China’s State Council has published an action plan to improve air quality, as reported by Reuters on December 7. By 2025, China plans to reduce the density of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 by 10% on 2020 levels and keep the number of days with severe pollution to less than 1%. To achieve these goals, the action plan proposed a series of measures, including “strict and reasonable” control over coal use, limitations on high-emission projects, and the development of a low-carbon transport system. In addition, it set out specific targets of reducing coal consumption in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas by 10% by 2025 from 2020 levels, and a 5% reduction for the Yangtze River Delta region. As China’s major clusters of economic activity, these regions have the highest coal consumption and air pollution levels.

This is China’s third-ever national-level plan to improve air quality. The first two plans, released in 2013 and 2018, had achieved a 57% reduction in China’s average PM2.5 density and a 93% decrease in the number of heavy pollution days from 2013 to 2022. However, following the recovery of industrial activities after the pandemic, China’s air pollution levels are rebounding. As of October, the average percentage of days with “good” air quality in cities was 85.1% this year, 1.2 percentage points down from the previous year. Meanwhile, the percentage of heavy pollution days and average PM2.5 density have both increased, indicating the need for renewed efforts to combat air pollution.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-issues-action-plan-improve-air-quality-2023-12-07/

http://english.www.gov.cn/policies/latestreleases/202312/08/content_WS65724f25c6d0868f4e8e1fcb.html

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1014252