Business
In October of 2013, the city held a mobilization meeting to carry out the “Beautiful Tianjin No. 1 Project”.
The project includes four action plans for clean air, clear waterways, clean villages, clean communities and afforestation & beautification, which aim to greatly reduce the number of heavily polluted days and increase the days with good air quality; significantly enhance the water quality; harden the roads and improve the ecology and environment in rural areas; improve the infrastructure facilities and environment in communities; and promote large-scale afforestation in the city. In recent years, Tianjin has kept a green development concept — “Clean water and green mountains don’t conflict with the mountains of gold and silver” in mind and exerted itself to improve the ecological environment and people’s production and living conditions.
During the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), the city vigorously advanced the “Beautiful Tianjin No. 1 Project”, to make improvement on air quality, lakes and rivers, rural areas, residential communities, and urban greenery. A group of achievements were made in “five controls” (control of coal consumption, dust, vehicles, industrial pollutants, and new projects).
The No. 1 Thermal Power Plant and Chentangzhuang Thermal Power Plant were shut down. About 147 boilers received transformation with clean production technology and 290,000 yellow-label cars, or heavy-polluting vehicles, were phased out. The city’s comprehensive air quality index, which is calculated to gauge PM2.5 and other toxic pollutants, dropped by 24.4 percent and the concentration of PM2.5 was reduced by 27.1 percent compared to 2013. About 1,100 km of riverways received pollution treatment, 65 sewage treatment plants were built or have finished expansion projects, and the downtown city has basically eliminated the poor quality water.
The city launched an environmental improvement campaign in rural areas and communities, building 461 beautiful villages and 480 beautiful communities. It completed an afforestation of 1.55 million mu (1,033 sq km) and built a number of suburban parks, bringing its forest coverage rate up to 23.7 percent. Tianjin also took the lead in China to set the bottom-line of ecological protection through legislation, and one fourth of its land was brought under permanent protection.
During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (20162020), Tianjin will continue to carry out the “Beautiful Tianjin No. 1 Project”. It will strengthen the prevention and control of air pollution, deepen the governance of “five controls”, further reduce the total coal consumption, eliminate the use of coal in the city’s urban area and the core zone of Binhai New Area, vigorously promote new energy vehicles, speed up the construction of public charging facilities, comprehensively prevent and control industrial pollutants, improve the meshing supervision and management system, and make the concentration of PM2.5 25 percent lower than 2015 by 2020.
The city will spare no effort to advance the prevention and control of water pollution, including curbing the pollution of water source pollution in industries, agriculture and water for life, as well as water in offshore areas, dredging of waterways, building and expanding sewage and sludge treatment facilities, accelerating the connection of several rivers, and strengthening the protection of drinking water sources like the Luanhe River and the south-north water diversion project. The environment in rural areas will be improved and the property management of residential communities will be reinforced and continuous efforts will be made to build more clean villages and communities.
The city will launch tree-planting and afforestation programs, build ecological corridors around towns and villages, as well as along railways, roads and waterways, and push forward the construction of suburban parks. It will afforest 1.7 million mu (1,133 sq km) of land. A group of urban parks, such as zoos, botanical gardens, and the Houtai Park and Meijiang Park, will finish construction. The city will adhere to the bottom line for ecological protection, improve the ecological compensation mechanism, make good planning of the main functional areas, strengthen the restoration and protection of Qilihai Wetland, and provide environmental remediation of coastal zones and mines in north Tianjin.
Tianjin will improve its ecological environment and grow into a livable city surrounded by waterways and forests with clear sky, clean water and more greenery.
