Air pollution reduction during China's 11th Five-Year Plan period—local implementation and achievements in Shanxi province

Abstract

a b s t r a c tFacing the increasing environmental degradation locally and globally, the Chinese government set mandatory goals of 10% reduction of SO 2 emission in its 11th Five-Year Plan period (FYP, 2006(FYP, -2010. In this paper we use Shanxi province to illustrate how policies and measures are implemented in practice at a provincial level as a response to the National FYP issued by the central government. Local policies are described and their effects are analyzed. We find that the 11th FYP goal for SO 2 pollution reduction in Shanxi has been surpassed. SO 2 reduction from estimated baseline level was calculated for the FYP period in order to identify which sectors have had the largest reductions. Regarding SO 2 , we find that Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) in power plants has been the most important, while either the FGD operation rate or the efficiency, or both, are much lower in practice than officially required. SO 2 emission reduction from closing down outdated production capacity is small according to

Spatial-Temporal Hotspot Pattern Analysis of Provincial Environmental Pollution Incidents and Related Regional Sustainable Management in China in the Period 1995–2012

“…In addition, it is worthwhile noting that, after 2009, air pollution related incidents started to exceed water pollution incidents. As we know, in recent years, China has continuously suffered from large-scale haze [37,38] and PM2.5 excessive atmospheric events [39], and in many cities, the air quality has continually deteriorated [40][41][42][43]. Moreover, chemical plant explosion accidents have intensified the air pollution.…”