“The Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council to Comprehensively Enhance Ecological and Environmental Protection and Win the Battle Against Pollution” (“Opinions”) has been released
The CPC and the State Council have jointly released the “Opinions” on 24th June 2018. The “Opinions” has mentioned the comprehensive objectives of the environmental governance, the guidance on the industry administration, the plan on the governance of atmosphere and water, and so on. For enterprises, the industry administration, the encouraging trends, and the supervision methods are worthy of attention.
1.Industry administration and the encouraging trends
On the industry administration, the “Opinions” proposes to adjust the industrial layout, scale and structure of those industries which are not in line with the ecological function arrangement, which include:
(1)To centralized rectify the state-level new districts, industrial parks, high-tech zones and etc., and require the enterprises located in those areas to meet the requirements within in a time limit.
(2)To accelerate the relocation and reconstruction of heavily polluting enterprises and dangerous chemical enterprises in urban built-up areas and key river basins. Before the end of 2018, the relevant city governments should draft the special plans and disclose the plans to the public.
(3)To continually resolve the excess production capacity, and prohibit adding production capacity in the industries, such as steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, flat glass and etc..
(4)To comprehensively promote clean production transformation or clean transformation in the industries, such as energy, metallurgy, building materials, nonferrous metals, chemicals, electroplating, paper-making, printing and dyeing, agricultural and sideline food processing, and etc..
(5)To increase efforts to reduce the production capacity on in the industries, such as steel, casting, coking, building materials, electrolytic aluminum and etc..
(6)To accelerate the elimination of old cars and encourage the use of clean energy vehicles and ships.
In addition, the “Opinions” has mentioned that the nation intends to implement the preferential income tax policies (refers to the policies for high-tech enterprises) for the third-party enterprises engaged in pollution prevention and control; promote the development of environmental pollution liability insurance, and establish a mandatory environmental liability insurance system in environmental high-risk areas.
2.Environmental supervision
The environmental supervision on the following aspects might be strengthened.
(1)To strengthen the supervision and punishment on the post-certification. In 2020, the sewage permit system shall be the core system in the environmental administration of fixed source, and the “One-Certificate” will be comprehensively implemented. The relevant systems would be improved, such as the the system of environmental credit evaluation, mandatory disclosure of information, and severe punishment.
(2)To comprehensively rectify the “scattering and pollution” enterprises and clusters, and implement measures such as shutting down, eliminating, relocating, rectifying and upgrading and so on. The rectification in Beijing, Tianjing, Hebei province and surrounding areas shall be completed by the end of 2018, other key areas shall be completed by the end of 2019.
(3)To implement big data management and warning system on the environmental carrying capacity.
(4)To conduct investigations on key areas, river basins, industry environment and health; and establish risk monitoring networks and risk assessment systems.
To improve the emergency coordination mechanism among departments and areas, and establish a national unified environmental emergency response plan electronic filing system. The enterprises’ environmental credit information would be filed in the national credit information sharing platform and the national enterprise credit information publicity system, which shall be released to the public on those systems.