Ministry of Environmental Protection: 17 out of 4 trillion projects failed to pass the EIA test

Today (March 11) at 11:00 am, the Information Center of the Second Session of the Eleventh National People's Congress held a special interview on “Current Environmental Protection Situation and Tasks” and invited the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Environmental Protection to accept interviews with Chinese and foreign journalists at the press center of the conference.

The guests who received special interviews were: Zhang Lijun, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection (in charge of pollution prevention and emission reduction, environmental law enforcement, etc.); Wu Xiaoqing, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection (in charge of environmental assessment, monitoring, environmental science and technology, etc.); Director of the Department of Pollution Prevention and Protection of the Ministry of Protection; Zhu Xingxiang, Director of the Environmental Impact Assessment Management Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection; Zhuang Guotai, Director of the Department of Ecological Protection of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

[Moderator Zhao Lixing]: Dear friends, good morning everyone, first of all welcome everyone to come to the "two sessions" news center to hold an interview today. Recently, many media have asked to interview two representatives on environmental protection issues. Today, at the request of everyone, we are pleased to invite relevant responsible comrades from the Ministry of Environmental Protection to accept special interviews on the current situation and tasks of environmental protection.

In 2008, the emission reduction work achieved good results.

[Xinhua News Agency]: Thank you very much for the moderator. My question is to be given to Minister Zhang. This year, Premier Wen Jiabao clearly stated in the "Government Work Report" that there was a significant reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and chemical oxygen demand emissions last year. We have been concerned about what we have done to achieve this reduction. We would like to invite you. Introduce the situation in this regard. Thank you.

[Tension Jun]: I am very grateful to the reporter friend of Xinhua News Agency. You have raised questions that everyone is very concerned about. In this year's "Government Work Report", Premier Wen Jiabao clearly announced that in 2008, the national COD emissions decreased by 4.42% compared with 2007, and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by 5.95%. This is the second time since the total amount of pollutants began to decline in 2007. Another good result. By the end of last year, our national COD emissions were down 6.61% from 2005 and sulfur dioxide emissions were down 8.95%. It can be said that the work in 2008 laid a solid foundation for us to achieve the “Eleventh Five-Year” emission reduction targets.

To achieve such results, I believe that there are five aspects: First, the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to it, and the local party committees and governments at all levels are doing their work. In last year's "Government Work Report", after putting forward the ten measures for energy conservation and emission reduction, Premier Wen Jiabao organized the second meeting of the State Council's Leading Group on Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, and comprehensively deployed energy conservation and emission reduction work. All localities have also made energy conservation and emission reduction an important part of the scientific development concept of learning and practice.

For example, like Hebei Province, the Hebei Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government proposed to focus on energy conservation and emission reduction in the province, while focusing on the “Double 30”, which is 30 counties and 30 enterprises. The pollution load of these 30 counties and 30 enterprises accounted for 50% of Hebei Province, and the provincial party committee clearly requested that the secretaries and county heads of the 30 counties and cities should not change their job positions within three years. Moreover, it is necessary to remove the job on the spot if the task of completing energy conservation and emission reduction is not good. The Hebei Provincial People's Congress decided to review the progress of the provincial government's "Double 30" work every year, that is, to consider the "Double 30" as in the consideration of Hebei's national economic and social development plan and the review of Hebei's fiscal budget. Energy saving and emission reduction work.

The provincial government is scheduled to schedule a “double 30” progress every quarter to help these companies and localities solve specific problems. Due to the strong work and determination of Hebei Province, last year's energy saving and emission reduction in Hebei Province, especially in the field of pollution reduction, was at the forefront of the country. Both indicators fell more than 9% last year compared with 2007. Forefront of the country. I think this is a reason.

The second reason is to further increase the adjustment of the industrial structure. All localities have conscientiously implemented the comprehensive work plan for energy conservation and emission reduction of the State Council, and have done a lot of work in eliminating and shutting down backward enterprises and enterprises with serious pollution. At the end of last year, I did some statistics during the assessment. The whole country shut down and eliminated more than 1,100 paper-making enterprises with serious pollution, closed 16.69 million kilowatts of small thermal power units, eliminated 14 million tons of backward capacity of ironmaking, and eliminated backward steelmaking capacity of 600. Ten thousand tons. At the same time, some backward production capacity of colored, cement, coke, chemical, printing and dyeing has also been eliminated.

The third reason is to further increase the construction of emission reduction projects. Although the economy was in a downturn last year due to the financial crisis, the central government has allocated funds to stimulate domestic demand and increased investment in energy conservation and emission reduction. It can be said that the construction of emission reduction projects has been further strengthened. Last year, the country's new sewage treatment capacity was 11.49 million tons, and the newly added thermal power unit's desulfurization installed capacity was 97.12 million kilowatts. We also made statistics on the sewage treatment rate, from 62% in 2007 to 66% in 2008. The desulfurization and unit installation of coal-fired units increased from 48% in 2007 to over 60% in 2008. In addition, a batch of devices such as steel sintering machines and advanced treatment of corporate sewage have also been completed and put into production.

For the fourth reason, a strict accountability system was implemented in the assessment. At the beginning of last year, the Ministry of the Environment and the relevant departments of the State Council conducted a serious assessment of the completion of pollution reduction in various provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government in 2007, and announced the assessment to the State Council for approval. At the same time, we also announced that four cities and three power groups have been restricted by the region. The reason for the restrictions in the four urban areas is that the sewage treatment facilities have not been built on schedule, or have not been operating normally after construction. The reason for the three power groups to approve the batch was that the desulfurization facilities were not completed on schedule. For the seven enterprises that did not operate the desulfurization facilities abnormally, that is, the seven power plants, the sewage charges were fully recovered, and the desulfurization price that was enjoyed was deducted, and a fine of five times was imposed.

Strict assessment has aroused strong repercussions throughout the country. Local governments, governments at all levels and enterprise groups have further changed their mindsets, and they have become passively reducing emissions to actively reduce emissions. At the same time, various localities have adopted a variety of methods for accountability. For example, like Jiangxi Province, regional restrictions were imposed on six cities and counties that did not perform well.

For the fifth reason, economic policies that support energy conservation and emission reduction are in place. Everyone knows that sewage treatment needs to be market-oriented, and its processing cost needs to be charged 8 cents. Last year, the vast majority of local sewage treatment fees have reached 8 hair. Electricity price, we proposed to add 1.5 cents per kWh to the desulfurization power plant. This economic policy was basically implemented last year. In addition, green credit and green securities have been further strengthened. The central government also allocated 3.4 billion yuan to pay for the capacity building of the environmental protection department. The online monitoring system for pollution sources of the provincial environmental protection departments has been basically completed, and the corporate emission standards have been further improved. Due to the impact of the financial crisis, the growth rate of GDP and energy consumption in the country in 2008 was lower than expected, and the pressure on pollution reduction was also reduced. These are some of the reasons why we did better last year. Thank you.

Take measures to cooperate with the state to stimulate domestic demand

[People’s Daily reporter]: Thank you, host, I am a reporter of the People’s Daily. Nowadays, one of the more concerned issues is how to stimulate domestic demand. We also know that many departments have introduced many policies to stimulate domestic demand. The question I want to ask is what the Ministry of Environmental Protection has adopted in the EIA management to stimulate domestic demand. How is the measure achieved? Thank you.

[Wu Xiaoqing]: In order to implement the decision-making arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to "guarantee growth, expand domestic demand, and adjust structure", we will conscientiously do a good job in environmental impact assessment in light of the actual situation of environmental protection work. In terms of maintaining growth, we have taken four main measures: First, strengthen guidance and improve the system. In the first time, we conveyed the spirit of the central government to the national environmental protection system, and guided the national environmental protection system to seriously serve the growth and structural adjustment. At the same time, we must properly handle the relationship between customs and services, current and long-term, efficiency and quality, macro and micro. In other words, when doing the EIA work well, we must properly handle the four relationships.

At the same time, in order to strengthen the guidance of the local, we have issued a series of documents to guide the local work. For example, we have introduced the grading approval regulations for environmental impact assessment documents for new projects. What does this stipulation solve? What projects are approved by the central government, and what projects are approved by the local authorities. At the same time, we have also issued a second document, called "The Ministry of Environmental Protection directly approves the construction project catalogue of environmental impact assessment documents". This document solves what projects are not in the batch, what projects should not be approved, and what type of central approval Project, local approval of what type of project. Therefore, the combination of these two documents, what type of project is approved by the central government, what type of project is approved by the locality, what type of project is approved by the batch, and what type of project should not be approved, so that the service work is effectively solved and the microscopic solution is solved. And the macro relationship.

Second, review in batches and reduce procedures. We have adopted different review procedures for different projects, convened special meetings and standing meetings in a timely manner, and reviewed projects that meet the requirements of the State Council to stimulate domestic demand and require immediate launch. For projects that do not meet the requirements, we will promptly explain to the owners that they will not be approved. s reason.

Third, it is convenient for the people and shortens the time. The time for project acceptance has been shortened from the original 5 days to the current 2 days. The number of project approval meetings has been adjusted from the original one month to the current one month. Some projects are still on the go, and they are effective for maintaining growth. service.

Fourth, classification assessment, streamlining the process. Under the premise of ensuring the quality of the EIA, according to the environmental impact of the project, the classification assessment, classification review, and classification time limit will be implemented. The EIA system will be strictly implemented for the “two high and one capital” projects, and its excessive growth will be controlled from the source. Other projects with relatively small environmental impacts simplify the process of project evaluation.

Therefore, we mainly speed up the work through the above four measures. Since the central government introduced the expansion of domestic demand and promoted the growth of the deployment, as of the end of February, we have accepted 195 applications for environmental impact assessment, and approved 246 projects in the same period. The total investment involved in the project is more than 970 billion, including transportation, water conservancy and other foundations. There are 53 facilities projects with a total investment of more than 280 billion. We also responded to the new situation of accelerated railway construction investment, actively communicated with the Ministry of Railways, explored the establishment of a mechanism for on-site assessment joint review, and accelerated the approval of projects. At the same time, while improving the efficiency of examination and approval, we have strictly controlled high-energy-consumption and high-pollution projects, and implemented 14 projects of chemical, petrochemical, steel, thermal power, and papermaking with a total investment of 104 billion in environmental risks. Suspension of approval or no approval. Through these measures, the adjustment of the industrial structure has been vigorously promoted. Thank you.

Adjust the EIA standards so that the monitoring indicators and the sensory indicators of the people are as consistent as possible

[Central People's Broadcasting Station, China Radio Network reporter]: Thank you, host. I am the Central People's Broadcasting Station and a reporter for the China Radio Network. In recent years, the ash phenomenon in large cities has occurred frequently. The public is very concerned that the pollution index of the ash weather and the city is often not very consistent. What do you think of this problem?

[Tension Jun]: In recent years, the ash weather in the country, especially in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has increased, especially in the Pearl River Delta. Some of the ash weather has accounted for half of the full-year days, or more than half.

According to our monitoring and analysis by some experts, fine particles are the main cause of ash weather, mainly due to the rapid growth of motor vehicle ownership in our large and medium-sized cities in recent years, resulting in a rapid increase in motor vehicle emissions, PM2 in the air. .5 The accumulation of such fine particles is increasing, resulting in frequent atmospheric ash weather. The Ministry of the Environment is negotiating with the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei government and relevant departments to carry out comprehensive rectification work in this regard.

Our current air pollution index was established 10 years ago. At that time, according to the air pollution situation in our cities, only the three indicators of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and respirable particulate matter were considered, and PM2.5 closely related to the haze weather. Such indicators such as fine particles and ozone are not included, which has led to the fact that the air quality conditions announced by our monitoring department are not equal to the blue sky and white clouds felt by ordinary people. So some of us also called our ministry and asked our monitoring agencies, saying that we don't feel blue sky and white clouds, foggy, how is it still good weather? The main reason is this. The Ministry of the Environment is studying to change the current evaluation system and prepare to increase some indicators of fine particles such as ozone and PM2.5, as well as to appropriately increase the visibility of the atmosphere. In this way, the indicators we monitor are as consistent as possible with the sensory indicators of the people. Thank you.

Cutting car tax and protecting the environment are not contradictory

[Reuters reporter]: Thank you, host, I am a reporter from Reuters. The State Council recently announced a series of measures to expand domestic demand, including buying a car with a displacement of 1.6 liters or less to cut the car tax by half. We know that large and medium-sized cities in China pay more attention to air quality, but if they increase the number of cars in the city. If there is traffic, will there be conflicts and conflicts with the protection environment? Thank you.

[Tension Jun]: I will answer this question. Recently, the State Council introduced some policies when stimulating domestic demand. One of the policies is to encourage people to buy cars, and to reduce the car tax for cars with a 1.6-liter emission or less. Implementing this policy is very beneficial to stimulating domestic demand and improving the lives of the people. As mentioned by the gentleman just now, the increase in vehicles has an impact on the environment. We believe that the increase in vehicles does have an impact on the environment, which is beyond doubt. However, we must not develop the automobile industry because of the impact on the environment. The ordinary people will not drive. Everyone has returned to the era of cycling. I think this is unrealistic and impossible.

To solve environmental problems, we must take some measures to make our environment meet the needs of ordinary people, adapt to the needs of human health, and improve the lives of the people. In the prevention and control of pollutants in motor vehicles, we have taken several measures. First, improve the emission standards of motor vehicles. Some experts say that what is the ratio of the emissions of a country III (that is, the car equivalent to Euro III emission standards) and the emissions of a national zero car (also equivalent to European standards)? The emissions of a country's zero-standard car are equivalent to the emissions of 14 National III standard vehicles, so we need to quickly raise the standard so that the emissions of new cars are as small as possible. Last year, we have implemented the National III standard throughout the country. Some major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou have begun to implement the National IV or the upcoming National IV standard. This is the first.

Second, increase the car with a heavy pollution, that is, the elimination rate of such a car with the national zero standard. Of course, this elimination cannot be achieved by administrative means alone, but by a notice, it should be a combination of legal, economic and administrative means. When Beijing was phasing out the national zero-car, it compensated for the early elimination of the yellow-label car. This year, the central government also arranged a special fund to accelerate the elimination of such high-emission vehicles.

Third, we must increase the intensity of testing and be realistic about new cars.

Third, construction can not be started without approval. After completing further expert argumentation and seeking more public opinions, the construction unit of this project should submit the results of the further demonstration process and public consultation to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau for approval. After approval by the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, it should be announced. The project cannot be started without announcement. The above is the opinion of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

[Zhu Xingxiang]: We are also very concerned about technical issues. We are not building a lot now, and it is still good from the current situation. We are very concerned. It is a problem of dioxin that everyone is concerned about. There are special monitoring indicators, which have been tracking and monitoring.

[吴晓青]: I add a few words. Regarding waste-to-energy and waste incineration, this technology has been in foreign countries for 30 to 40 years. Waste incineration can make use of garbage resources and save a lot of land resources. This is the direction of garbage disposal. Of course, at the same time. It also brings environmental problems, mainly including dioxin that may be generated by waste incineration.

Second, there is a contradiction between waste incineration plants and urban construction planning. Third, problems may arise during the transportation of garbage. Especially for dioxin, we have built a dioxin monitoring room throughout the country and put it into use. For the construction of waste incineration plants, our department has already joined the relevant departments in this category of projects in 2006, and has specified specific requirements from standard to construction in the EIA management.

In 2008, we joined forces with relevant departments to further clarify and refine the management and technical requirements of relevant waste incineration, with particular emphasis on the choice of environmental protection departments from site selection, pollutant control, health protection, especially public participation. The parties must strictly control, with special emphasis on resolutely safeguarding the environmental rights and interests of the people.

[Hunan Economic TV reporter]: Thank you, host, I am a reporter from Hunan Economic Television. In 2007, after Hunan was approved to build an environmentally friendly and resource-saving “two-oriented society”, the management of Xiangjiang River was included in the urgent task. Last year, it was also prepared to invest 11.4 billion yuan to start the management of Xiangjiang River. May I ask Minister Zhang for the governance of Xiangjiang River. Will the plan be prepared to be included in the large plate of national key river basin governance. At the same time, there will be some direct corresponding policies for the construction of Hunan's two-type society. Thank you.

[Tension Jun]: First, answer questions about the construction of a two-type society. A few days ago, the Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee Zhang Chunxian and Governor Zhou Qiang went to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and held talks with Minister Zhou Shengxian. The main content was to implement the provincial and ministerial construction of the two-type society of Hunan Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. We are discussing with Hunan Province, and I believe that an agreement can be reached soon.

The second question is about the governance of the Xiangjiang River. The Xiangjiang River is an important tributary of the Yangtze River. The environmental security of the Xiangjiang River is directly related to the environmental security of the Yangtze River. Therefore, the Party Central Committee and the State Council are very concerned about and attach importance to the governance of Xiangjiang River. Deputy Prime Minister Li Keqiang recently issued an instruction. According to the spirit of instructions, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection jointly organized an investigation team to conduct a comprehensive investigation on the pollution situation of Xiangjiang River with relevant departments of the State Council. I think that after this planning study is finalized, Xiangjiang can be considered as another key river basin for the country. Thank you.

[Workers Daily reporter]: Thank you, host, I am a reporter for the Workers Daily. According to our understanding, every time the media reveals some environmental problems, some people are happy and worried. I would like to ask, how does the Ministry of Environmental Protection comment on the media supervision of the media? Thank you.

[Tension Jun]: This question is very good. The Ministry of Environmental Protection is very grateful to the friends of the press for their concern and support for environmental protection. It also welcomes the news media to supervise the work of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, supervise the work of the environmental protection system, and also supervise the progress of environmental protection throughout the country. Therefore, we are very supportive of the news media to carry out supervision work, there is no problem in our department. Thank you.

[Zhao Lixing]: I will send a notice. At 3 o'clock this afternoon, the news center will invite Mr. Liu Chuanzhi, the president of Lenovo, to be interviewed here. Thank you. I would like to thank Minister Zhang, Minister Wu and the directors who participated in the interview today, as well as the journalists and friends who came to interview today. Thank you.