Region needs 249 bln yuan for air pollution control

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, November 25, 2015
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China's Clean Air Alliance has released a report on a five-year plan for air pollution control with its focus on investment and financing needs.

A high-speed rail train pulls out of the south railway station of Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 7, 2015. [Photo: Xinhua]

According to the report, the plan's implementation requires an overall direct investment of over 1.8 trillion yuan, while the needs for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta region are expected to exceed 200 billion each.

The report, compiled by a panel of experts from the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning and Nanjing University, comes after two years' field investigation, as well as data collection, analysis and calculation.

Xie Hongxing, director of the Secretariat of the Clean Air Alliance of China (CAAC), explains how they came to the numbers.

"The calculation is mainly based on the control of various pollutants. We figure out the cost according to the context of different industries and how much emissions they are expected to cut. To make it more realistic, we conducted investigations in regions including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. We also took into account the actual cost in different places and combined them to conclude the final result."

The report also mentioned that the investment will be mainly used in optimizing energy structure and the control of mobile source pollution, industrial pollution and non-point source pollution.

Among the four aspects, the control of mobile source pollution requires the most, with 1.4 trillion yuan, while needs elsewhere range from 60 to 280 billion.

Wang Lisha, project manager with CAAC's Innovation Center, tells the reason behind the huge cost.

"Actually the costs in the mobile source part also include new energy vehicles and oil upgrading. In the report we can see the investment on this field in Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta is bigger, but not that much for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The two deltas have done a lot in energy structure optimization and industrial pollution control, so they need to do more in the control of mobile source pollution. Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should take into account many aspects. So, the mobile source cost is huge."

The government fund for air pollution control increased to 10 billion yuan last year from half of the amount a year earlier, but is still far less than the required amount mentioned in the report.

Xie Hongxing with the Clean Air Alliance of China says China's air pollution control relies too much on government funding, and new funding channels should be established.

"We can help make it easier for the green enterprises and companies to access the market and benefit more, so as to attract more investment to the green industries. For instance, we can raise the charge for disposing pollutants and give more compensation to the green power industry.

105 GW of new electricity generating capacity was installed in China by the end of June this year.

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