Air quality in Beijing second worst out of 31 mainland cities
Lanzhou in Gansu has the worst conditions, says a green report based on government data, but Haikou is cleanest for residents to breathe
Air quality seriously deteriorated in some major metropolises on the mainland last year, but there were surprising improvements in a few cities, said an environmental report released in Beijing yesterday.
Beijing's air was the second-most polluted last year among 31 municipal and provincial capital cities ranked by Friends of Nature, a major non-governmental organisation, in its annual Green Book of Environment.
Liu Jianqiang , chief editor of the report, said that he could understand why some foreigners had reportedly left Beijing for better air. "They made a wise decision because I don't think Beijing's air quality will improve any time soon," he said. "Many locals, in fact, have the same idea. But we have nowhere to go."
Lanzhou, in the northwestern province of Gansu, finished 31st, below Beijing.
Haikou, in the southernmost province of Hainan, was said to have the cleanest air last year, followed by Kunming, Yunnan and Lhasa, Tibet. Guangzhou ranked fifth, and Shanghai was ninth. The results were based on government-provided figures on air pollutants, including sulphur dioxide and fine particles.
While some rankings stayed more or less the same over the past few years, those of other cities changed considerably.