Beijing Municipal Government published the 2013-2017 Clean Air Action Plan in Beijing (hereinafter referred to as the Five-year Action Plan) on Beijing-China after the State Council issued the Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention (hereinafter referred to as the Action Plan) on Sep 12. The Five-year Action Plan timely publicizes the scheme for air pollution prevention and treatment in Beijing in a timely manner so as to put into practice the ten measures for the prevention of air pollution imposed by the State Council.
According to the Action Plan, Beijing is required to reduce its annual density of PM2.5 to 60 ug/m3 or so by 2017. Therefore, the capital devised the Five-year Action Plan to initiate comprehensive management of air issues, introducing multiple measures to speed up the reduction and control of air pollution.
To meet the target set by the State Council, Beijing has to reduce its density of PM2.5 by 5 percent annually in the next five years while maintaining economic and social development. The Five-year Action Plan is considered as the most all-inclusive, systematic, detailed and forceful measure Beijing has taken against air pollution in recent years. It specifies eight emission reduction projects and highlights pollution reduction efforts including “reduction of coal burning, controlling car use to decrease oil consumption, cleansing and bringing down dust, and pollution treatment and emission reduction”.
The eight emission reduction projects involve source control, restructuring energy resource structure and motor vehicle structure, optimizing industrial structure, terminal pollution treatment and control, meticulous city management, development of ecological environment and exigent reduction measures in case of severe air pollution. The specific measures include the following: integrate relevant measures to maintain the car parc fewer than 6 million; replace coal with clean energies like electricity and natural gas, and decrease the total amount of coal consumption sharply; give strong support to public transport, so as to bring the electric railway mileage to 660 kilometers in 2015; regulate small-sized polluting enterprises, reform and eliminate 1,200 contaminating enterprises by the end of 2016; and plant a million mu of forests by the end of 2016, spare no efforts expanding the area of vegetation and cover more than 60 percent of the total urban area in green by 2017.
(Source: People’s Daily Online)