Local officials will be held responsible for the quality of the environment
Premier Wen Jiabao has exhorted local authorities to stop pursuing breakneck economic growth and turn their attention to righting the environmental woes caused by such rapid expansion.
Mr Wen's appeal, made at a five-yearly national conference of environmental officials, coincided with the capital's worst sandstorm in three years.
'We must be sober-minded that the environmental situation remains severe,' the premier said at the opening of the two-day meeting on Monday, Xinhua reported.
'We must be on full alert that while many environmental problems from the past remain unresolved, new problems keep emerging, with pollution and ecological degradation in some areas having reached a quite serious level,' he said.
He repeated the revelation that stunned the nation at the close of the National People's Congress meeting last month, that his government had failed to achieve the environmental protection targets set in the 10th five-year plan.
Mr Wen blamed worsening pollution on local authorities' blind pursuit of economic development and insufficient attention to repairing the damaged environment.