the application of environmental data platform. Behind this all-encompassing "blue map" is the Public Environmental Research Center, a 17-year-old non-governmental environmental protection organization, which has continuously enriched the dimensions of ecological and environmental data to create a vivid example of the national action system for digital assistance to build a beautiful China.

Collaborative governance continues to improve the overall effectiveness of prevention and control

In recent years, what valuable experience have been accumulated by various regions and departments in promoting continuous improvement of air quality?

Cong Xiaonan (Deputy Director, Resource and Environmental Economy Research Office, Institute of Ecological Civilization, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences): Overall, the mainland has achieved positive results in the field of air pollution prevention and control, and various localities and departments have accumulated valuable experience, which can be summarized as "four synergies".

First, promote the coordination of pollution control and green development in key industries. The steel, cement and coking industries are the focus of air pollution prevention and control in the mainland. Taking the steel industry as an example, its emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides account for 30%, 14% and 16% of the industrial industry respectively, ranking first in the non-electric industry. By the end of 2023, a total of 400 million tons of crude steel production capacity in the country has completed the whole process of ultra-low emission transformation, and a number of typical enterprises such as Changshu Longteng Special Steel Co., Ltd. and Ningbo Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. have emerged. Through the implementation of ultra-low emission transformation, the pollutant emission intensity of the steel industry has been significantly reduced, which has effectively promoted the improvement of ambient air quality in key regions and the whole country.

Second, we need to adhere to the coordinated governance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction. Air pollutants and greenhouse gases have the same root and origin, and promoting the coordinated management of pollution reduction and carbon reduction will achieve twice the result with half the effort. Based on the compilation of the emission inventory of air pollution sources and greenhouse gas emissions in the early stage, Jinshan District of Shanghai has promoted the integration of air pollutants and greenhouse gas inventory, and has played an active role in data mining, clarifying key emission sources, and clarifying key emission reduction areas, links and processes. Jiangsu Xishan Industrial Park focuses on the dual control of energy consumption and carbon emission intensity control goals, and carries out feasibility studies in the planning and project environmental impact assessments, so as to put forward the optimal plan. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas continue to promote clean heating, which not only significantly reduces the consumption of loose coal, but also effectively improves air quality.

Third, focus on the coordinated management of multiple pollutants. Ozone and PM_2.5 have a certain degree of homology, and the key to governance lies in the coordinated emission reduction of their common precursors. Beijing has promoted the continuous improvement of air quality by strengthening institutional innovation and policy integration. Shanghai has deployed a number of major research projects, focusing on strengthening the management of power plants, boilers, key enterprises and mobile sources, so that the concentration of major air pollutants such as PM_2.5 has been significantly reduced, and the rising trend of ozone concentration has also been initially curbed.

Fourth, we need to strengthen coordinated governance between regions. Air pollution has the characteristics of cross-regional transmission, and it is of great significance to adhere to regional joint prevention and control to effectively improve air quality. At present, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains, the Northeast region, and the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have all established joint prevention and control mechanisms for air pollution. Taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas as an example, the overall effect of regional air pollution prevention and control has been significantly improved through monitoring and consultation, data sharing, emergency linkage and coordinated response.

The central government's air pollution prevention and control funds have been increasing year after year, which is of great significance to the precise control of air pollution in the mainland. The air pollution prevention and control fund is an important part of the central ecological environment fund, which is specially used to support the prevention and control of air pollution and the coordinated response to climate change. In 2023, the central government will allocate 33 billion yuan in air pollution prevention and control funds, doubling from 2017. In 2024, 34 billion yuan will be allocated to a new high, and it will focus on supporting clean heating in winter in the northern region, and building capacity for atmospheric environment governance and management. Specifically, it mainly includes the following aspects.

The first is clean energy substitution projects. At present, there are still domestic coal such as household heating and agricultural production coal such as grain storage and drying equipment and agricultural product processing in rural areas. Dispersed and inefficient coal burning is an important cause of pollution such as PM_2.5 and sulfur dioxide, and the environmental harm is greater.

The second is the comprehensive treatment of boilers. Including the elimination of coal-fired boilers, the ultra-low emission transformation of coal-fired boilers, the low-nitrogen transformation of gas-fired boilers, and the in-depth treatment of biomass boilers, etc., that is, focusing on supporting the elimination of coal-fired boilers of 35 steam tons/hour and below, promoting the ultra-low emission transformation of coal-fired boilers above 65 steam tons/hour, promoting the transformation of low-nitrogen combustion of gas boilers, and laying out in-depth treatment projects such as dust removal and denitrification of biomass boilers.

The third is the comprehensive management of industrial furnaces. Including kiln phase-out, clean energy substitution and end-of-line treatment. Focus on supporting the elimination of processes and equipment projects with high air pollutant emission intensity and difficult treatment; Industrial furnaces such as heating furnaces, heat treatment furnaces, drying furnaces, and melting furnaces using highly polluting fuels are converted to clean and low-carbon energy projects; In-depth treatment projects in glass, lime, mineral wool, nonferrous metals and other industries.

Fourth, comprehensive management of volatile organic compounds. Focus on supporting the whole-process treatment of volatile organic compounds, including source substitution, terminal treatment, and green island project construction. Among them, the Green Island project focuses on supporting the construction of centralized coating centers in parks and clusters where industrial coating enterprises of the same category gather, and supports the construction of centralized adsorbent regeneration centers in areas with large adsorbent use.

Fifth, ultra-low emission transformation in key industries. This is a powerful measure to effectively reduce pollution emissions and continuously improve air quality in the whole society, focusing on supporting ultra-low emission transformation projects in steel, cement, coking and other industries.

Sixth, capacity building. Comprehensively promote the construction of a modern air pollution monitoring system, and support capacity building such as monitoring, supervision, and response to heavily polluted weather. (Source: Economic Daily)