Chongqing - How can a major industrial city grow without costing the planet? Chongqing is offering its answer with a new five-year environmental plan, setting targets for cleaner water, greener energy and manufacturing, and low-carbon transport as the southwestern Chinese municipality advances toward its 2030 ecological goals.
A view of Chongqing's urban landscape. (Photo/Chongqing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau)
The Chongqing 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Beautiful Chongqing (2026-2030) includes 22 indicators, 58 tasks and 22 major initiatives, Yu Guodong, director of Chongqing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said at a news conference on September 2.
The plan aims for Chongqing to have largely established itself as a pilot area for the national "Beautiful China" initiative in the Sichuan-Chongqing region by 2030, with a further goal of fundamentally improving the ecological environment by 2035.
By 2030, Chongqing aims to raise the proportion of designated "beautiful rivers and lakes" to 90%, while 60% of districts and counties included in the city-level program are expected to meet standards for "beautiful cities."
Authorities will shift more water pollution control efforts toward counties and rural areas, targeting wastewater from industrial parks, polluted urban and rural waterways, livestock farming, silted rivers and lakes, and small rural water bodies.
Jinyun Mountain in Beibei District, Chongqing. (Photo/Chongqing Ecology and Environment Bureau)
The city plans to build industrial zones with no direct wastewater discharge, improve sewage networks and strengthen supervision of river discharge outlets.
Yu said Chongqing will also use platforms including "AI + Bayu Water Governance" and smart river management systems, with a 2030 goal of ensuring water bodies near residential communities have "no abnormal color, no abnormal odor and no foreign matter."
A view of Chongqing's city skyline from Raffles City Chongqing. (Photo/Zheng Ran)
From January through August, water quality along the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River remained at China's Class II level, while 95.2% of 63 nationally monitored water sections met Class III or better standards. Average PM2.5 concentrations fell 12.5% year on year, while the number of days rated as having good air quality increased by 10.
Chongqing plans to tighten environmental controls on projects with high energy consumption and high emissions, while expanding green industries.
By 2030, the municipality aims to have 500 green factories and 36 green industrial parks. Clean energy is targeted to account for 50% of installed power capacity, while coal's share of energy consumption is expected to fall to 39%.
The city also plans for coal and refined oil consumption to peak during the period. In transport, more than 80% of public buses and conventional taxis in Chongqing’s central urban area are targeted to be fully electric by 2030.
The city also plans to develop a 100-kilometer riverside ecological corridor along the Yangtze and Jialing rivers and carry out restoration in the fluctuating water-level zone of the Three Gorges Reservoir.
The green mountains and clear waters along the Yangtze River in Wushan County, Chongqing. (Photo/Chongqing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau)
Officials said more than 15 million aquatic animals will be released into local waters each year as part of biodiversity conservation efforts and measures supporting China's 10-year fishing ban on the Yangtze River.
Technology will play a larger role in monitoring and enforcement. Chongqing currently has more than 12,000 environmental monitoring stations, and authorities plan to expand the use of artificial intelligence, big data and satellite remote sensing.