Ecological protection remains a top priority
Senior officials say Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province have made remarkable achievements in environmental protection over the past 10 years thanks to their close cooperation and integrated development.
The three regions have signed two major cooperation agreements on environmental conservation during the past decade and established collaborative mechanisms in some 10 fields, including air pollution control, protection of key river basins, and implementation of emergency drills, said Liang Wenyue, an official from the Beijing Ecology and Environment Bureau.
“With air pollution control as a top priority, we continue to deepen cooperation, promoting the structural optimization and adjustment of energy, industry and transportation,” Liang said at a recent news conference in Beijing.
So far, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has carried out autumn and winter air pollution control programs for seven consecutive years while gradually expanding “coal-toelectricity” projects in mountain villages, Liang added.
By the end of last year, the annual average concentration of PM2.5 — fine particular matter with diameter less than 2.5 micrometers — in the region had fallen by around 60 percent compared to 2013, according to stats from the bureau. In 2023, Beijing recorded 95 more days with good air quality than in 2013, while Tianjin had 87 more and Hebei 121 more.
To better protect the Miyun Reservoir, a reservoir receiving runoff from Hebei and Beijing, the two areas have jointly built an ecological compensation mechanism and released a comprehensive ecological protection plan (2019-25) for the Chaohe River, one of the major waterways supplying water to the reservoir.
Additionally, Beijing and Hebei have made sustained efforts to step up rural domestic sewage treatment, reduce pollution sources, and increase the monitoring and early warning abilities for the water environment, said He Zhi, deputy director of the bureau’s water ecological environment department. The river’s self-purification capability has continuously improved during the past four years, He added.
In 2021, water storage at the Miyun Reservoir reached a record high of 3.58 billion cubic meters, and in 2022 the reservoir was recognized by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment as one of the first nine cases of “Beautiful Rivers and Lakes” in China.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is now advancing green, low-carbon development, and building itself into a demonstration city cluster for fuel cell vehicles. Founded in September 2020, the Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone in southern Beijing has attracted 190 hydrogen enterprises and built the world’s largest hydrogen refueling station.