National political adviser Zhang Xingying takes part in this year's two sessions last week. [Photo provided to China Daily]
The coordinated monitoring and evaluation of air quality and carbon reduction must be enhanced to ensure fundamental improvements in ecological conditions while achieving carbon peaking and neutrality goals, a national political adviser said.
Zhang Xingying, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, proposed the integration of pollution reduction, carbon mitigation, environmental greening, and economic growth to drive the country's green transformation.
Zhang, also the deputy director of the Department of Science and Climate Change at the China Meteorological Administration and government representative to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emphasized the inherent synergy between air quality improvement and carbon reduction.
"Atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions share the same sources and processes, so their reduction is inherently interconnected," Zhang said, highlighting the importance of high-quality monitoring and evaluation to measure progress and inform policies effectively.
Currently, China has established an air quality monitoring network comprising 1,734 urban air quality monitoring stations, 12,000 county-level monitoring hubs and 204 high-precision greenhouse gas monitoring stations.
Additionally, over 25,000 key industrial enterprises are required to conduct emissions monitoring, though greenhouse gas tracking remains largely limited to the power and steel industries.
National political adviser Zhang Xingying takes part in this year's two sessions last week. [Photo provided to China Daily]
To further enhance monitoring capabilities, Zhang proposed an integrated approach to expanding monitoring infrastructure, including upgrading existing networks with high-precision greenhouse gas monitoring functions, strengthening satellite observations and implementing localized ground validation systems.
He also called for the improvement of monitoring and evaluation capacities in key regions, ecological barriers, heavily polluted areas and coastal zones. Furthermore, he added that pilot programs for enterprise-level carbon emissions monitoring should be expanded using fixed-source online monitoring and low-altitude verification technologies.
Scientific, multi-dimensional assessments involving fields such as natural resources and energy are needed to improve efficiency and accuracy, Zhang said.
In addition, comprehensive assessments should be conducted to analyze the interplay between air pollution and climate change, industrial transformation and emission reduction pathways.
Legislative support is also essential, Zhang emphasized, advocating for the integration of monitoring and evaluation into legal frameworks.
Strengthening interdisciplinary research and cultivating a specialized workforce in pollution and carbon reduction monitoring would further reinforce governance capabilities, he added.
