To cut smog, Hebei turns to neighbours

Hebei is pushing forward with research on how to reduce pollution in the northern province, including possibly through a joint-effort with neighbours Beijing and Tianjin to limit the number of days that cars can be on the road.

The central government has designated the urban cluster as a key area for clean-up efforts. But it also wants the three areas to integrate better, and the National Development and Reform Commission is expected to release the relevant draft policies by June.

As part of the reorganisation, Beijing is pushing polluting companies out the capital, and underdeveloped Hebei is generally eager to host them.

Yin Guangping, deputy chief of the provincial Environmental Protection Department, told the Beijing Times  authorities had been meeting regularly with their counterparts in Beijing and Tianjin to devise emergency response measures to be implemented on heavily polluted days.

One option being considered is a unified traffic restriction that would ban certain cars depending on their plate numbers. The province will also begin to switch to a petrol that burns more cleanly by next year – two years earlier than a national requirement.

Pinpointing the source of the smog that often blankets much of the north, which is home to big polluting industries such as steel, cement and thermal power, has proved difficult. On Wednesday, Beijing said about a third of the capital’s levels of PM2.5, tiny particles that can enter the bloodstream, came from nearby cities.

Hebei was home to seven of China’s 10 most polluted cities last year, which researchers blamed on the concentration of heavy industry.