Changes in Environmental Policy in the Past 40 Years of Reform …
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sources, process management, punishment of polluters, and environmental accountability. The reform better coordinated environment protection efforts with production, distribution, consumption and other activities, forming a long-term mechanism
emphasizing both incentives and restrictions and maximizing economic efficiency
of environment protection measures.
Second, we should take comprehensive measures to improve the quality of the
ecological environment and continuously improve public awareness of the benefits
offered by the ecological environment to human beings.
Since 2016, China has been working to shift the focus of its environmental governance system from gross pollutant discharge control (as required by the Eleventh
Five-Year Plan and Twelfth Five-Year Plan) to the improvement of environmental
quality. If we put things in historical context, we will find that China has always
emphasized the close relations between environment quality and life quality and the
clever use of incentives and restrictions to ensure that the environmental quality is
up to relevant standards.
When implementing the “33211” environmental pollution control project, the
Chinese government adopted a system of “one control and two standards” based on
environmental function zoning, with focus on regions, river basins and cities. Environmental function zoning is a method that determines environment quality standards
for an area based on its social conditions, functions, natural environment and environmental self-purification capabilities. Companies must meet the emissions targets,
and local governments must ensure that the environment quality of environmental
function zones meet relevant standards. If companies meet their emissions targets
but environmental function zones fail to deliver an environment quality up to their
respective standards, measures for total pollutant discharge control would apply. This
reflects that there is a connection between environmental quality improvement goals
and the measures adopted.
The pollution control projects carried out in the mid-1990s in China played an
important role in slowing down environmental deterioration, and the environmental
quality of some key river basins did improve significantly. From 2006 to 2015,
the Chinese government mainly tried to reduce pollution by setting gross pollutant
discharge control targets. At the time, the discharge of major pollutants exceeded the
environment’s self-purification capacity and the environmental quality was declining.
To curb the downward trend of environmental quality by reducing gross pollutant discharge, a pollutant discharge management system, headed by a dedicated
institution for total pollutant discharge control, was established. Thus, significant
progress was made in gross pollutant discharge control. Some studies based on data
from NASA satellites and meteorological vehicles show that China’s sulfur dioxide
emissions fell by more than 70% from 2005 to 2016.
Since 2016, China has been working on an environmental governance model
centered on improving the quality of the ecological environment, and has been
advancing with three major action plans for air, water and soil quality improvement. Indicators closely related to people’s living standards, such as air quality and
water quality indicators, were included in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan as mandatory
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sources, process management, punishment of polluters, and environmental accountability. The reform better coordinated environment protection efforts with production, distribution, consumption and other activities, forming a long-term mechanism
emphasizing both incentives and restrictions and maximizing economic efficiency
of environment protection measures.
Second, we should take comprehensive measures to improve the quality of the
ecological environment and continuously improve public awareness of the benefits
offered by the ecological environment to human beings.
Since 2016, China has been working to shift the focus of its environmental governance system from gross pollutant discharge control (as required by the Eleventh
Five-Year Plan and Twelfth Five-Year Plan) to the improvement of environmental
quality. If we put things in historical context, we will find that China has always
emphasized the close relations between environment quality and life quality and the
clever use of incentives and restrictions to ensure that the environmental quality is
up to relevant standards.
When implementing the “33211” environmental pollution control project, the
Chinese government adopted a system of “one control and two standards” based on
environmental function zoning, with focus on regions, river basins and cities. Environmental function zoning is a method that determines environment quality standards
for an area based on its social conditions, functions, natural environment and environmental self-purification capabilities. Companies must meet the emissions targets,
and local governments must ensure that the environment quality of environmental
function zones meet relevant standards. If companies meet their emissions targets
but environmental function zones fail to deliver an environment quality up to their
respective standards, measures for total pollutant discharge control would apply. This
reflects that there is a connection between environmental quality improvement goals
and the measures adopted.
The pollution control projects carried out in the mid-1990s in China played an
important role in slowing down environmental deterioration, and the environmental
quality of some key river basins did improve significantly. From 2006 to 2015,
the Chinese government mainly tried to reduce pollution by setting gross pollutant
discharge control targets. At the time, the discharge of major pollutants exceeded the
environment’s self-purification capacity and the environmental quality was declining.
To curb the downward trend of environmental quality by reducing gross pollutant discharge, a pollutant discharge management system, headed by a dedicated
institution for total pollutant discharge control, was established. Thus, significant
progress was made in gross pollutant discharge control. Some studies based on data
from NASA satellites and meteorological vehicles show that China’s sulfur dioxide
emissions fell by more than 70% from 2005 to 2016.
Since 2016, China has been working on an environmental governance model
centered on improving the quality of the ecological environment, and has been
advancing with three major action plans for air, water and soil quality improvement. Indicators closely related to people’s living standards, such as air quality and
water quality indicators, were included in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan as mandatory