China's Smog Problems Marginally Better, But Some Northern Cities As Noisome As Ever

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Last year, the government introduced legislation to drastically reduce coal-fired heating in Beijing and 27 other major cities. The concentration of toxic fine air particles — also known as PM2.5 — in these northeastern cities fell 33 percent last year, Greenpeace East Asia reports. But impressive as this sounds, citizens of China's great metropolises won't be putting away their pollution masks just yet.

In fact, the cut in PM2.5 in the northeastern provinces was only partly down to the coal heating ban, with favorable weather conditions, such as stronger northern winds also playing a major role, according to the Greenpeace analysis. Across the country as a whole, PM2.5 only dropped 4.5 percent in last year — the smallest annual decrease since China declared its "war on pollution" in 2013.

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But in many of the industrial cities not subject to the strict regulations imposed in the northeast, air pollution actually got worse. In Heilongjiang province, emissions from industries like steel production pushed particle levels up 10 percent. Huang Wei, climate and energy officer at Greenpeace East Asia, said the government must expand its focus from domestic heating and tackle emissions from industry. "Policies favoring coal and heavy industry are holding back progress," he said in a statement.

Even in the northern cities that saw major improvements, there were days when the smog was as thick as ever. On December 28, much of Beijing saw "very unhealthy" levels of pollution, according to the Beijing Air Quality Index.

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http://www.dw.com/en/life-behind-a-mask-chinas-cities-still-choking-on-smog/a-42199104