China Determined to Make Skies Blue Again

Chen Jining, minister of environmental protection, answered questions at a press conference during the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on March 9, 2017.
Curbing winter smog in the north is now the biggest priority and challenge for China's efforts to improve air quality, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Data on the levels of PM2.5, tiny hazardous particulate matter, show the air quality in regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta has improved by at least 20 percent over the past three winters, said Chinese Minister of Environmental Protection Chen Jining at a press conference during the ongoing NPC annual session.
By contrast, the air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has improved by only 9.6 percent over the same period, he said.
Chen said air pollution control measures are proving effective, but he added that it will be hard to eliminate severe smog within two or three years.
"However, we're confident we can solve the problem faster than developed countries did," he said.
Measures will include more efforts to reduce coal consumption for heating, stricter laws and regulations on environmental protection, and more inspections to deter polluters and push governments to fulfill their duties in reducing pollution.
In 2016, environmental protection authorities nationwide issued more than 124,000 penalties and closed 2,465 enterprises for environmental violations.
Chen Jining said that the country's new Law on Environmental Protection, enacted in 2015, has already shown its teeth against violators as fines from penalties handed out by law enforcement authorities reached 6.63 billion yuan (US$959.5 million) last year, up by 56 percent year-on-year.
In 2016, the environmental protection authorities transferred 6,064 cases that involved environmental protection crimes to judicial organs, up by 37 percent year-on-year.
Chen noted that the new law also has enabled authorities to better monitor and punish violations by businesses. The authorities can close down factories, suspend or limit their production activities and handle fines based on the number of consecutive days of violations.
However, Chen conceded that implementation of the law is still hampered by the lack of effort from local authorities and frequent violations by businesses.
The environmental authorities should also beef up law enforcement to better implement the law, he said.