Beijing acting mayor pledges to reduce the air pollution - by 2pc
Acting mayor says the city will have blue sky, but one environmental expert says it will be hard for the capital to clean up its act
Beijing plans to reduce concentrations of major air pollutants by 2 per cent this year, the capital's acting major said yesterday following two weekends of record-setting smog.
Wang Anshun said at the opening of the annual session of the city's people's congress that the government would "considerably cut PM2.5 in the air" and "build a city with blue sky, green land and clean water".
He said Beijing would remove 180,000 old vehicles from the city's roads this year, promote the use of clean energy cars by government agencies, promote clean energy in rural areas and control dust at construction sites.
The capital's air pollution reached hazardous levels over the past two weekends, with the levels of harmful respirable particulates, known as PM2.5, peaking at nearly 900 micrograms per cubic metre. The World Health Organisation recommends that PM2.5 levels be kept below 25 micrograms per cubic metre.
Ma Jun , director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said it would be hard for the capital to clean up its air. "The 2 per cent will not give Beijing a blue sky. But it certainly shows the authorities' determination to adopt a more transparent approach to solving the pollution problem."
Ma said given that Beijing was still growing - with about 250,000 new cars hitting the capital's roads every year - it would be a positive sign if pollution was no higher by the end of the year.