China under pressure to meet emissions targets: official

China, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, today said it is under pressure to meet emissions cut targets set in its pollution control plan by 2015 as nitrogen oxide emissions remain high despite measures to contain them.
"Emissions of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), sulfur dioxide and ammonia nitrogen have dropped by over seven per cent in the past three years, basically as scheduled, but nitrogen oxide emissions only dropped by about two per cent, which has created great pressure for emissions-cutting tasks in 2014 and 2015," Zhai Qing, deputy minister of environmental protection told media here.
In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2010-2015) for environment protection, China vowed to cut COD and sulfur dioxide emissions by eight per cent and ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide emissions by 10 per cent compared with 2010 levels.

The performance for the first half of 2011 was even more disappointing, as nitrogen oxide emissions rose by 6.17 per cent year on year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
But Zhai said he still believes the five-year reduction target will be met under the support of local authorities.
China currently records 24 million tonnes of COD, a measure of organic pollutants in water, per year, while the total annual volume of ammonia nitrogen emissions stands at 2.45 million tonnes.

Experts have estimated that China's water environment will undergo fundamental improvement only after the above figures are cut by 30 to 50 per cent, Zhai said.

Last year, emissions of major indicators including COD, sulfur dioxide and ammonia nitrogen kept declining, and nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by four per cent year-on-year, he noted.
China which along with US figured high on the table of green house gas emitters had set a goal of reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by at least five percent in 2014, with emissions cut targets of 2 per cent for other indicators this year.
Zhai said a total of 1,473 environment protection projects will be finished across the country this year, aimed at increasing sewage treatment capacity by 10 million tonnes and denitration capacity by 130 million kilowatts.

China will also strive to pull three million excessively polluting vehicles off the roads, he added, while authorities are currently working on an action plan to combat water pollution and protect soil.