Drop in air pollution levels, says group

BEIJING: Air pollution levels in some of the country’s smoggiest cities fell by nearly a third in the first quarter of this year, environmental campaign group Greenpeace said.

But pollution levels remain a major public health threat, linked to thousands of early deaths, and the group said they continue to increase in other parts of the country.

In Beijing, levels of PM2.5 – airborne particulates with a diameter small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs – fell about 13% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period a year earlier, Greenpeace said yesterday.

The organisation collated data released by China’s environmental protection ministry, which makes live figures available, but does not publish full historic or comparative statistics.

The main drivers were “the government’s strict measures to control air pollution, which have drastically reduced pollution from heavy industry in places like Hebei and Beijing,” Zhang Kai, Greenpeace East Asia Climate and Energy Campaigner, wrote in an e-mail.

Among the 74 cities that have monitored air pollution for more than a year, some have seen decreases as much as 48%.

Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing and contributes to much of the pollution seen in the capital, saw PM2.5 levels plunge by 31%.

“Our expectations for the immediate future is that PM2.5 concentrations in coastal cities will continually improve thanks to measures that the government has put in place to control pollution,” he added. — AFP