China draws the fastest curve for global atmospheric governance, with a decade long battle to defend the blue sky in the region | Air pollution | Global

During the ten-year battle to defend the blue sky, there has been almost no relaxation in atmospheric governance.

In September 2013, the "Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control" was launched in the name of the State Council, which was the first comprehensive action plan in China to address prominent environmental issues.

According to the "Ten Measures for the Atmosphere", by 2017, the concentration of fine particulate matter in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region will decrease by about 25%. Among them, the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter in Beijing is controlled at around 60 micrograms per cubic meter. This goal was considered to require extraordinary efforts to achieve at the time.

Over the past decade, China has drawn the fastest global curve for air pollution control.

Liu Bingjiang, Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, once recalled, "Over the past decade, we have solved many long-standing problems that we wanted to solve but did not solve, and achieved many great things that we wanted to do but did not achieve in the past."

Continuously understanding the causes and sources of heavy air pollution is an important part of it.

Nowadays, people can access real-time PM2.5 and ozone 8-hour indicators, which were newly added to the Environmental Air Quality Standards implemented in February 2012. In 2011, "haze" occurred frequently, and PM2.5 entered the public eye of China. Before that, although some scientists had conducted research on pollutants including PM2.5, there was no consensus on what caused the haze.

Many research teams are trying to understand the causes and prescribe remedies.

In the view of Chai Fahe, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences and deputy director of the National Joint Center for Air Pollution Prevention and Control, this requires repeated scientific tests to verify.

Taking coal-fired boilers as an example, first measure the emissions of various pollutants from the boiler, how many pollutants can be emitted by burning one ton of coal, and then analyze the impact on environmental quality, whether it is worth completely solving this problem.

The results have proven that loose coal is indeed a significant source of pollution in the entire Beijing Tianjin Hebei region. Chai Fahe said that the early measures for controlling loose coal were not "coal to gas" or "coal to electricity", but advocated for "good buildings and good coal", using clean coal, energy-saving boilers and other methods to minimize pollutant emissions. However, it is not realistic to install numerous pollution control devices on a household's gas equipment.

As research deepens, researchers have a more comprehensive understanding of the issue of loose coal. Chai Fahe stated that the financial support provided by the government to some cities in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region for the treatment of loose coal has played an important role.

Under scientific guidance, in recent years, Beijing has completed the clean energy transformation of 15000 tons of coal-fired boilers and nearly 700000 households have been converted from coal to clean energy. Currently, there are basically no coal-fired boilers in Beijing and the plain areas are basically "coal free". In China, the number of coal-fired boilers has decreased from 520000 in 2013 to less than 100000 in 2022, reducing coal consumption by 400 million tons. Many rural residents bid farewell to the smoky and fiery way of using energy.

In Chai Fahe's view, before the implementation of the "Ten Measures for the Atmosphere", the annual decrease in PM10 was only 1% -2%. It is difficult to achieve the expected target of reducing the concentration of fine particulate matter in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region by about 25% over the next five years without putting in 3-5 times the effort.

This "combination punch" style governance plan covers multiple fields such as motor vehicle pollution control, total coal consumption control, regional industrial structure adjustment, and emission reduction assessment. Many mechanisms need to be re established, and more refined requirements have been put forward for air pollution control.

However, at that time, the basic work on PM2.5 source analysis in China was still relatively weak. Liu Baoxian, director of the Beijing Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, once recalled that due to the higher PM2.5 concentration in Beijing at that time compared to European and American countries, it was not accurate to quote monitoring data from foreign equipment, and it was difficult to learn from experience. Everything had to be started from scratch. The initial research plan directly transplanted the PM10 source apportionment technology system. However, due to the significant difference in pollution characteristics between the two, the PM2.5 filter membrane in the sampler was blocked by fine particles, resulting in sample collection failure.

Liu Baoxian led the team to continue research, analyze the microscopic components of pollutants, conduct chemical analysis, and model calculations. After two years of research and development, more than 200 compound monitoring methods in PM2.5 were ultimately developed.

In 2014, Beijing released its first PM2.5 source analysis research results, becoming the first city in China to release a PM2.5 source analysis report.

But in 2014, 2015, and even in the autumn and winter of 2016, when the "Ten Rules of the Atmosphere" were about to end, Beijing still frequently sounded red alerts. Some people question that your governance direction is wrong.

"Air pollution control cannot be achieved overnight." Zhang Haolong personally experienced frontline work at that time and served as the Director of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei and Surrounding Areas Heavy Pollution Weather Response Department of the Atmospheric Environment Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

He said that in those years, they gradually promoted clean heating, upgrading the heavy chemical industry, and phasing out small boilers in the northern region, but the dividends of their efforts have not yet arrived.

In addition to local pollution sources, identifying cross regional impacts is also a major focus in analyzing the causes of pollution. In April 2017, the Executive Meeting of the State Council decided to take the lead in carrying out research projects on the causes and control of heavy air pollution under the leadership of the former Ministry of Environmental Protection. In September, a multi departmental collaborative leadership group for atmospheric research was established, and a national joint center for atmospheric pollution prevention and control was established in a "1+X" model, gathering more than 200 scientific research institutes and units to collaborate on research.

A national research team specializing in air pollution control has been officially established. In the following three years, 295 research institutions and 2903 scientific and technological workers, including 20 academicians, joined.

In Chai Fahe's view, "this research model has transformed household by household dispersed research into a national system that integrates the highest level of domestic business researchers to jointly solve problems.".

In fact, prior to this, there have been many analyses focusing on the causes of atmospheric pollution in a certain place or time. Chai Fahe pointed out that the methods adopted by everyone have their advantages and limitations, and there is no unified understanding of the causes of pollution.

"Therefore, this joint research project utilizes a combination of three-dimensional observation, laboratory simulation, and digital simulation to form a closed research system that analyzes the entire cause of pollution. Researchers discuss together, express their opinions, and reach a consensus, which is rare. After understanding unity, the measures are also precise," said Chai Fahe.

The puzzle of restoring the blue sky gradually becomes clearer. The National Joint Center for Air Pollution Prevention and Control has established a source analysis working group. In the year of its establishment, sampling points were set up to analyze the sources of autumn and winter pollutants in the "2+26" cities in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and surrounding areas.

Source analysis includes regional and industry sources, that is, from a regional perspective, analyzing the pollution interaction of "2+26" cities, discovering the transmission channels of pollutants, and providing support for the formulation of joint prevention and control measures for "2+26" cities in autumn and winter; From an industry perspective, analyze which pollution emission source plays a leading role in PM2.5 pollution, and what its contribution is, in order to provide support for cities to implement precise strategies for reducing pollution sources in various industries.

Chai Fahe introduced that currently, the National Joint Center for Air Pollution Prevention and Control has established the largest comprehensive three-dimensional observation network and data collection and sharing platform in China. It has identified the causes and sources of heavy air pollution in autumn and winter in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and surrounding areas, established a regional high-resolution dynamic emission inventory, identified the problems in air pollution prevention and control in key industries and fields, and proposed a timetable and roadmap for continuous improvement of regional air quality.

Another innovation is the establishment of a "one city, one policy" tracking and research mechanism, providing technological assistance to each city in the "2+26" region, solving the problem of local governments having "ideas but no solutions" in air pollution prevention and control, achieving a high degree of integration of scientific research and business applications, comprehensively supporting the closure of the "Ten Measures for the Atmosphere" and the implementation of the "Three Year Action Plan to Win the Blue Sky Defense War", promoting national and regional scientific decision-making and precise pollution control, and setting a model for air pollution control in other regions.

A series of measures are being comprehensively implemented in multiple fields.

Energy development is "green manure black lean". At present, nearly two-thirds of the national energy consumption increment comes from clean energy. In the past 10 years, the proportion of coal in primary energy consumption has decreased from 67.4% to 56.2%.

Optimization and adjustment of traditional industrial structure. More than 62000 scattered and polluted enterprises and clusters have been classified and eliminated in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and surrounding areas. Enterprises with no hope of meeting standards have been eliminated, and advanced benchmark enterprises have been cultivated simultaneously, significantly reducing the phenomenon of "bad coins driving out good coins". As of the end of 2022, 1.06 billion kilowatt coal-fired units in China have completed ultra-low emission transformation, forming the world's largest clean coal-fired power generation base.

Realize green transformation in the transportation sector. In 2017, multiple departments jointly stopped receiving coal transportation from the Bohai Rim Port and switched to railway transportation, marking the beginning of the transition from public transportation to rail transportation. China's production and sales of new energy passenger vehicles have ranked first in the world for 8 consecutive years.

287000 pollution sources have been included in the emergency emission reduction list, of which 122000 are classified according to their environmental performance by industry, implementing differentiated emission reduction measures, accurately and scientifically responding to heavy pollution weather, and achieving peak shaving and speed reduction in the pollution process.

Data shows that while China has achieved rapid economic growth, the environmental air quality has significantly improved. From 2013 to 2022, China's GDP grew by 69%, while the average concentration of PM2.5 decreased by 57% and the number of days with heavy pollution decreased by 92%.

In the new stage of tackling difficulties, there are still hard bones to tackle.

In the past two years, ozone has become the second largest factor affecting the proportion of days with good air quality in China, second only to PM2.5. In key areas such as the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and surrounding areas, as well as the Yangtze River Delta, ozone has even jumped to become the primary influencing factor. Many experts believe that the coordinated control of PM2.5 and ozone pollution is the focus and difficulty of air pollution prevention and control during the 14th Five Year Plan period.

The pressure of air quality rebound has once again hit. Liu Bingjiang stated that the economy has fully recovered this year, and the increase in pollutant emissions is expected. In addition, the climate situation this autumn and winter is expected to be unfavorable for pollution diffusion, and greater emissions reductions are needed to offset the uncertainty brought about by economic growth and climate anomalies. There is still confidence.