Experts’ interpretation： Strengthening the control of new pollutants and laying a solid battle for pollution prevention with higher standards.

　　The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to the treatment of new pollutants. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader repeatedly stressed on many important occasions that we should attach importance to the treatment of new pollutants. "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Fight against Pollution" makes clear arrangements for the treatment of new pollutants and requires the formulation and implementation of action plans for the treatment of new pollutants. In 2022, the "Government Work Report" once again put forward clear requirements for strengthening the control of new pollutants. The General Office of the State Council recently issued the Action Plan for the Control of New Pollutants (Guo Ban Fa [2022] No.15, referred to as the Action Plan). In view of the characteristics of hidden and various environmental risks of new pollutants and the inefficiency of conventional control, the government formulated a control strategy focusing on environmental risk prevention, constructed an environmental risk prevention and control idea with "screening, evaluation and control" as the main line, and proposed to cover the source, process and end. Making specific arrangements in laying the foundation, building the system and preventing risks is of great significance to effectively control the environmental risks of toxic and harmful chemicals, extend the battle of pollution prevention and control, continuously improve the quality of the ecological environment and build a beautiful China.

　　First, the control of new pollutants is conducive to extending the depth and breadth of the battle against pollution and improving the construction level of beautiful China and healthy China.

　　There is no authoritative definition of new pollutants at home and abroad. From the point of view of ensuring the national ecological environment security and people’s health and safety, it can be considered that new pollutants are toxic and harmful chemicals discharged into the environment with the characteristics of biotoxicity, environmental persistence and bioaccumulation, which have great risks to the ecological environment or human health, but have not been included in the management or the existing management measures are insufficient. There are many kinds of new pollutants. At present, there are more than 20 categories of new pollutants of global concern, and each category contains dozens or hundreds of chemicals. With the deepening understanding of the environmental and health hazards of chemical substances and the continuous development of environmental monitoring technology, the types and quantities of new pollutants will continue to change.

　　Strengthening the control of new pollutants is an important task to deepen and broaden the battle against pollution. At present, China’s ecological civilization construction has entered a critical period to promote the overall green transformation of economic and social development and realize the improvement of ecological environment quality from quantitative change to qualitative change. On the whole, the structural, root and trend pressures of ecological environment protection have not been fundamentally alleviated, and the pollution problems in key regions and key industries are still outstanding. The Action Plan takes precise pollution control, scientific pollution control and pollution control according to law as its working policy, and follows the requirements of maintaining strength, extending depth and broadening breadth. Starting from the source, it gives full play to the "traction drive" role of the "engine" of chemical environmental risk management, scientifically screens and evaluates the environmental risks of toxic and harmful chemicals, accurately identifies new pollutants that need to be controlled, and provides new targets for defending the blue sky, clear water and pure land with higher standards. Open up the channel of source and sink, implement classified management and environmental risk management and control in the whole process according to law, form a long-term mechanism of cooperative management of multi-environmental media in the whole life cycle, and effectively support the in-depth fight against pollution.

　　Strengthening the control of new pollutants is an important starting point for continuously improving the quality of the ecological environment, effectively preventing and controlling the environmental risks of toxic and harmful chemicals, and effectively ensuring the safety of the ecological environment, people’s health and safety, and high-quality life. The production and use of toxic and harmful chemicals are the main sources of new pollutants. China is a big country in chemical production. The investigation shows that there are more than 600 kinds of high-yield toxic and harmful chemicals with persistence, bioaccumulation, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and reproductive toxicity. These toxic and harmful chemicals may enter the environment in all aspects of production, processing, use and consumption, bringing potential environmental and health risks, endangering the safety of the ecological environment, the health and quality of life of the people, and the prosperity and sustainable development of the Chinese nation. It is gradually becoming a new difficulty that restricts the continuous and in-depth improvement of the environmental quality of the atmosphere, water and soil, and it is also a "hard bone" that must be tackled for ecological environmental protection after smog and black and smelly water bodies. The treatment of new pollutants in China started late, and there are still many shortcomings compared with the situation and requirements, which are highlighted in the imperfect legal and regulatory system, the imperfect inter-departmental coordination mechanism, the weak foundation of investigation and monitoring, the unclear base of environmental risks, and the serious shortage of talent team and scientific and technological support capacity. The "Action Plan" takes the effective protection of ecological environment safety and people’s health as the fundamental purpose, takes the effective prevention of environmental and health risks of new pollutants as the core, puts forward the requirements of precise policy and system promotion based on problem orientation, and points out the direction and provides follow-up for improving the new pollutant treatment system and improving the new pollutant treatment capacity.Strongly support the construction of beautiful China and healthy China.

　　Strengthening the control of new pollutants is an important help to accelerate the optimization and upgrading of industries and high-quality development. The treatment of new pollutants mainly involves the chemical industry and its downstream industrial chain. In recent years, China’s industrial technology and management level have been greatly improved as a whole, but a large number of enterprises are still at the low end of the industrial chain, with uneven technical level and management ability. Some industries have problems such as backward overcapacity and green trade barriers. Through the combination of control measures of "source prevention+process control+terminal treatment", the Action Plan gives full play to the leading and optimizing role of ecological environmental protection, promotes the adjustment of the structure and layout of chemical and related industries, promotes the clean production transformation and green manufacturing level of enterprises in key industries, accelerates the improvement of industrial product quality standards, enhances the innovation vitality and international competitiveness of the industry, and accelerates the overall promotion of high-level ecological environmental protection and high-quality economic and social development.

　　Second, the Action Plan plans and designs a new pollutant treatment system from the top, and puts forward the idea of "screening, evaluation and control" for the whole life cycle treatment.

　　Construct a new pollutant control system framework focusing on system and capacity building and focusing on "list of new pollutants under key control". This paper systematically designs the relevant requirements of new pollutant control in "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Fight against Pollution", which is the "construction drawing" and "road map" for carrying out new pollutant control. Grasping the principle of treating both the symptoms and root causes, on the one hand, building a system, building a mechanism, strengthening the foundation and improving the capacity, on the governance system, putting forward top-level design requirements such as establishing and improving the environmental risk management system of toxic and harmful chemicals, perfecting the system of laws, regulations and technical standards, and establishing an inter-departmental coordination mechanism, and on the capacity building, putting forward requirements such as accelerating the improvement of national and local new pollutant governance capacity, cultivating professional talents, and strengthening scientific and technological support. On the other hand, environmental risk assessment and control measures covering the whole process are put forward.

　　Put forward the action measures based on "screening, evaluation and control". Compared with conventional pollutants, new pollutants have the characteristics of serious harm, hidden environmental risks, difficult degradation, wide sources, difficult emission reduction and substitution, and wide range of fields involved. There are also many difficulties in governance, and the goal of effectively preventing and controlling environmental risks of new pollutants cannot be achieved only by conventional means such as reaching the standard. Therefore, the Action Plan has designed a "three-step" governance work path from the top. The first step is "screening", which focuses on chemicals with high concern, high yield (use), high environmental detection rate and decentralized use, carries out environmental and health hazard testing and risk screening, and screens out pollutants with great potential environmental risks, which are included in the scope of priority environmental risk assessment; The second step is "assessment", in which scientific environmental risk assessment is carried out for the selected chemicals with priority assessment throughout their production, processing, use, consumption and disposal, and new pollutants with greater risks to the environment and health are accurately anchored as key control objects; The third step is "control". For the key control objects determined by "screening and evaluation", the comprehensive control measures are implemented in the whole process, focusing on source elimination restrictions and taking into account process emission reduction and terminal treatment.

　　The work goal for 2025 was clarified. During the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the focus of work is to open up the management path, build a management system, form a coordination mechanism, and do a good job in key demonstrations. The Action Plan specifies that by 2025, the environmental risk screening of chemicals with high concern and high yield (use) will be completed, and a number of environmental risk assessments of chemicals will be completed; Dynamically release the list of new pollutants under key control; Gradually establish and improve the laws, regulations, systems and management mechanisms for environmental risk management of toxic and harmful chemicals, enhance the ability to control new pollutants, and make a good step to achieve long-term control of new pollutants.

　　Third, the Action Plan is based on steady progress, with scientific means to find out the base, assess risks, accurately implement policies, and systematically promote, so as to effectively control new pollutants.

　　Adhere to the general tone of keeping the word steady and striving for progress in stability, and fully embody the combination of far and near, overall consideration and systematic promotion. In 2025, we will focus on "laying a foundation and building a system", carry out environmental risk screening and assessment with the focus on high-concern and high-yield chemicals, and implement environmental risk control measures with the first batch of new pollutant lists as the goal.

　　Adhere to the people as the center, highlight the "three pollution control" and avoid "one size fits all". For new pollutants with great environmental risks that should be controlled, the possible social and economic impact of their control measures should be fully studied. On the premise that the control conditions are available and the comprehensive environmental, economic and social benefits are feasible, it will be included in the list of key new pollutants to be controlled. According to the principle of "one product, one policy", internationally accepted environmental risk control measures will be formulated, and the key industries, key processes or key links that mainly produce environmental risks will be precisely targeted, so as to avoid the "one size fits all" management of emission standards for all pollutants and industries and prevent unnecessary additional costs from being brought to industrial enterprises.

　　Strengthening the control of new pollutants is an important action to implement the ecological civilization thought of the Supreme Leader and the spirit of the important instructions of the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader, an inevitable requirement to effectively ensure the safety of the ecological environment and the health and safety of the people, and a concrete manifestation of deepening the battle against pollution. The treatment of new pollutants involves a wide range, has high technical requirements, and is difficult to implement. It is necessary to adhere to the general tone of striving for progress while maintaining strategic strength. It is also necessary to face difficulties, forge ahead, focus on objectives and tasks, strengthen organizational guarantee and scientific and technological support, and make new and greater contributions to deepening the battle against pollution with higher standards, continuously improving the quality of the ecological environment, upgrading the construction level of beautiful China and healthy China, and actively contributing to global environmental governance.

　　Author: Wang Jinnan (Dean of Environmental Planning Institute, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Academician of China Academy of Engineering)