China continues improving environmental quality despite challenges

  • Monday, March 11, 2024
  • Source:ferro-alloys.com

  • Keywords:China, environmental quality
[Fellow]The ultra-low emissions transformation in the steel industry, for example, was accelerated.

[Ferro-Alloys.com]

Despite unfavorable meteorological conditions last year, China managed to keep good momentum for steady improvements in its environmental quality, said Huang Runqiu, minister of ecology and environment.

Huang said the ministry, together with many other departments, rolled out a series of effective measures last year to mitigate the adverse impacts from the complex situation.
 
The ultra-low emissions transformation in the steel industry, for example, was accelerated. The transformation was completed for 220 metric tons of steel production capacity in the year, over three times of that in the previous three years, he said.
 
He said 2 million rural households in northern China shifted to other types of clean energy to warm up their homes instead of burning coal with small stoves.
 
Thanks to these measures, the average PM2.5 concentration in prefecture-level cities and above reached 30 mcg/cubic m last year, maintaining a general momentum of steady improvement, he said.
 
Compared with 2019, the year before COVID-19 broke out, the PM2.5 density last year decreased by 16.7 percent, he said.
 
The minister noted even more satisfactory improvement in water environment.
 
Last year, 89.4 percent of monitoring sections for surface water across the country registered fairly good quality, which is even 4.4 percentage points higher than the country's target for 2025, he said.
 
China has a five-tier quality system for surface water, with Grade I as the best. The quality can be considered as being fairly good if it reaches Grade III.
 
Huang vowed a series of measures to promote continuous environmental improvement.
 
He said the ministry plans to launch campaigns dedicated to air pollution control, aquatic environment improvement, rural environment management and the risk control of hazardous waste this year, respectively.
 
The country will continue to optimize its structures of industry, energy consumption and transportation, he said.
 
"We will further enhance the protection and supervision of the country's ecosystems and strive to sustain their stability, sustainability and diversity," he said.  | chinadaily.com.cn
  • [Editor:kangmingfei]

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