In a speech marking the 30th anniversary of World Environment Day, Shanghai's new mayor has vowed to push forward with a programme to clear the city's skies of coal-tinted clouds, its waterways of green-black poisons, and its land of myriad other toxins.
Mayor Chen Liangyu said that with Shanghai's first three-year action plan on the environment, which ends this year, 'we have had an increase in the number of days residents can see the blue of the sky over the city'.
Mr Chen vowed 'to boost environmental protection as part of a sustainable development programme', but was short on specifics as to what measures would be taken.
Like other local-area leaders across China, Mr Chen faces institutional barriers. State-financed industrial behemoths are among the nation's worst polluters, and any move to fine or otherwise punish these enemies of the environment would amount to a slap on the Government's own wrist.
Mr Chen may find it even more difficult because he rose to power through Communist Party positions at the state-run Shanghai Metallurgical and Mining Equipment Corporation and the Shanghai Electrical Equipment Corporation.
The city Government said on its official Web site yesterday that it would launch a month-long effort to clean up the many waterways that criss-cross the centre of the city.
