The nine eco-environmental binding indicators outlined in China's 13th Five-Year Plan and the phased goals of the battle for pollution prevention and control have been overfulfilled, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
The battle of pollution prevention and control is one of the three major battles to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, therefore great efforts from all sides have been put into improving the environment and bettering the quality of air, water and soil, said Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu.
Huang told the press on Wednesday that the proportion of days of excellent air quality in cities at prefecture level and above reached 87 percent in 2020, an increase of 5.8 percentage points over 2015. The proportion of excellent surface water increased from 66 percent in 2015 to 83.4 percent in 2020.
On top of that, the national safety utilization rate of contaminated cultivated land and contaminated land both exceeded 90 percent, and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP decreased by 18.8 percent in 2020 compared with 2015, successfully achieving the 13th Five-Year Plan goal.
Aerial photo of a park in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, southwest China. /VCG
According to a survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, public satisfaction with the ecological environment reached 89.5 percent, an increase of 10.7 percentage points over 2017.
Huang also told the media that all the aforementioned achievements wouldn't have been possible without the enhanced public awareness of environmental protection, implementation of a series of measures to combat the air, water and soil pollution, as well as the law enforcement in environmental protection over the previous five years.
"The improvement of ecological environment quality is not achieved overnight, but a process that requires long-term and painstaking efforts," said Huang.
The next step is to reduce pollutant emissions, reduce carbon emission intensity and further strengthen the supervision of ecological protection. More work is needed to encourage people to protect ecological environment, including raising awareness, encouraging participation in supervising ecological environment protection and propagating a green lifestyle.
"The construction of a beautiful China is closely related to everyone and cannot be separated from everyone's efforts," said Huang.
(Cover: Tianmenshan National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie City, Hunan Province, central China. /VCG)
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