China Reports Decline in Major Pollutant Emissions

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

["1st Ld: China Reports Decline in Major Pollutant Emissions" - Xinhua headline]

Zhengzhou, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) – China’s emissions of major pollutants -sulphur 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 Wednesday.

“Sulphur dioxide emissions in China fell a year-on-year 1.81 per cent in the first three quarters, and the COD (a measure of water pollution) dropped 0.28 per cent,” Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), said.

Under huge pressure to curb the deterioration of its environment, China has committed itself to improving energy efficiency by cutting energy consumption by 20 per cent per unit of GDP, along with a 10 per cent cut in major pollutants, between 2006 and 2010.

However, it missed both the government’s energy conservation and discharge reduction goals last year. The country’s discharge of sulphur dioxide and the COD saw year-on-year increases of 1.2 per cent and 1.8 per cent in 2006.

In June this year, the Chinese government issued a work plan on energy conservation and pollutant discharge reduction, which pledged the country would reduce its discharge of sulphur dioxide from 25.49 million tons in 2005 to 22.95 million tons in 2010, and the COD from 14.14 million tons to 12.73 million tons.

Zhou attributed the current decrease in the two major pollutants mainly to the installation of more desulfurizing 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- fuelled 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.

Two hundred and fifty-three 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 suspended while they were renovated or asked to improve wastewater processing facilities, he said.

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. Four hundred and twenty-nine people were punished,” Zhou said.

However, a report previously released by SEPA said China’s overall environmental situation was still “serious” with frequent pollution accidents affecting the quality of life for many people.

Last year, 842 pollution accidents were reported, including 482 cases of water pollution and 232 cases of air pollution.

Originally published by Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 0849 14 Nov 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.