context: Compared to the draft, the final heating season pollution plan lowered PM2.5 and heavy pollution day targets, although they are still higher than in 2018. This year's plan adds targets for coking de-capacity and steel ultra-low emission upgrading, and emphasises the urgency of controlling coal consumption.
Ministry of Ecology and Environment, along with nine other agencies and six local governments, issued ‘Air pollution control plan for Jingjinji and surrounding areas autumn and winter 2019-20’. It specifies
- air quality targets for 1 Oct 2019 through 31 March 2020
- PM2.5 concentrations to drop by 4 percent y-o-y
- heavy pollution days to drop by 6 percent y-o-y
- key tasks
- upgrading steel, construction materials, coking and chemical industries’ structure, before end December 2019
- Tianjin Rochcheck Steel Group to close down one blast furnace plant
- Hebei to cut steel capacity by 14 million tonnes, coking capacity by 3 million tonnes, cement capacity by 1 million tonnes, flat glass capacity 6.6 million weigh cases
- Shanxi to cut steel capacity by 1.75 million tonnes, coking capacity by 10 million tonnes
- Shandong to cut coking capacity by 10.31 million tonnes
- upgrading industry clusters
- controlling pollution from ‘scattered, chaotic and polluting’ firms
- enhancing pollutant discharge permit regulations
- closing down unlicenced firms or suspending operations for rectification
- enhancing ultra-low steel emissions upgrades
- before end December 2019, Hebei to complete steel ultra-low emission upgrade of 100 million tonnes and Shanxi 15 million tonnes
- firms will have preferential measures revoked and pollution emergency response performance evaluation rating downgraded if found to be falsifying documents
- promoting industrial boiler pollution treatment
- starting 1 Oct 2019, coking industry to implement air pollutant special discharge limits
- controlling VOCs pollution
- launching VOCs pollution inspections before end October 2019
- promoting clean heating
- before end October 2019, converting 5.24 million households from low-quality to cleaner energy sources
- prohibiting switching back to low-quality coal
- capping total coal consumption
- accelerating construction of railway lines run specifically for large-scale industrial and mining firms and newly built logistics parks
- punishing excess vehicle emissions
- strengthening non-road mobile pollution sources
- optimising land use structure
- effectively responding to heavy pollution days, based on ‘Guiding opinions on strengthening heavy pollution response and emission reduction measures’
- strengthening infrastructure
- upgrading steel, construction materials, coking and chemical industries’ structure, before end December 2019