Emphasis on the environment: a timeline

2004:

Toxic gas left at a former insecticide factory established in the 1970s poisons three workers on March 28 during construction of the Songjiazhuang subway station in Beijing’s Fengtai district.

The incident prompts the authorities to pay extra attention to land affected by industrial pollution.

On June 1, China’s top environmental watchdog publishes the country’s first government document on polluted land, aiming to enhance control of pollution at abandoned factories.

From April 2005 to December 2013, the top environmental watchdog and the Ministry of Land and Resources carry out the first nationwide soil pollution survey.

A series of draft guidelines are unveiled for land pollution surveys, risk assessments and remediation, and testing technologies.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, publishes the 11th Five-year Plan (200610), which calls for the establishment of a system for soil quality assessment and monitoring and the launch of pilot soil remediation projects.

The top environmental watchdog publishes a guideline on strengthened soil pollution control, which includes principles, targets, key areas and detailed measures.

2005: 2006: 2007: 2008: 2011:

The State Council approves the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-15) for heavy metal pollution control, which lists 14 key provincial-level regions, 138 regions and 4,452 enterprises as targets for control.

The plan vows to reduce emissions of major heavy metals, including lead, mercury and chromium, in 2015 by 15 percent from levels in 2007.

2012: A plan for controlling heavy metal pollution in Hunan province’s Xiangjiang River is launched.

It includes 927 projects with a total investment of 59.5 billion yuan ($8.86 billion).

2013: The State Council publishes a document calling for the country’s soil pollution situation to be figured out by 2015, with steps toward curbing increasing soil pollution.

2015: The top environmental watchdog launches soil pollution control and remediation projects in 10 provinciallevel regions.

2016: The State Council releases an Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control that pledges to curb worsening soil pollution by 2020, place soil pollution risks under control by 2030, and form a virtuous cycle in the ecosystem by 2050.

2017: Five central government departments, including the ministries of environmental protection, and land and resources, hold a joint conference on the implementation of the Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control. They commit to figuring out the pollution situation for agricultural land and land used by key industries.

2018: President Xi Jinping, presiding over a national ecology and environmental conference from May 18 to 19, asks for comprehensive implementation of the Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control.

He also calls for soil pollution control and remediation efforts to be strengthened.