Relevant official of MEP reported to the media of the State of the Environment of China 2007 today. He said that in 2007 under the unified arrangement of CCCPC and the State Council, each province, autonomous region and municipality and development further implements the scientific outlook on development and takes comprehensive measures to promote emission reduction. As a result, both COD discharge and CO₂ emission have reduction. This shows that pollution control has shifted from passive response into active prevention and a sound step towards the historic transformations in environmental protection. 

1) The first "turnaround point" of the emission of key pollutants. MEP has actively facilitated emission reductions by projects and restructuring, and seriously carried out emission reduction measures by management. As a result, the percentage of coal-fueled power generating sets with desulphurization facilities against the total thermal generating sets went up from 12% in 2005 to current 48%; urban sewage treatment rate from 52% to 60%. COD discharge across China was 13.833 million t, down by 3.14% compared with that of 2006. CO₂ emission was 24.681 million t, down by 4.66% compared with that of 2006. It is the first "turnaround point" showing the reduction of both COD discharge and CO₂ emission.

2) Start the restoration of rivers, lakes and seas subject to heavy environmental burden. MEP has developed and carried out the plan for the prevention and control of water pollution in such river basins as the Huaihe River, Haihe River, Liaohe River, Songhua River, Three Gorges Reservoir and its upper reaches, Danjiangkou Reservoir and its upper reaches, mid and upper reaches of the Yellow River, Dianchi Lake and Chaohu Lake and the overall program for the control of water environment of the Taihu Lake. It put forward the policy measures that restore rivers, lakes and seas subject to heavy environmental burden and cared water environment. MEP carried out overall investigations on the protected areas of urban drinking water sources, issued the technical specification on the classification of protected areas of drinking water sources, banned and closed the pollution outlets in Grade I protected areas of drinking water sources and seriously cracked down illegal pollution discharge in Grade II drinking water source protected areas according to law. MEP carefully prevents and handles water pollution events and ensures the safety of drinking water for the public.

3) Develop environment economic policies from the life-cycle process of production and protect the environment with comprehensive utilization of many economic instruments such as finance, taxation, credit, pricing and trade. It has raised environmental access to the construction projects of 13 industries with high energy consumption and emissions such as power, iron & steel and petrochemicals. It has actively facilitated the phasing out of lagging behind productivity and made no approval or suspension of 377 projects with total investment of near 1500 billion yuan RMB. It conducted special environmental protection inspection on over 9,000 new construction projects across China and seriously handled according to law 1,194 projects not meeting the requirements for environmental impact assessment. It has further checked environmental performance of listed companies. In 2007 alone, MEP rejected or suspended the application for listing of 10 enterprises that are going to channel 8.4 billion yuan. With the adoption of such measures as "banning the approval of new construction projects at regional level due to excessive environmental burden" and "banning the approval of new construction projects at watershed level due to excessive environmental burden", MEP has suspended EIA approval of new construction projects in 10 cities, 2 counties, 5 development zones and 4 power corporations.

4) New exploration on the ecological culture with harmonious development. It issued the suggestions guiding the trial work of eco compensation and conducted the trial work on off-site development zone compensation and compensation for the protection of drinking water source areas. It greatly facilitated the development of key ecological function areas, carried out the assessment of eco environment quality and issued the Outline of National Plan for Key Eco Function Protected Areas. It has carried out the trial work on the development of eco industrial park (zone), facilitated the ecological design or reform of industrial parks (zones) and concentrated industrial areas in order to minimize pollution discharge.

5) Smooth progress of the three strategic environmental protection programs, i.e. the first national census on pollution sources, study on macro environmental strategy and special scientific research project on the treatment and control of water pollution. It has organized the development of census program on pollution sources, carried out site monitoring on about 30,000 major industrial pollution sources and collective pollution treatment facilities across China and conducted large scale calculation of the coefficient of generation and discharge of pollutants. 29 topics of 4 projects on the study of China’s Macro Environment Strategy have started their work with substantial progress in the research of some topics.

6) Major breakthrough in international environment cooperation. MEP has carried out joint economic study on China-U.S.A Emission Reduction Strategy. With full application of the environmental protection cooperation platform under China-Russia Premier Regular Meeting Mechanism, China and Russia conducted joint monitoring on water environment. With the utilization of China-Japan Economic High-Level Dialogue Mechanism, the two countries carry out the Joint Statement on Environmental Protection Cooperation. In addition, it has made more efforts in expanding bilateral environment cooperation and exchanges with developing countries and neighboring countries. China has actively promoted the cooperation on the implementation of international environmental conventions, too.

The official said that in 2007, the overall quality of national atmospheric, acoustic and radiation environment kept stable.

Overall improvement of urban air quality. Among all cities at or above prefecture levels, 2.4% met Grade I National Air Quality Standard, 58.1% met Grade II National Air Quality Standard, 36.1% met Grade III standard and 3.4% failed to meet Grade III standard. 72.0% of the cities met Grade II national standard for annual concentration of air particulate and 2.2% failed to meet Grade III national standard for annual concentration of air particulate. In terms of annual average of SO₂ concentration, 79.1% of the cities met Grade II national standard, and 1.2% failed to meet Grade III national standard. Among the 113 key cities on environmental protection, 44.2% met Grade II national air quality standard, 54.9% met Grade III national air quality standard, but 0.9% failed to meet Grade III national air quality standard. The proportion of cities failing to Grade III national air quality standard went down by 6.2 percentage points compared with that of 2006. Among the 500 cities (counties) under monitoring program, 281 had acid rain, accounting for 56.2%. A total of 171 cities had acid rain frequency over 25%, taking up 34.2%. 65 cities had acid rain frequency of over 75%, accounting for 13.0%.  

Relatively good acoustic environment. Among the cities across China, 72% had good or rather good urban regional acoustic environment. Among the key cities on environmental protection, 75.2% of them enjoyed good or relatively good urban regional acoustic environment. 58.6% of urban areas across China had low traffic noise. Among the key cities on environmental protection, 92.9% enjoyed low or relatively low traffic noise. The daytime up-to-the-noise-standard rate of various urban function areas was 84.7%, while it was 64.1% during night.

The overall environmental electro-magnetic radiation level is quite good. Most nuclear facilities, uranium mining and mineral processing enterprises, nuclear fuel post-treatment facilities and production and processing enterprises of nuclear fuel have not caused detectable pollution to the surrounding environment. The electro-magnetic radiation level surrounding most electro-magnetic radiation facilities and equipment met national standard. But there was hidden risk of electro-magnetic radiation pollution in some areas.

Slight reduction of the total discharge of solid waste. The generation amount of industrial solid waste across China was 1757.67 million t, up by 16.0% compared with in 2006. The total discharge amount was 11.97 million t, down by 8.1% compared with that of 2006. 62.8% of the total amount had been under comprehensive utilization, 13.7% under storage and 23.5% under disposal. The total amount of hazardous waste was 10.79 million t, 6.50 million t had been under comprehensive utilization, 1.54 million t under storage and 3.46 million t under disposal.

Steady development of nature reserves. A total of 19 new national nature reserves were set up across the country. At present, there are 2531 nature reserves in China with total area of 151.88 million ha. Among them, 303 are national level with total area of 93.656 million ha, accounting for 12% of the total amount and 61.7% of total area of nature reserves.

The official said that the overall environmental quality of China showed a bettering trend in 2007 but the situation of environmental protection remains grave with the following reflections:

Water pollution is still serious. The overall water quality of seven big water systems including the Yangtze River, Yellow River, Pearl River, Songhua River, Huaihe River, Haihe River and Liaohe River was basically the same as in last year. Among 407 sections of 197 rivers, 49.9% met Grade I-III National Surface Water Quality Standard, 26.5% met Grade IV-V water quality standard and 23.6% failed to meet Grade Vwater quality standard. The overall water quality of the Pearl River and Yangtze River was good. The Songhua River suffered slight pollution. The Yellow River and Huaihe River were under intermediate pollution and Liaohe River and Haihe River under heavy pollution. Lake eutrophication problem was pre-eminent. 62.8% of coastal sea waters met Grade I-II national marine water quality standard, down by 4.9 percentage points compared with that of 2007. 11.8% met Grade III national marine water quality standard, up by 3.8 percentage points. 25.4% of coastal sea waters failed to meet Grade III national marine water quality standard, up by 1.1 percentage points. Among the coastal waters of the four big seas, the quality of coastal marine water of the South China Sea and Yellow Sea was rather good. The Bohai Sea was under slight pollution while the East China Sea under heavy pollution.

The situation of rural environmental protection was still grave. Rural areas of China are facing double threats: environmental protection and ecological damage. This is clearly reflected by aggravated domestic pollution, worsening non-point source pollution, striking pollution problems of industries and mining companies, hidden risk of the safety of drinking water and no effective control of ecological degradation.