China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) issued new guidelines to tighten scrutiny over industrial projects with high energy use and emissions, in a move to promote the green and low-carbon transition, according to the ministry’s official release on May 31. Projects with high emission risks and impacts mainly involve coal electricity, petrochemical, chemical, steelmaking, nonferrous metal, and building materials industries. The guidelines called for stricter environmental assessment and approval of those projects, covering their construction, reconstruction, and expansion. Notably, it officially integrated carbon emission assessment into the environmental assessment system and urged local environmental regulators and relevant companies to implement the action plans for pursuing carbon emission reduction goals for 2030 and 2060.

At the corporate and regional level, several companies and cities acted as the working pilots to involve carbon emission impact in environmental assessments before the introduction of the guidelines. The pilot program monitored five pollutant discharging industries mentioned by MEE this time excluding the petrochemical one. For instance, Towngas China Company Limited launched its gas project in Changzhou City of Jiangsu Province in March. It showed that considering the carbon emission impact could push its managers to improve energy efficiency in the operation process and transform its production to a more sustainable model.

In terms of regional practice, Chongqing Ecological Environment Bureau added the total amount of carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity into environmental evaluation process in February. Until now, the outcomes of pilot works in Chongqing implied that carbon emission indicators in environmental assessments could directly reflect the main polluters of each company and further contribute to building GHG emission management mechanisms targeting each industry. The aforesaid examples both illustrate the importance of carbon emission assessment in tightening the environmental evaluation system. In addition, MEE guidelines also stated its plan to urge energy-intensive industries to substitute clean energy for traditional energy and encourage them to invest more in carbon reduction technologies, like carbon capture and storage.

Sources:

http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2021-06/01/c_1127515136.htm

http://www.mee.gov.cn/xxgk2018/xxgk/xxgk03/202105/t20210531_835511.html

https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2021-05-06/doc-ikmxzfmm0727248.shtml

http://www.changzhou.gov.cn/ns_news/912161645967549

http://sthjj.cq.gov.cn/zwgk_249/zfxxgkzl/fdzdgknr/lzyj/zcwj/qtwj/202102/t20210208_8885745.html