Recently, the ninth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress listened to and reviewed the report of the Shaanxi Provincial Government on the environmental situation and the completion of environmental protection goals in the province in 2023. The reporter was informed that Shaanxi will carry out a pilot project of carbon emission evaluation this year and participate in the national carbon emission market with high quality.
In 2023, the environmental quality of Shaanxi Province will be stable and improving. In terms of water environment quality, among the 111 state-controlled sections, 97.3% of the water quality sections were Class I~III., an improvement of 0.9 percentage points year-on-year, and there were no inferior Class V sections. In terms of air quality, after removing sand and dust, the average number of good days in the 10 cities of the province was 292.3 days, an increase of 3.2 days year-on-year, and the average concentration of PM2.5 was 37.4 micrograms/cubic meter, an improvement of 1.6 micrograms/cubic meter year-on-year.
Last year, Shaanxi resolutely adhered to the "three major ecological barriers", incorporated 56 small hydropower stations and 126 production mines into the video surveillance system, carried out a general survey of invasive alien species in the Qinling Mountains, strengthened supervision of the "Green Shield" nature reserve, etc., and carried out the rectification of the "five chaos" problems on a regular basis, and the area with excellent ecological and environmental quality in the Qinling Mountains accounted for 99.3%. The upgrading and transformation of 114 sewage treatment plants has been completed. We will further promote the battle of pollution prevention and control, implement a five-year special action for air pollution control with a focus on the Guanzhong region, formulate a plan for upgrading the treatment of loose coal in the Guanzhong area, and promote direct electricity subsidy, reducing the consumption of thermal coal in the Guanzhong area by 3.22 million tons year-on-year.
In the next step, Shaanxi will continue to improve the long-term mechanism of ecological environmental protection, build the "three ecological barriers", and implement a new round of protection and restoration actions for the ecological environment of the Qinling Mountains. We must resolutely do a good job in pollution prevention and control, comprehensive desertification prevention and control, and the "bend" of the Yellow River. Improve the "1+N" policy system for carbon peak and carbon neutrality, promote the gradual shift from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions, carry out pilot carbon emission evaluation, and participate in high-quality transactions in the national carbon emission market.