Chapter 3
Actions and Achievements in the Major Fields of Sustainable Development
Section 12 Protection of the Atmosphere
I. Background3.75 With the rapid expansion of the economic scale and the development of urbanisation, China is challenged with the serious task of controlling urban atmospheric pollution. The rapid development of urban transportation makes vehicle exhaust emissions more serious and a difficult problem in urban air pollution control. Moreover, acid rain and the production of greenhouse gases and ozone layer-depleting substances are of great concern to the Chinese Government.
Shanghai is one of the important centres for those industries responsible for producing, consuming, and conducting scientific research on ozone-depleting substances. Its production of ozone depleting material is almost 1/5 of the national total production. Therefore, efforts in Shanghai for the preservation of the ozone layer are crucial. Since 1990, the city has carried out 20 projects on the development and research for ozone layer preservation. Satisfactory results has been achieved in most of the research projects. The HFC-134a automobile refrigerator (developed by Volkswagen) has been put into use. Experiments on foaming technology with 50% substitution of CFC-11 have been successful. The first portable recycling facility of the country has passed the technology authentication stage and has been put into the batch process stage. It has also won recognition from the Hong Kong Environment Preservation Bureau. New technologies have been developed to increase production capabilities of HCFC-141b, HCFC-142a, and HCFC-152 to over one million tons. Fourteen projects of Shanghai have been approved
by the Multilateral Fund Executive Commission of the Global Environment
Facility. The total capital has amounted to US$ 14.1 million. About 6,000
tons of ozone-depleting substances have been conserved through these projects.
One of the projects under a World Bank grant programme, Shanghai Jiale
Canning Centre, will have the capability to produce 30 million cans of
canned gas per year by substituting for CFC-12 in the production process.
Substitution projects are under construction in Shangling Refrigerator
Factory, Shanghai 18th Plastics Factory, Shanghai 6th Plastics Factory,
and Shanghai Air Conditioner Factory. The CFC-substituting material quality
control centre of the Organic Fluorine Material Institute has also progressed
in construction. It is predicted that completion of these projects will
not only largely lower the consumption of ozone-depleting material in Shanghai,
but will also create conditions for the further development and production
of substituting material. |
II. Actions and Achievements
3.76 Great efforts towards the implementation of the "Vienna Convention on Preservation of Ozone Layer" and the "Montreal Protocol for Reduction of Ozone-Depleting Substances"
In January of 1993, the Chinese Government approved the "National Programme of China for Phasing Out of Ozone Layer-Depleting Substances" and drafted an action plan. Specific measures for gradually eliminating designated materials have been taken in 9 industries: air-dissolved rubber, foamed plastics, household refrigeration, industrial and commercial refrigeration, Halon fire-fighting, tobacco, and electronic cleaning. This plan has been carried out in all enterprises. By the end of 1995, 156 projects had been approved by the Executive Committee of the Ozone Preservation Multilateral Fund and 4 of them had been completed. These efforts reduced emissions of controlled material by 6,000 tons (as calculated by the ozone layer-depleting potential value). Three CFC substitution centres in the rubber-dissolving industry have been constructed. This lays a solid foundation for the final achievement of complete substitution. By July of 1996, China had been granted than 170 projects from Montreal Multilateral Fund. These projects have been successfully implemented.
3.77 Establishment of climate change monitoring, forecasting, and service system
With the cooperative support from the World Meteorology Organisation of the United Nations (UNWMO) and Global Environment Fund, a first-class Atmosphere Background Datum Observatory was built in Wali Guanshan in 1994. This observatory has filled a gap in China's datum atmosphere background observation. It is the first continental datum observatory in Asia's heartland and an important component of the global atmosphere background observation net. China has also set up the National Climate Centre which began research and service work in January of 1995. This centre gives monthly, seasonal, and yearly flood forecasts. In order to improve the capabilities of forecasting short-term climate change and assessing the influence of climate change, China is vigorously organising the construction of a systematic engineering system for short-term climate forecast.
3.78 Research on climate change
The Chinese Government is greatly concerned with global climate change and has vigorously organised research on this topic. With the cooperation of international organisations, some institutes have conducted research on "China's Greenhouse Gas Resources and Reducing Strategy" and "The Climate Change Caused by the Greenhouse Effect and Its Influence on China". During the Ninth Five-Year Plan, China will emphasise the research on the "Assessment of Influence of Climate Change on China's Regional Environment" and "The Influence of Greenhouse Gas Exhaustion on Climate Change and its Counter-Measures".
3.79 Control of smoke, sulphur dioxide emissions, and air pollution
In 1995, China promulgated the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution". Some seriously polluted cities have adopted the permission systems for air-polluting material production and an experimental charge system for exhaustion of sulphur dioxide so as to control smoke and limit the emission of sulphur dioxide. The country has clearly delimited acid rain and sulphur dioxide control areas and adopted stricter standards for exhaustion of sulphur dioxide from industrial pits and furnaces. In some seriously polluted cities of southwestern China (such as Nanchong, Yibin, Chongqing, and Zunyi), smoke pollution and acid rain problems have been eased to some degree. In order to control sulfur dioxide pollution, clean coal and clean combustion technologies have been introduced. Newly-built coal mines with high sulfur and lime content are accompanied by coal washeries. For smoke control, measures have been made to eliminate smoke, promote boiler innovation, and encourage central heating, all of which have proved to be effective. In 1996, the smoke-elimination rate of waste gas from coal combustion of industry had reached 90% and the purification rate of waste gas from production technology reached 74.9%.
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