CRI听力:China Under Pressure to Meet Emissions Targets

Environmental authorities in China recently opened up about the problems the country faces in reaching the 2015 emission cutting targets as detailed in its pollution control plan.

Li Dong has the details.

Report: Zhai Qing, China's deputy minister of environmental protection, said at a press conference in Beijing that China currently records 24 million tons of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), a measure of organic pollutants in water, per year, while the total annual volume of ammonia nitrogen emissions stands at 2.45 million tons.

Experts have estimated that China's water environment will undergo a fundamental improvement only after the above figures are cut by 30 to 50 percent.

In the country's 12th Five-Year Plan, which lasts from 2010 to 2015 for environment protection, China vowed to cut COD and sulfur dioxide emissions by 8 percent and ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide emissions by 10 percent compared with 2010 levels.

Zhai says emissions of COD, sulfur dioxide and ammonia nitrogen have dropped by over 7 percent in the past three years, basically as scheduled, but nitrogen oxide emissions only dropped by about 2 percent, which has created great pressure for emissions-cutting tasks in 2014 and 2015.

He says realizing each of this year's environmental protection tasks is a challenging mission.

"A total of 1,473 environment protection projects will be finished across the country this year, aimed at increasing the sewage treatment capacity by 10 million tons and the denitration capacity by 130 million kilowatts."

The performance for the first half of 2011 was even more disappointing, as nitrogen oxide emissions rose by 6.17 percent year on year.

But Zhai said he still believes the five-year reduction target will be met with the support of local authorities.

Last year, emissions of major indicators including COD, sulfur dioxide and ammonia nitrogen continued declining, and nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by 4 percent year on year.

The deputy minister says that China has set a goal of reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by at least 5 percent in 2014, with targets of to reduce emissions of other indicators by 2 percent this year.

China will also strive to pull three million excessively polluting vehicles from the roads, he added, while authorities are currently working on an action plan to combat water pollution and protect soil.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.