Beijing misses air pollution reduction target as city's mayor repeats himself one year on

Beijing fell short of reaching its air pollution reduction target last year and faced major difficulties before the issue could be controlled, the capital’s mayor said.

Wang Anshun, speaking at the opening of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, said cleaning up the air and keeping the population in check were among the most pressing problems to be solved – which is exactly what he said at the same meeting last year.

The average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) – the pollutants considered the most dangerous to human health – fell by 4 per cent last year, short of the 5 per cent reduction target, he said.

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The target was missed even though 392 companies were closed down for causing pollution, 476,000 old vehicles were taken off the roads, and 66,000 hectares of green flatland were put in place as part of a forestation project, he said.

“We face major difficulties in controlling the population size and are under tight resource and environmental constraints Wang said.

“We still have a long, difficult way to go before we can control air pollution and ease traffic congestion.”

This year, the Environmental Protection Law would be strictly enforced to clean up the city’s much-maligned air, he said. The reduction target remained 5 per cent.

“We will step up fiscal support, ensure zero coal-burning in core areas, basically phase out coal-fired boilers in all six urban districts, and reduce coal consumption and replace soft coal with hard coal by 1.2 million tons in rural areas,” he said.