Interpretation of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Ecological Environment Protection"

  Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 5th Title: Accelerate the filling of the shortcomings of the ecological environment and lay a good job in the three major battles of air, water and soil pollution prevention and control — — Interpretation of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Ecological Environment Protection"

  Xinhua News Agency reporter Gao Jing

  The State Council recently issued the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Ecological Environment Protection", which defined the "Action Guide" for China’s ecological environment protection during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period. The plan puts forward the goal of improving the overall quality of the ecological environment by 2020, and determines seven main tasks, such as fighting three major battles of air, water and soil pollution prevention and control.

  The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to the protection of ecological environment. Since the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", China has resolutely declared war on pollution, made every effort to promote the prevention and control of air, water and soil pollution, continuously strengthened the protection of the ecological environment, improved the quality of the ecological environment, and completed the main goals and tasks set in the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan".

  Zhao Yingmin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, pointed out: "It should be noted that China’s environmental protection situation is still grim, with heavy environmental pollution, poor environmental quality, great ecological damage and high environmental risks. There is a big gap between the ecological environment and the ardent expectations of the people, which has become a prominent short board for building a well-off society in an all-round way."

  Therefore, during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, improving environmental quality, strengthening comprehensive management of the ecological environment, and accelerating the completion of the shortcomings of the ecological environment are the core tasks at present.

  In order to achieve the goal of overall improvement of eco-environmental quality, the plan puts forward binding and anticipatory indicators, including 12 binding indicators, namely, the ratio of days with excellent air quality in cities at prefecture level and above, the decrease of concentration of fine particles in cities at prefecture level and above, the ratio of surface water quality reaching or better than Class III water body, the ratio of water body with poor surface water quality being worse than Class V water body, forest coverage rate, forest stock, safe utilization rate of polluted farmland, safe utilization rate of polluted land and pollutants of chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

  Experts pointed out that the binding indicators are mainly aimed at the prevention and control of air, water and soil pollution. Compared with the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", two indicators related to soil have been added to the binding indicators, namely, the safe utilization rate of contaminated farmland and the safe utilization rate of contaminated plots, which are the requirements of the Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control.

  The plan defines seven major tasks during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period: strengthening source prevention and control and consolidating the foundation of green development; Deepen quality management and vigorously implement three major action plans; Implement special treatment to comprehensively promote the discharge up to standard and pollution reduction; Implement full-process control to effectively prevent and reduce environmental risks; Strengthen protection and ecological restoration; Accelerate institutional innovation and actively promote the modernization of governance system and capacity; Implement a number of major national ecological and environmental protection projects.

  The binding indicators have been determined, and the seven major tasks have been clearly defined. The plan also details how to promote the ecological environment protection work during the 13 th Five-Year Plan period.

  Taking the prevention and control of air pollution as an example, in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region where air pollution is serious, the plan proposes to focus on Beijing, Baoding and Langfang, focusing on loose coal control in winter, comprehensive management of key industries, motor vehicle supervision and heavy pollution weather response, strengthening the management and supervision of overhead sources, and improving regional air quality. Measures such as increasing the proportion of receiving external power transmission, increasing the supply of non-fossil energy, implementing natural gas instead of coal projects in key cities, promoting electricity to replace coal, and greatly reducing the use of loose coal in winter.

  According to Zhao Yingmin, five main tasks will be carried out around the implementation of the plan: first, publicize the plan and mobilize social forces to participate in ecological environmental protection; The second is to divide the planning key tasks according to the relevant responsibilities, clarify the departmental responsibilities, decompose the binding indicators, and coordinate the departments to promote the planning implementation; The third is to implement major projects and reform measures, establish a project library, strengthen the project promotion mechanism, and actively promote the implementation of major reform policies as soon as possible; Fourth, promote social co-governance, improve social supervision mechanism, unblock public supervision channels, and actively organize the masses to participate in and supervise the implementation of the plan in an orderly manner; Fifth, carry out assessment, regularly monitor and evaluate the implementation of the plan, conduct mid-term assessment at the end of 2018, and conduct final assessment at the end of 2020. The assessment results will be reported to the State Council, announced to the public, and incorporated into the comprehensive assessment system for leading cadres.