China releases “Technical Guidelines for Ecological and Environmental Impact Analysis” 
On November 6, 2020, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment released the “Technical Guidelines for Ecological and Environmental Impact Analysis for Economic and Technological Policies (Trial)”. The guideline sets out the technical approach for the analysis of the impact of economic or technological policies on the ecological environment. The summary is as follows.
Scope
This guideline is mainly applied to the ecological and environmental impact analysis for relevant departments(relevant departments under the State Council and the people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government), when they take the impact to ecological environment into consideration in the process of formulating economic or technological policies(such as industrial and major productivity layout policies, regional development policies, tax and subsidy policies, pricing policies, trade policies, etc.).
Analysis Procedures
Policy Analysis
Analysis of policy elements
Retrospective analysis
Conformity Analysis
Initial Identification of Ecological Impacts
Identify impacts in four areas: environmental quality, ecosystem protection, resource consumption, and climate change response (Refer to the table below).
| Environmental quality | Impacts on air quality from emissions of air pollutants (e.g., VOCs).
Impacts on surface and underground water quality, etc. due to emissions of water pollutants (e.g., ammonia nitrogen). Impacts on solid waste generation and utilization. |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem protection | Impacts on the protection of important ecosystems, the construction of biodiversity protection networks etc.. |
| Resource consumption | Whether the intensity of energy, water and land consumption can be reduced by promoting conservation and intensive use of resources. |
| Climate change response | Impact on greenhouse gas emissions. |
Analysis of Ecological Environmental Impacts
Determination of the scope of impacts on the ecological environment (e.g., duration, space, region, etc.).
Specific analysis of impacts on the ecological environment (e.g., characteristics of the affected areas, accumulation, etc.).
Analysis of uncertainties and risks.
Analysis of safeguards and institutions.
Conclusions and Suggestions
The full text of the Guideline is available at
http://www.mee.gov.cn/xxgk2018/xxgk/xxgk06/202011/t20201110_807267.html
(Simplified Chinese).
