Beijing to Tighten Vehicle Emission Standards

Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection, attends a press conference of the Fourth Session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) focusing on strenthening environmental protection in Beijing, capital of China, March 12, 2011. [Xinhua]

Beijing municipal government raised vehicle emission standards four times from standard I in 1999 to Standard IV in 2008. With each raise, pollutant amount from a singe vehicle dropped by 30 to 50 percent.

At the end of last year, in order to ease traffic congestion and improve the environment, the city decided to adopt a lottery system that limits new issued car license plates to 240,000 in 2011, about one third of the number registered in 2010.

In addition to imposing the emission standard V, the municipal government will strengthen dust suppression to improve the environment, said Zhang.

According to him, air quality in Beijing has improved relatively a lot in the last several years. In 2010, the number of days with air quality classified as excellent and good accounted for 78.4 percent of the whole year, an increase of 14.3 percent from 2005.

Zhang acknowledged that China currently uses an air-quality index that better fits developing countries but is less strict than the indexes used by developed countries.

He also said the government is drawing up a program to make sure Beijing and its surrounding regions work in concerted efforts to combat air pollution.

"We will implement the program stringently in the next five years. I believe that air quality in Beijing will improve significantly with the implementation (of the program)," he said.