Action Plan for Building the Yangtze River Delta as a Pilot Zone for a Beautiful China

Issued Jointly by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and Six Other Departments

Recently, with the approval of the State Council, seven authorities including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the People’s Bank of China have jointly issued the Action Plan for Building the Yangtze River Delta as a Pilot Zone for a Beautiful China (hereinafter referred to as the Yangtze River Delta Action Plan). Centering on the two core priorities of integrated and high-quality development, the Plan identifies breakthroughs in fostering green productive forces and joint ecological environment protection and governance across the region. It prioritizes unifying regional laws, regulations and standards, zoning-based ecological environment management, and smart governance, aiming to build the Yangtze River Delta into a model region that drives high-quality development through high-standard ecological protection. The Plan sets out 22 key tasks covering five major areas: green development, collaborative governance, ecological conservation, reform and innovation, and demonstration model development. The full text of the document is as follows.

This Plan is formulated to implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, develop the Yangtze River Delta into a high-standard pilot zone for a Beautiful China, and deepen the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta in broader and more profound dimensions.

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, we will focus on the core mission of building a Beautiful China, adhere to the two key priorities of integration and high-quality development, and take the lead in making breakthroughs in developing green productive forces and joint ecological environment protection and governance. We will emphasize the unification of regional laws, regulations and standards, zoning-based ecological environment management, and smart governance, and build the Yangtze River Delta into a model region that promotes high-quality development through high-standard ecological protection.

By 2027, green and low-carbon development across the region will be further advanced, ecological and environmental quality will keep improving, new progress will be made in developing a modern ecological and environmental governance system, and remarkable results will be achieved in constructing the pilot zone, yielding a batch of practical and institutional innovations. Specifically, the total emissions of major pollutants and carbon emission intensity will keep declining; the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) will drop to 30 micrograms per cubic meter; the proportion of water bodies with good water quality will rise by 2.1 percentage points compared with 2024; and groundwater and offshore water quality will remain stable.

By 2030, green production and living patterns will be widely adopted, ecological and environmental quality will see comprehensive improvement, the modernization of the ecological and environmental governance system and governance capacity will be basically realized, and the Yangtze River Delta Pilot Zone for a Beautiful China will be basically completed, providing major support for advancing the development of a Beautiful China.

We will foster internationally competitive industrial clusters of strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, biomedicine and low-altitude equipment, proactively lay out future industries including brain-computer interfaces, quantum technology, space and deep-sea sectors, expand green and low-carbon industries such as energy conservation and environmental protection, new energy and new materials, and cultivate environment-friendly health industries. We will resolutely curb the blind launch of high energy consumption and high emission ("two-high") projects, advance the deep integration of digital, intelligent and green transformation for traditional sectors including petrochemicals, steel and textiles, and systematically launch pilot projects for coordinated pollution reduction and carbon mitigation.

We will push forward key projects such as contiguous onshore wind power, offshore deep-water wind power and coastal nuclear power in an orderly manner, build a number of pumped storage power stations, and develop a green energy storage base with an installed capacity of ten million kilowatts. We will continuously cap and cut total coal consumption through substitution, accelerate the "three-in-one renovation and upgrading" of existing coal-fired power units, and implement special initiatives for upgrading new-generation coal power. We will advance a batch of UHV power transmission projects including power transmission from Inner Mongolia to Shanghai and Jiangsu, Gansu to Zhejiang, and Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi to Anhui, and launch cross-provincial market-based trading of green electricity.

We will accelerate the development of a multi-modal transport base and corridor network, and vigorously shift freight from road to waterway and railway. We will speed up the new energy renovation of operating vehicles and machinery inside railway freight yards, logistics parks, ports, airports and industrial and mining enterprises across the region, build a unified network of charging and battery swapping infrastructure for new energy vehicles, and accelerate the development of new energy and clean energy vessels. We will jointly build charging and battery swapping facilities for electric vessels in inland and coastal waters, and normalize green methanol refueling at Shanghai Port. By 2027, standardized shore power facilities will cover all berths across regional ports.

III. Jointly Create a Model for Collaborative Ecological and Environmental Governance

We will push forward ultra-low emission transformation in key industries and launch performance improvement programs for air pollution prevention and control in key sectors. We will conduct full-process, full-link comprehensive treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in key industries including petrochemicals, chemical engineering, industrial coating, packaging and printing, and oil storage, transportation and sales, completing no fewer than 1,000 VOC source substitution projects each year. All National Standard III diesel freight vehicles in the region will be phased out; we will accelerate the elimination and replacement of National Standard IV diesel freight vehicles and National Standard II non-road mobile machinery. We will deepen joint response to heavy pollution weather in border areas between Jiangsu-Anhui and Shandong-Henan, continue noise pollution prevention and control initiatives, and comprehensively address non-point air pollution sources.

We will launch a new round of comprehensive water environment improvement projects for the Taihu Lake and Chaohu Lake basins, and carry out water quality upgrading initiatives for key water bodies including the Huaihe River and Hongze Lake and Dianshan Lake. We will launch river discharge outlet renovation and upgrading projects in water environment sensitive zones and key water source conservation areas of transboundary river basins such as the Taihu Lake and Grand Canal, and boost the efficiency of sewage treatment in industrial parks. We will deepen joint protection and integrated supervision of transboundary water bodies including the Taipu River and Xin’an River-Qiandao Lake, and replicate and scale up the joint transboundary water governance system piloted in the Yangtze River Delta Ecological and Green Integrated Development Demonstration Zone (hereinafter referred to as the Integrated Demonstration Zone). We will promote the integrated operation and maintenance model of sewage plants, pumping stations and pipe networks for rain and sewage separation, and explore a performance-based payment mechanism for sewage system operation and maintenance. We will advance the development of ecologically clean small watersheds, establish a full-chain prevention and control system for agricultural non-point source pollution covering monitoring, source tracing, accounting, treatment and management, and jointly carry out the development of beautiful rivers and lakes in transboundary rivers and lakes such as Dianshan Lake, encouraging cities to develop beautiful rivers and lakes across their administrative regions. By 2027, the water quality of the main stream of the Yangtze River and Xin’an River within the region will stably maintain Class II, the Huaihe River will stay at Class III, the aquatic ecological environment of Taihu Lake and Chaohu Lake will keep improving, and the coverage rate of developed beautiful rivers and lakes will reach 44%.

We will deepen joint protection and governance of offshore water quality, establish a regional coordinated total nitrogen control mechanism for rivers entering the sea, and research an ecological and environmental quality evaluation system for estuaries including the Yangtze River Estuary and Hangzhou Bay. We will summarize and scale up the "Blue Cycle" marine plastic pollution governance model, and explore the integrated development of beautiful gulfs across entire administrative regions in Yancheng of Jiangsu and Wenzhou of Zhejiang. By 2027, the coverage rate of developed beautiful gulfs will exceed 40%.

We will carry out phased full-coverage traceability and remediation of heavy metal pollution in agricultural land soil, improve the whole-process risk control mechanism for soil pollution on construction land, and explore new green and low-carbon soil pollution remediation models. We will conduct orderly surveys and assessments of groundwater pollution, and continue special remediation of soil pollution on vacated chemical industrial plots and groundwater pollution in chemical industrial parks.

We will issue a regional joint development plan for zero-waste cities, develop characteristic industrial chains for resource recycling of solid waste across the region, and promote the application of technologies for treating hard-to-dispose hazardous waste. Shanghai will take the lead in achieving near-zero landfill of solid waste, while Zhejiang will realize near-zero landfill of hazardous waste. We will strengthen cross-provincial transfer supervision and information sharing on solid waste disposal and utilization, build a whole-process risk prevention and control supervision system for hazardous waste, and optimize the exemption management for designated "point-to-point" recycling. By 2027, more than 60% of cities will have completed zero-waste city development, and we will strive to build four model zero-waste cities.

We will jointly screen and rectify hidden environmental risks along river basins including the Yangtze River, Huaihe River and Grand Canal, strengthen risk prevention and control of hazardous waste, heavy metals, tailings ponds, nuclear and radiation pollution, and launch a batch of projects to upgrade basic environmental emergency response capacity. We will carry out pilot programs on new pollutant governance for key enterprises and industrial parks, implement capacity-building projects for new pollutant risk control, accelerate ecological and environmental health risk assessment, and advance national pilot projects on environmental health management. We will further develop climate-resilient cities.

We will implement the territorial spatial planning of the Yangtze River Delta, accelerate the development of terrestrial ecological barriers including the western Dabie Mountains of Anhui and southern Anhui-western Zhejiang mountainous areas, build marine ecological barriers covering the Yellow Sea, East China Sea waters and coastal zones, and basically connect the ecological corridors along the main stream of the Yangtze River across provincial boundaries in the Yangtze River Delta. We will strengthen coordinated protection of regional ecological corridors along the Yangtze River and Huaihe River-Hongze Lake. We will jointly formulate unified standards for regional greenways and promote the connection of greenways at intercity boundaries, and push forward the creation of national parks including Qianyuan-Baishanzu, Nanji Liedao and Huangshan (Guniujiang). By 2027, the regional ecological security barriers will be more robust.

We will coordinate the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, wetlands and sand. We will compile plans for the protection and utilization of river and lake shorelines, and develop ecological shorelines including the V-shaped ecological shoreline in Shanghai, Qianwan ecological shoreline in Zhejiang and coastal shorelines in Jiangsu. We will strengthen coordinated protection and restoration of key wetlands including the Yangtze River Estuary-Hangzhou Bay and the Taihu Lake Basin, and roll out three-year action plans for the construction of Chongming World-Class Ecological Island on a rolling basis.

We will jointly conduct surveys and monitoring of biodiversity, build national comprehensive ecological quality monitoring stations featuring "one main station plus multiple sub-stations", and coordinate the protection and management of migratory bird habitats, rare and endangered species and minimal populations. We will develop a regional collaborative prevention and control system for invasive alien species, and build a number of Yangtze River Delta biodiversity experience sites. By 2027, the protection rate of national key protected wild animal and plant species will reach 88%.

We will explore collaborative legislation on ecological and environmental protection across the region, unify administrative penalty standards for ecological and environmental violations, issue guidelines for regional local standard management, research integrated regional standards for air pollution prevention and control in sectors such as pharmaceutical manufacturing and vehicle maintenance, and advance mutual recognition of industrial and association standards. We will improve the regional ecological and environmental damage compensation system, build a number of restoration bases for damage compensation cases, and explore cross-regional mechanisms for recovery and restoration of compensation.

We will refine and optimize management requirements focusing on typical ecological and environmental control units, expand applicable scenarios, and improve implementation mechanisms. We will explore integrating regulatory requirements for marine environments, groundwater, heavy metals and noise into the zoning-based ecological and environmental management system, establish a cross-regional coordination mechanism for zoning-based ecological and environmental management on a pilot basis in the Integrated Demonstration Zone, promote the linkage of territorial development planning EIA and project EIA, and deepen the reform of combining EIA and pollutant discharge permit approval into a single review process.

We will accelerate the confirmation and registration of natural resource rights in key regions, deepen the development of the Xin’an River-Qiandao Lake Joint Ecological Protection Cooperation Zone, implement horizontal ecological protection compensation mechanisms along the Yangtze River Basin, and advance the development of ecological protection compensation mechanisms for the Taihu Lake Basin and other regions. Lishui and Huzhou in Zhejiang and Huangshan in Anhui will further implement pilot national mechanisms for realizing the value of ecological products. We will formulate regional administrative measures for paid use and trading of pollutant emission rights, and expand the scope and categories of pollutant emission trading pilots.

We will elevate mature local green finance standards to national standards, and encourage the development of green loans, green bonds, green funds and mixed financing tools. We will give full play to the role of the National Green Development Fund to guide social capital to invest in green and low-carbon projects. Pudong New Area in Shanghai, Lishui in Zhejiang and Chuzhou in Anhui will further carry out climate investment and financing pilots, and explore financial support models for building beautiful cities.

We will allocate research tasks through relevant science and technology programs, carry out joint scientific and technological research on major common regional environmental problems, and develop a batch of national and provincial ministerial-level key laboratories and other innovation platforms. We will leverage the National Eastern Technology Transfer Center and National Green Technology Trading Center to jointly build platforms for translating ecological and environmental scientific and technological achievements, and support pilot engineering applications of new technologies in ecological and environmental fields.

We will accelerate the development of a modern ecological and environmental monitoring system, establish a sound integrated monitoring network covering sky, ground, land and sea, and explore a unified regional supervision mechanism for third-party social monitoring institutions. We will expand the application of artificial intelligence in ecological and environmental governance, and develop a number of demonstration application scenarios integrating artificial intelligence with ecological and environmental management.

We will unify carbon footprint management rules for industrial chains including new energy vehicles, batteries and textiles, and launch carbon labeling certification in priority sectors such as photovoltaics and steel. We will leverage leading enterprises in steel, electronics, fast-moving consumer goods and other sectors to develop a batch of green and low-carbon supply chains.

We will achieve landmark results in developing around 10 beautiful cities, and encourage county-level cities with high urbanization levels and strong economic performance to carry out beautiful city development. We will coordinate rural ecological revitalization and living environment improvement, and develop beautiful villages county-wide. We will build "beautiful micro-units" including pocket parks, street green spaces and small water bodies, and encourage the development of such micro-units tailored to local conditions with industrial parks, towns, sub-districts, communities and enterprises as basic units. By 2027, the proportion of counties with fully developed beautiful villages will reach 50%.

We will implement a new batch of reform authorization items for ecological and environmental governance in the Integrated Demonstration Zone. We will consolidate and upgrade the unified standards, monitoring and law enforcement system, advance regular sharing of monitoring data, deepen cross-regional administrative law enforcement cooperation on ecological and environmental protection, and accelerate the establishment of a diversified ecological protection compensation mechanism for the Taipu River. We will carry out cross-regional accounting of ecological product values, foster shared regional brands for ecological products from the Integrated Demonstration Zone, develop near-zero carbon zones such as the Water Town Living Room, jointly apply for national practice and innovation bases for the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", and promote the construction of a national key laboratory for water pollution control and green resource recycling.

We will launch a series of major projects and initiatives focusing on the development of regional new energy systems, green transportation systems, pollution control and transformation of key industries, comprehensive treatment of major rivers and lakes, shared solid waste treatment facilities across the region, and the development of ecological barriers and corridors. We will advance the development of beautiful cities, beautiful villages, beautiful rivers and lakes, and beautiful gulfs through targeted engineering projects.

Relevant departments will strengthen coordination, promotion and policy support for developing the Yangtze River Delta Pilot Zone for a Beautiful China under the working mechanism for building a Beautiful China. Provincial governments within the Yangtze River Delta shall bear overall responsibility for the construction of the pilot zone. We will fully leverage the three-tier regional cooperation mechanism of the Yangtze River Delta to strengthen overall coordination, progress tracking and evaluation, and step up publicity and promotion of successful experience and typical cases.