Beijing sets pollution targets for all provinces as smog worsens

All 31 provincial governments have signed up for specific air pollution pledges for the next four years as the mainland's leadership struggles to deal with worsening smog.

Eleven municipalities and provinces - mostly industrialised and economically well-off regions - are now required to cut levels of PM2.5, particulates smaller than 2.5 microns considered most hazardous to health, by 10 to 25 per cent by 2017 under an extended programme to tackle the smog-induced pollutants, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement late on Tuesday.

The metropolis of Chongqing, coal-rich Shanxi and Inner Mongolia , and populous Shandong have been assigned targets to cut PM2.5 levels by between 10 and 20 per cent. Previously only industrialised city clusters around Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have adopted such goals.

Yunnan and Hainan provinces, and the Tibetan autonomous region , have been asked to keep improving their air quality, but with no specific targets given, while the other provinces will have to cut their levels of the larger PM10 by between five and 15 per cent, the ministry said.

The provincial targets offer a detailed breakdown of the country's clean-air action plan that runs until 2017, which was unveiled by the State Council in September. The move suggests that the central government is pushing local administrations to take greater responsibility to address worsening air pollution.

The State Council will evaluate each province's progress annually, and officials who fail to meet targets will be "summoned for a talk" by the environmental ministry, the statement said.