Beijing to invest 30b yuan to improve air quality

Beijing will invest 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) to curb severe air pollution in its southernmost area over the next three years, the municipal government said.

In the first 10 months of this year, the capital has seen a clear improvement in air quality, with the concentration of PM2.5 – fine particulates that pose human health hazards – reaching 69.7 micrograms per cubic meter, a year-on-year reduction of 21.8 percent, the municipal environmental protection bureau said, according to Beijing Daily on Tuesday.

But the southern region has more difficulties in curbing air pollution. Areas such as Fangshan and Daxing districts have been faced with more severe air pollution due to the rapid development of some polluting industries and disadvantaged landscape to disperse pollutants, the report said.

The problems have worsened air quality such as burning of straw and excessive emission of dust and pollutants from construction sites and industrial production.

The capital will put more focus on solving such thorny problems in the next two to three years, and allocate 30 billion yuan to promote the curbing efforts and projects, in a bid to further improve air quality in the capital, the government said.

In addition, the neighboring regions, Tianjin and Hebei province, have also seen improvement in air quality in the first 10 months, and the regional joint curbing efforts also contributed to effective control of smog in the capital.

Tianjin has seen a year-on-year reduction of PM2.5 concentration of 20.3 percent and Hebei a reduction of 25.8 percent, the report said.