From January next year, Beijing will ban the sale and use of motor
vehicles with emissions above the new standard, which is equivalent
to that adopted by Europe in 1996.
The action may help the city, which has more than 1.7 million motor
vehicles, to reduce major pollutants by half, the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said
Thursday.
This is just the latest measure to clean the air breathed by the
city's 12 million residents.
Uncontrolled car emissions, coal burning, smoke from factories and
dust used to make Beijing one of China's worst cities for air
pollution. But, after the government took a series of measures such
as closing down some heavily polluted enterprises and adopting
natural gas instead of coal, the environment here has been greatly
changed.
Beijing has become an obvious beneficiary of China's long-term
pursuit and final winning of the 2008 Olympic
Games. China has promised to make a "green" event.
But it is not the only force for environmental improvement in
Beijing. The city's efforts to clean the air and the water are part
of an overall drive for sustainable development.
In
a recent campaign, law enforcement officers of environmental
protection departments across China investigated more than 6,300
enterprises which illegally discharged excessive pollutants. Some
800 heavy polluters were closed down.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has repeatedly underlined the importance
of environmental protection, saying that environment issues are
critical to the success of the country's modernization drive, and
even the revitalization of the Chinese nation.
"China must go along the path of sustainable development," he told
a national conference on environmental protection early this
year.
Foreseeing the environmental impacts of rapid
industrialization,urbanization and population growth, China's
policymakers now regard sustainable development as a guiding
strategy in its economic and social development.
The Chinese government will invest 700 billion yuan (US$85 billion)
in environmental protection projects in the 2001-2005 period,
almost double the investment in the previous five years.
"We should do our best to halt the tendency of ecological
degradation through reducing discharges of pollutants and dealing
with the pollution in the water and the air," said Xie Zhenhua,
director of the SEPA.
He
said China should be able to achieve a win-win result both in
economic development and environmental conservation.
The central government has just kicked off a decade-long
"grain-for-environment" program, in which farmers will be
compensated with grain and cash for laying their farmland fallow
which is low-yield and vulnerable to soil erosion due to lack of
vegetation.
Although it is enormously costly, with 100 billion yuan (US$12
billion) in total investment, the program is designed to curb soil
erosion and to help restore the ruined ecosystem.
And it is not only the government that has taken action.
The National People's Congress, China's highest legislative body,
passed a law on clean production last month, urging enterprises to
adopt environment-friendly methods in industrial production.
Non-governmental organizations are also burgeoning throughout the
country to promote understanding of environmental conservation
among the public.
A
United Nations report issued here last month said China is at a
crossroads of sustainable development, and the choice it makes will
be significant to the whole world.
But it acknowledged that China has started making positive
changes.
"The choice is clear. The Chinese people desire a sustainable
future, a green future," it said.
(People's Daily
July 26, 2002)