CRI听力:China Marks World Environment Day

Saturday, June 5th is World Environment Day. China's Ministry of Environmental Protection organized a meeting on Friday to mark the day. Participants agreed that China has made remarkable improvements in many areas of environmental protection. Tingting has more.



Speaking at a meeting to mark World Environment Day, Zhou Shengxian, China's Minister of Environmental Protection, says the country is determined to further reduce energy consumption and pollution.

"China will fight to cut down energy consumption and reduce pollution as much as possible, and therefore, advance the country's economic restructuring. We set high goals this year, which include reducing 400 thousand tons more sulfur dioxide emissions on the basis of last year."

Zhou also spoke highly of China's environmental protection campaign.

"We have seen remarkable improvements in many areas. From 2006 to 2009, the chemical-oxygen demand, or COD, dropped nearly 10 percent, and sulfur dioxide emissions were down by more than 13 percent. Both have met the goals set in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The sulfur dioxide emissions goal was achieved even a year ahead of schedule."

Zhou said China has never abandoned its green efforts even in tough times during the global economic downturn, and that its unwavering efforts have paid off.

China has successfully maintained its environmental protection levels and prevented a pollution rebound last year.

Zhou also said China still faces a series of challenges in environmental protection. He said the fact that China lags behind in environmental technologies, the current economic model and the resistance to environmental protection efforts by certain industries may pose serious challenges to the country's efforts to achieve green development.

Zhou said that as countermeasures, China will widen its environmental impact assessments, build a sound legal system and use taxation mechanisms to guide the greener development of the country.

The theme of this year's World Environment Day is "Many Species, One Planet, One Future." The theme echoes the United Nations' call for the International Year of Biodiversity to stop the mass extinction of species and raise awareness about the vital importance of the millions of species that inhabit our planet's lands, forests, oceans, coral reefs and mountains.

For CRI, I'm Tingting.