The news center, celebrating the 70th anniversary activities of new China, held a press conference on the 29 th. Li Ganjie, Vice Minister of ecology and environment, vice minister Huang Runqiu and Zhai Qing, introduced the situation of "promoting ecological civilization and building a beautiful China". China Environmental News reporter Deng Jia photo

Xinhua news agency, September 29, celebrating the 70th anniversary event of the founding of new China, the news center held a press conference on 29. Li Ganjie, Vice Minister of ecology and environment, vice minister Huang Runqiu and Zhai Qing, introduced the situation of "promoting ecological civilization and building a beautiful China", and reviewed the historical achievements of our ecological and environmental protection undertaking from the beginning to the vigorous development in the past 70 years.

Over the past 70 years, pollution prevention and control efforts have been steadily intensified, and the quality of ecological environment has been continuously improved.

Over the past 70 years, China's pollution prevention and control methods have been innovating, the field has been expanding and the intensity has been increasing. Li Ganjie introduced that, especially since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has resolutely declared war on pollution and issued three major action plans for the prevention and control of air, water and soil pollution. The quality of the ecological environment has been continuously improved, and the people's sense of access, happiness and security has been continuously enhanced.

A group of data can be seen that in recent years, efforts have been made in pollution control in China: the proportion of ultra-low emissions of thermal power has reached more than 80%, and progress has been made in the transformation of ultra-low emissions of iron and steel; the proportion of coal in energy consumption has dropped from about 70% to 59%; more than 24 million old cars and yellow-standard cars have been eliminated; the national atmospheric environmental quality monitoring network has been established and perfected, and 1436 monitoring sites have been set up...

"Compared with many countries, it is rare for us to attach great importance to the improvement of environmental quality, governance and environmental quality in recent years." Li Ganjie said that the situation of air pollution prevention and control is still grim, and it is still in the stage of "feeding on the sky". Therefore, we should have the determination and confidence to fight hard battles, the patience and perseverance to fight long-term battles, and resolutely fight the defensive battle in the blue sky.

In the past 70 years, ecological protection has been steadily promoted, and the ecological security barrier of the motherland has been constantly strengthened.

Huang Runqiu said that the concept of ecological protection in China has achieved a historic leap from following to leading, the system of ecological governance has achieved a historic transformation from extensive to rigorous, the protection of natural ecology has achieved a historic leap from weak to strong, and the ecological situation has achieved a historic turning point from partial improvement to overall improvement.

He said that 2750 nature reserves have been set up throughout the country, of which 474 are national level, and the total area of the nature reserves reaches 1 million 470 thousand square kilometers, accounting for 15% of the land area of the land. There are 11,129 nature reserves in China, accounting for 18% of the land area. The target of 17% of the protected land area proposed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity by 2020 has been achieved ahead of schedule.

In the past 70 years, China has implemented a series of major ecological protection projects, such as natural forest protection, conversion of farmland to forests and grasslands. Especially since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has innovatively carried out the systematic ecological protection and restoration of mountains, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, carried out the action of land greening, and constantly built the national ecological security barrier, which has significantly improved the stability and quality of the ecosystem.

Huang Runqiu said that the national forest coverage rate has increased from about 8% at the beginning of the founding of new China to 22.96%. Monitoring data show that in the past 20 years, China's newly added vegetation coverage accounted for about 25% of the global total, ranking first in the world.

In the past 70 years, the system of eco-environmental protection has been continuously improved, and law enforcement supervision has become increasingly stringent.

Over the past 70 years, China has adhered to the protection of the ecological environment by law and system. Li Ganjie said that China has basically formed a system of laws and regulations with environmental protection law as the leading force. Especially since the eighteen Party's Congress, the intensity of legislation, the strict law enforcement scale and the degree of obeying the law are unprecedented.

Huang Runqiu said that the environmental protection law revised in 2014 introduced measures such as daily continuous fines, seizures, production restrictions, administrative detention and public interest litigation, which are known as the "strictest" environmental protection law in history. Since the implementation of the new environmental protection law in 2015, significant results have been achieved in combating environmental violations. In 2018, 186,000 cases of environmental administrative punishment were implemented nationwide, an increase of 124% over 83,000 cases in 2014, and the total number of fines in 2018 reached 15.28 billion yuan, an increase of 382% over 3.17 billion yuan in 2014.

Zhai Qing said that the central environmental protection inspection superintendent is a major institutional arrangement to strengthen the protection of ecological environment and promote the construction of ecological civilization. From the end of 2015 to 2017, all provinces have been fully covered by the inspection work. In 2018, we will look back on the rectification of 20 provinces. In the first half of this year, a new round of routine supervision was carried out in six provinces and two central enterprises.

Zhai Qing said that the first round of inspections solved about 150,000 problems around the people, and through inspection reports, special inspections and other means, promoted local governments to solve more than 2,100 relatively large ecological environment problems.

He said that the new round of inspectors will continue to adhere to the problem orientation, dare to be truthful, dare to touch hard and solve problems effectively; continue to adhere to the mass line and vigorously promote the solution of outstanding ecological environment problems around the masses; continue to adhere to thorough information disclosure, protect the people's right to know, participate in and supervise the environment, and promote the construction of ecological civilization to achieve new results.

Source: China Environmental Network