No Improvement In N. China Air Quality; PM 2.5 Up 10% YOY For Jan-Sep 2017
BEIJING (Reuters) - Air quality in the Chinese capital and neighboring regions showed no improvement in September compared with last year, data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) showed on Saturday, despite a major campaign to fight pollution.
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Hebei province has sent out 1,400 inspectors to conduct environmental checks across the province since early September. Despite such moves, the concentration of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area remained at around 52 micrograms in September, the same as last year.
And the country’s PM2.5 levels have now increased by 10.3 percent to 64 micrograms per cubic meter in the first nine months of the year, making it more difficult for Beijing to meet its pledge to reduce the year’s average by at least 15 percent in 2017.
The data comes just a few weeks before northern China switches on heating, typically increasing levels of pollution as coal-fired heating plants ramp up output.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollution/north-china-air-quality-shows-no-improvement-from-last-september-idUSKBN1CX09T
