South winds soon bringing foul skies to North China

North China’s Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is expected to experience light to moderate pollution over the coming week, China’s environmental monitor reported.

A southerly wind is expected to visit the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from Thursday to Friday, bringing pollutants to the area, resulting in light to moderate pollution over the following days, the National Environmental Monitoring Center (NEMC) said on Monday.

The air pollution will tend to be heavier Wednesday to Saturday, with some cities possibly experiencing briefly heavy pollution. Beijing, Tianjin and cities in Hebei Province, including Shijiazhuang and Tangshan, will be affected.

Because of the burning of crop stalks and the uncertainty of the weather forecast system, further monitoring will be needed.

At the same time, North China is under intense pressure to meet its clean air goals, particularly in winter, when residential heating systems are switched on, which usually happens in mid-November, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Beijing has said it intends to take a closer look at the performance of officials in improving air quality during the pollution-plagued autumn and winter seasons, according to a plan from its discipline inspection and supervision commission that came out recently, Xinhua said Thursday.

The plan is expected to help the city reach its goal of cutting average PM2.5 airborne particles by 25 percent, and the number of days suffering from severe air pollution by 20 percent, year-onyear.

The plan targets poor performance in the implementation of anti-pollution measures in the management of high-polluting vehicles and enterprises, coal burning and construction dust.

In September, 14 sub-districts and townships were named and shamed by the city’s authorities for inadequate anti-pollution efforts.