China's GHG EIA practice for petrochemical projects: pilots legalized by the Eco-environmental Code, delivering source control of carbon and coordinated pollution–carbon governance.
China's petrochemical industry is a global leader in refined oil, ethylene and synthetic output, yet as a typical energy-intensive, high-carbon sector it is a major source of China's industrial CO2 emissions. Its low-carbon transformation is therefore crucial to China's carbon peaking and neutrality goals and to coordinated pollution–carbon control. The traditional EIA system, focused on conventional pollutants, cannot meet the new demand for integrated environmental and greenhouse gas (GHG) management. In response, China launched provincial-level GHG EIA pilots for petrochemical projects in 2021, embedding carbon management into project approval and connecting the EIA system with national carbon governance, achieving source-level control of new project emissions. The revised Eco-environmental Code (2026) legalizes these pilot achievements, clarifying the legal status of GHG EIA and moving China's petrochemical carbon assessment from regional pilots to standardized, law-based implementation. Building on the mature conventional-pollutant EIA framework, China has built a technical system for synergistic governance of regional environmental quality and GHG emissions, enabling integrated assessment and control of pollutants and carbon. Using a typical petrochemical project as a case, this paper elaborates the implementation pathways, core methods and management framework, summarizes the achievements during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and outlines optimization directions for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, offering references for international EIA research and practice.
Professor-level Senior Engineer. Specializing in EIA of construction projects and pollutant discharge permit management for many years, leading the drafting of many EIA technical standards.