On March 13, the China National People’s Congress voted to pass the proposal of the government’s institutional reform. A new Ecological Environment Ministry is established as part of this reform. The new Ministry is taking over the responsibilities of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the climate change mitigation and emission reduction responsibilities, currently belonging to the National Development and Reform Commission, and related duties of the other 5 departments.

Huang Runqiu, the vice minister of the of Environmental Protection Ministry, pointed out that the purpose of establishing the new ministry is to centralize the separate responsibilities of pollution control from each department, which would resolve the issue of the overlapping duties among different departments.

After the establishment of the Ecological Environment Ministry, a series of actions tackling pollution control were undertaken, including strengthening control of waste incineration power generation. The Ministry also announced on March 31 that they would start to carry out emission compliance inspections of fifteen industries such as steel, thermal power, papermaking and cement, to “crack down on self-monitored emission data fraud and illegal undisclosed data” in those industries.

China is moving towards reaching its Paris Agreement Pledge given that the new government reforms will strengthen its ability to regulate pollution, and the actions undertaken by the new Ecological Environment Ministry will enhance industries’ emission compliance.

The establishment and the efforts of the new Ecological Environment Ministry should be congratulated. You can encourage the climate actions of the Ecological Environment Ministry by sending the following message to the policymaker below:

I congratulate the establishment of the Ecological Environment Ministry and the efforts being taken in climate change mitigation. We are expecting more actions to be taken to reach more ambitious climate goals.

Contact:
Li Ganjie, Minister of Ecological Environment Ministry
Minister mail box: http://www.mep.gov.cn/hdjl/bzxxzs_1/