The latest statistics from the State Environmental Protection
Administration of China (SEPA) indicate that the index for the
discharge of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (COD), the
two major pollutants, in Guangdong Province have been reduced by 2.1
percent and 0.9 percent in 2006 compared with those in 2005.
Guangzhou
City
This information was revealed on Monday by Li Qing, director of
the Guangdong Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, and
showed the province has achieved its goal for 2006. The achievement
was made in sharp contrast to the nation's performance that failed
to reach its goal set in early 2006 to save energy and reduce
pollution discharge.
Li attributed the progress to the works his bureau had done in
previous years. As early as in 2003, the provincial government and
SEPA jointly worked out an environmental protection plan for the
Pearl River Delta and the province as well. The project harnessing
the Pearl River started in 2002 as well as many sewage treatment
plants and desulphurization projects of power generation
plants.
These efforts have laid down an important foundation to bring
down the amount of pollutants discharged in the province last year,
Li said.
"The task (to save energy and reduce pollution discharge) in the
coming years will be really enormous," Li said.
He pointed out that since the province boasts large economic
strength and a rapid growth, plus its way of growth has not been
changed fundamentally, it is very difficult for the province to
reach the goal of reducing SO2 and COD by 15 percent during the
11th Five-Year Plan (2001-10) period.
In addition to air quality, the province also needs to
strengthen the protection against water pollution in the
mountainous regions and eastern and western parts of the
province.
Li said the province would strictly control the discharge of
pollutants from its origins and speed up the construction of sewage
treatment plants and desulphurization projects to reduce the total
amount of pollutant discharge.
"To provide strong technical support to the control of pollution
discharge, Guangdong will choose 1,000 state key pollution sources
and sewage treatment plants and power generation plants and set up
an automatic monitoring system," Li said.
According to the plan, the new environmental monitoring and
control center, upon its completion, will become a leading command
center in China. It will cover five regions of Guangzhou, Shantou,
Shenzhen, Maoming and Shaoguan in the province.
According to Li, Guangdong will invest 2.3 billion yuan (US$295
million) in building an environmental supervision pre-alarming
system during the 2006-10 period.
Chen Shanru, director of Guangdong Development and Reform
Commission, said on Monday that the province's per 10,000 yuan
(US$1,282) gross domestic product (GDP) energy consumption in 2005
was 65.8 percent of the nation's average. And the amount was
further reduced in 2006.
"It is exceptionally difficult for the province to achieve such
a progress when its GDP reached 2,500 billion yuan (US$321
billion), or a growth of 14.1 percent, last year," said Chen.
He also said that as a next step, the province was planning to
expand the proportion of its tertiary industry. After years of
industrial restructuring efforts, local GDP generated by the
tertiary industry accounted for 42 percent. Compared to the second
industry, tertiary industry consumes 20 percent of less energy than
the second industry under the same condition.
Therefore, the increase in the proportion of tertiary industry
will greatly reduce the energy consumption, Chen said.
(China Daily March 9, 2007)
