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On September 14, 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE)[1] issued the draft[2] of 2021-2022 Autumn and Winter Action Plan for Comprehensive Atmospheric Pollution Management in Key Regions for comments.
In this year's plan, more cities are subject to tightened local air pollution management. In addition to "2+26" cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region (referred to as the BTH2+26) and their surrounding areas and cities in the Fenwei Plain, 64 cities and 1 district in northern Hebei, northern Shanxi, eastern and southern Shandong, and southern Henan have been added in the plan. These cities are required to meet control targets for the average PM2.5 concentration and the number of severe pollution days from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.
The followings are the main tasks outlined in the plan:
It is explicitly specified in the plan that the "double control" of total energy consumption and energy intensity, capacity replacement, regional reduction of pollutants, and coal reduction and substitution requirements shall be strictly implemented. Projects consuming high amount of energy and generating high level of carbon emission that do not meet the requirements shall be rectified.
The inspection and rectification of prominent problems in the VOCs management must be steadily promoted. The VOCs management should be more focused on the implementation of the national and regional standards for VOCs content limits of coatings, inks, adhesives, cleaning agents and other products
Measures for staggered production in the steel industry will continue this autumn and winter. Companies with A-level environmental performance ratings and all-scrap short-process steelmaking companies that have completed ultra-low emission transformations may take emission reduction measures independently, while there must be no increase in crude steel output during autumn and winter. Other companies should implement differentiated staggered production ratios based on different environmental performance ratings and target tasks. The lower the environmental performance rating, the higher the staggered production ratio.
The draft also put forward specific requirements for the comprehensive rectification of boilers and kilns, coal management, diesel truck pollution control, the mode shift of bulk transportation from road to rail, straw burning control, dust comprehensive control, and response measures to heavy pollution weather.
Measures have also been proposed to better guarantee the implementation of the above tasks. For example:
Improving the environmental quality monitoring and surveillance system. The monitoring of particulate matter components and VOCs should be strengthened in autumn and winter in accordance with relevant requirements. Particulate matter component monitoring results should be reported to the China National Environmental Monitoring Center in a timely manner and shared within regions.
Strengthening the supervision and coordination of air pollution management. All regions should carry out environmental supervision and enforcement precisely and effectively by implementing multi-departmental enforcement in areas such as oil quality, coal quality, VOCs product quality, diesel vehicle emission sampling, dust control, etc., and establishing information sharing mechanisms.
