Cities to get capital cash for cleaner air
Print Edition
BEIJING is to give two neighboring cities in Hebei Province 460 million yuan (US$74.1 million) toward an air pollution treatment plan, according to a report in yesterday’s Legal Evening News.
The plan aims to eliminate small coal-fired furnaces and improve larger ones in Langfang and Baoding by 2017, the capital’s Environmental Protection Bureau said.
China’s northern Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which greatly relies on the steel industry and coal-fired heating, was heavily polluted last year, with 62 days deemed “severely polluted,” according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
In 2014, the annual density of hazardous PM2.5 pollutants in the region reached an average of 93 micrograms per cubic meter, well above the national standard of 75.
Eight nearby cities were on last year’s list of the nation’s top 10 cities worst-hit by smog.
Seven were in Hebei, including the top three — Baoding, Xingtai and provincial capital Shijiazhuang.
Langfang ranked eighth, two places ahead of Tianjin.
Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have all launched programs aimed at cleaning the air, with some success.
In the first half of 2015, the PM2.5 density in the region was lowered to 78 micrograms per cubic meter, down 22.1 percent compared with the same period last year, the capital’s Environmental Protection Bureau said.
However, the region still faces challenges.
Figures from the environment ministry show that in the first three months of the year, six Hebei cities were still among the 10 worst polluted, with the top three cities on the list unchanged.
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