During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in collaboration with relevant departments and local governments, planned and implemented 24,000 ecological and environmental remediation projects, achieving significant reductions in total emissions of key pollutants including nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, chemical oxygen demand, and ammonia nitrogen.
Sun Shouliang, Director-General of the Comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, stated that over the past five years, China has enhanced pollution reduction capabilities in key industries. By phasing out outdated production capacity, China achieved reductions of approximately 210,000 tons of nitrogen oxides and 220,000 tons of volatile organic compounds during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. This included the cumulative elimination of over 120 million tons of step-type sintering machine capacity, over 68 million tons of coke oven capacity (4.3 meters and below), and approximately 30,000 coal-fired boilers. In advancing the green transformation and upgrading of existing production capacity, China has completed ultra-low emission retrofits for 940 million tons of crude steel capacity, 470 million tons of cement clinker capacity, 360 million tons of coking capacity, and 170 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation units.
Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China has achieved remarkable progress in enhancing urban and rural environmental infrastructure. At the urban level, sewage treatment and emission reduction projects have cumulatively reduced chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen emissions by approximately 3.2 million tons and 350,000 tons, respectively. In rural areas, environmental remediation has been completed in 110,000 additional administrative villages nationwide, raising the rural domestic sewage treatment rate to 55%—double the level at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period.
Additionally, China's environmental safety foundations have been strengthened in recent years. Sun Shouliang stated that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China implemented 124 major projects for source control of soil pollution, annually managing the leakage risk of 55 million tons of materials containing toxic and hazardous substances. Currently, the national centralized utilization and disposal capacity for hazardous waste has reached 220 million tons per year, a 60% increase from 2020. In advancing the remediation of tailings ponds and heavy metal pollution, China completed the remediation of over 1,800 tailings ponds in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and nearly 400 in the Yellow River Basin during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It also promoted the implementation of over 1,100 heavy metal emission reduction projects.
Sun Shouliang stated that looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will focus on key areas including the campaigns for blue skies, clear waters, and clean soil; solid waste and new pollutant management; ecosystem optimization; and climate change response. It will plan and implement a series of strategic and pioneering major projects to high standards while improving the project implementation system.
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