Winter smog control made a top priority
Levels of PM2.5 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area had been reduced by 14.3 percent year-on-year
The Ministry of Environmental Protection has sent 10 teams to inspect the performance of 20 province sin controlling air pollution amid calls to reduce smog in winter after northern regions experienced poor air quality recently.
The inspection teams will focus on the implementation of major efforts such as shutting down illegal construction projects and polluting companies, and reviewing regular inspections of local environmental teams, the ministry said.
The 20 provinces to be inspected includes the northern and northeastern provinces of Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and Liaoning, as well as southern provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong.
The ministry highlighted the need to address heavy smog expected in the coming winter, especially in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.
When Beijing’s central heating system is switched on in mid-November, a substantial rise in carbon emissions, as well as static weather patterns, would make it difficult for airborne pollutants to disperse, causing smog and poor air quality.
However, vast areas in the country’s northern regions have already been hit by severe smog, several weeks before the central heating system has been switched on.
Smog affected 70 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and neighboring provinces on Oct 17 and 18, and expanded to cover an area of 260,000 square kilometers on Oct 19, the ministry said.
Chen Jining, minister of environmental protection, urged local governments to
Continued efforts in the region could help to prevent the air quality from worsening in winter.” He Kebin, head of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University
make greater efforts in dealing with air pollution.
Complicated issues such as industrial structures; energy consumption, particularly relating to coal; and heavy traffic have made controlling air pollution a tough task in the region, but it must be a priority in the coming months, Chen said.
The ministry has highlighted the need to reduce smog in winter if the country is to meet central government goals by 2017.
He Kebin, head of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, said a national campaign to reduce smog has helped improve air quality, adding that until Oct 19, levels of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that is hazardous to human health — had been lowered by 14.3 percent year-on-year in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.
“The improvement was not large enough to present visible changes, but continued efforts in the region could help to prevent the air quality from worsening in winter,” He said.
More heavy smog is forecast to hit North China in the coming days, not long after it was previously blanketed by severe air pollution. It underlines the government still has to solve this seemingly intractable environmental problem. There are few issues that do more disservice to the credibility of the governance capability of the authorities than the failure to protect residents from exposure to polluted air, given the smog’s severe consequences, both medically and socially.
Air pollution has been blamed for the sharp rise in lung cancer cases in China, by five times over the past 30 years, which has made it the top killer among all cancers in the country.
And a 2013 study by scientists from China, Israel and the United States found that the smog cut life expectancy for Chinese residents living in the heavily polluted north by five and a half years.
Admittedly, some headway has been made since the government rolled out an action plan on air pollution control that year. Beijing has seen the amount of burned coal reduced by nearly half since then, and the number of blue sky days in many places in the north is reported to have increased steadily over the past several years.
But a lot more needs to be and can bed one by the government, starting with closing the loopholes in environmental law enforcement.
Without national standards to phase out polluting vehicles, a significant source of air pollutants, efforts to control car emissions by cities such as Beijing, no matter how strict, will continue to be compromised by vehicles, especially heavy-duty ones, from elsewhere.
And if the fines imposed on enterprises for not using treatment facilities continue to be lower than the cost of using them, it is unrealistic to expect those enterprises to abide by the emission standards of their own volition.
And without an environmental accountability system that really bites, local officials will remain reluctant to shut down polluting enterprises that are major job creators or big payers into the local tax coffers.
Data show that environmental damage caused by pollution already accounts for 10 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Economic prosperity at the cost of people’s health and quality of life is unsustainable and runs counter to the pursuit of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.
All this requires a strategy in which governments at local levels coordinate their efforts in the fight against pollution, as well as a new way of perceiving development by officials.