China fights pollution, summoned to report the mayors with little virtue

China is moving towards more sustainable policies to preserve the environment. The quality of air, especially in the north of China, is a recurring problem in the Asian country. 

A responsibility that starts from the top of the government to the mayors. 

China’s environment ministry has summoned the mayors of six northern cities to a meeting in Beijing to account for their failures to meet winter targets to cut smog. The cities named by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment were Baoding and Langfang in the steel heartland of Hebei province, as well as Luoyang, Anyang and Puyang in neighbouring Henan and Jinzhong in Shanxi. 

Inspectors found the city of Langfang in particular had «significantly reduced its focus and significantly relaxed its work requirements» when it came to fighting smog, it said. 

According to Reuters calculations based on official data the worst performer over the winter was Anyang, with average concentrations of hazardous small particles known as PM2.5 hitting 111 micrograms per cubic metre, 27 per cent higher than a year earlier. All the cities apart from Jinzhong saw a double-digit rise in PM2.5 levels during the compliance period, when most of northern China was under pressure to cut emissions, with the concentrations rise 4.5% over the period. 

The city of Anyang had failed to make enough progress to optimise and restructure its steel sector and law enforcement was not sufficiently strict; Jinzhong had also failed to properly coordinate its anti-smog efforts 

The minister now demands more investments and checks from the mayors, demanding results in the war on smog. 

Instead, bucking for the first time Hebei province, the large territory surrounding the two metropolitan cities of Beijing and Tianjin and China’s biggest steel producing region 

The Hebei Ecology and Environment Bureau said that in May Hebei’s average concentration of lung-damaging small particles, known as PM2.5, stood at 33 micrograms per cubic metre. It was the first time that Hebei’s monthly average fell below the interim standard of 35 micrograms since China began measuring PM2.5 in 2013, the bureau said.