As the "Sixth Five-Year Environment Day" is approaching, many places have successively "showed" their environmental protection report cards. The transcript shows that since 2024, the national ecological environment quality has continued to improve, and the improvement indicators are better than the timing progress requirements of the "14th Five-Year Plan" targets. The ecological environment quality in Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Hainan and other places continues to improve.
Beijing was the first city to "show off" environmental protection transcripts. The "2024 Beijing Ecological Environment Status Bulletin" released by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment recently showed that in 2024, the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the atmospheric environment in Beijing reached the national air quality level 2 standard for four consecutive years, and the number of excellent days set a new record since monitoring. The quality of the water ecological environment continues to improve, the quality of the soil ecological environment remains good, and the ecological environment status is steadily increasing. The carbon dioxide emissions of 10,000 yuan of regional GDP continue to maintain the best level at the national provincial level.
A relevant person in charge of the Beijing Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau said that while the high-quality economic and social development, Beijing has achieved continuous improvement in the quality of the ecological environment, and has improved the "gold content" of development with the ecological "green content".
Beijing's air quality has always attracted widespread attention from the society. On the "Minister's Channel" of this year's National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment, displayed two filter membranes taken from Beijing's atmospheric environment monitoring instruments. The filter membrane in 2015 was gray-black, and the filter membrane in 2024 was gray-white. In the past ten years, the filter membrane has changed from black to white, which is the most direct interpretation of the improvement of air quality in Beijing.
Monitoring data shows that in 2024, the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the atmospheric environment in Beijing was 30.5 micrograms/cubic meter, reaching the national second-level air quality standard for four consecutive years, and sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and inhalable particulate matter (PM10) have been stable in compliance with the standards for many years. Compared with 2013, the annual average concentration of the four major pollutants in 2024 decreased by more than half, of which the annual average concentration of PM2.5 decreased by 65.9%. The number of excellent days in 2024 is 290 days, the largest number in previous years. The number of days of heavy pollution is 2 days, the least in previous years.
Unlike the annual ecological environment conditions of other provinces, Hainan Province publishes ecological environment quality data in quarterly manner. The Hainan Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment released the "Hainan Provincial Ecology and Environment Quality Bulletin for the First Quarter of 2025" on May 9 shows that the overall environmental air quality in the province is excellent, with the proportion of excellent days being 96.4%. The proportion of excellent days in each city and county is between 88.9% and 100%; the overall surface water quality of the province is excellent, without inferior Class V sections; the water quality of the provincially controlled lake reservoir is excellent, with excellent Lake Reservoirs being 95.1%, the proportion of Class IV is 4.9%, and without Class V and Class V lake reservoirs; the air negative ion concentration in the main forest tourism areas in the province is at a relatively high level.
Guangdong Province's 2024 ecological environment "Trade Card" shows that the air quality is excellent at 95.8%, reaching the highest level since the implementation of the new standard. The excellent water quality rate of the surface water test section of the national examination reached 93.2%, setting a historical best level.
Jiangsu is a major economic province, and the task of pollution prevention and control is arduous. Data shows that in 2024, the PM2.5 concentration in Jiangsu Province was 32.3 micrograms per cubic meter, with a ratio of 82.5% of excellent days, which reached the best since the implementation of the new standard in 2013; the proportion of excellent Class III in the national examination section of the surface water was 93.8%, reaching the best grade for three consecutive years; the water quality of the Jiangsu section of the main stream of the Yangtze River has remained Class II for seven consecutive years; the average water quality of Taihu Lake reached Class III, meeting the national "good" lake standard for the first time; the proportion of excellent seawater area in the nearshore waters was 84.4%, ranking first in the Yangtze River Delta region; the soil quality remained stable overall.
"While seeing the achievements, we are also clearly aware that the structural, fundamental and trend pressures of my country's ecological environment protection have not been fundamentally alleviated." Huang Runqiu recently reported to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the completion of environmental conditions and environmental protection goals in 2024 to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress that the results of my country's ecological environment quality improvement are still unstable. Atmospheric pollution control enters deep water areas, it is difficult to coordinate the emission reduction of major atmospheric pollutants, the task of water ecological protection and restoration is arduous, the Yangtze River aquatic biological integrity index is still at a low level overall, soil and groundwater pollution problems in some areas are relatively prominent, and prevention and control of non-point source pollution is still a weak link.
Huang Runqiu said that local ecological and environmental departments will regard the battle to protect the blue sky as the top priority of the battle, improve the cooperation mechanism for air pollution prevention and control in key areas, steadily promote ultra-low emission transformation in key industries, deepen the differentiated control of air pollution prevention and control performance in key industries, and strengthen the full process control of diesel trucks and non-road mobile machinery. Increase efforts to cure black and odorous water bodies in cities. Carry out strengthen supervision of the ecological environment of "Green Shield 2025" nature reserves and ecological protection red line.
