Ministry targets smog with inspection plan
Print Edition
The Environment Ministry said yesterday it will send inspection teams to provinces and cities most seriously affected by smog to ensure rules on fighting air pollution are being enforced.
China’s smog crisis was dramatically thrust back into the spotlight this week when Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province and a city of 11 million , virtually ground to a halt when a pollution index showed airborne contaminants at around 50 times the levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
The problem was partly blamed on the city turning on the heating for the winter. Collective central heating, activated on a date set by the local government, provides heat to 65 percent of Harbin. Much of that heat comes from burning coal.
Beijing’s central heating normally comes on in mid-November.
The central government has announced many plans to fight pollution over the years but has made little obvious progress, especially in the country’s north and northeast, where coal burning has driven the rapid growth in heavy industrial output.
The ministry said on its website that teams would from now until March visit Beijing and its surrounding regions, the Pearl and Yangtze River deltas, Chongqing City as well as Chengdu in Sichuan Province and Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, all having severe smog problems.
The teams will ensure that factories have installed the correct equipment to cut emissions of sulphur dioxide, that plants previously closed remain shut and that local governments are enforcing clean air policies, the ministry added.
Factories that have particular problems will have environment inspection teams permanently based on site and legal means will be used to punish companies with particular problems, it said.
Regional environment inspection teams who do not do their jobs properly will be prosecuted and the media will be used to name and shame the most egregious examples of pollution, the ministry said.
The public will also be encouraged to report pollution problems to the ministry.
China published a detailed action plan on tackling air pollution in September, saying it would cut coal consumption and ban new industrial projects like power plants and steel mills in key cities and regions such as Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta.
The government aims to cut the density of inhalable particulate matter by at least 10 percent in major cities by 2017.
PM2.5, a key indicator of air pollution, should fall by about 25 percent from 2012 levels in Beijing and surrounding provincial areas by 2017.
The Yangtze and Pearl River Delta regions should see reductions of 20 and 15 percent, respectively, from 2012 levels over the same period.
Beijing, sometimes derided as “Greyjing” or “Beige-jing” by English-speaking residents, suffered its own smog emergency last winter when the pollution index reached 45 times the recommended level one particularly bad day in January.
Smoke from factories and heating plants, winds from the Gobi Desert and fumes from millions of vehicles can combine to blanket the city in a pungent shroud for days.
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