Beijing Ramps up Pollution Fight, Challenges Remain

Tough measures by Beijing municipal authorities in the city's uphill battle to improve air quality are set to bring profound changes in urban transportation and industrial production.

The Beijing municipal government outlined in early September its efforts to tackle air pollution on multiple fronts over the next four years.

The Beijing 2013-2017 Clean Air Action Plan is aimed at a 25 percent reduction by 2017 in the density of airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, or PM 2.5 that many blame for causing the city's smog.

To achieve this goal, authorities set some ambitious targets in the plan. Among them, the city seeks to cap growing automobile ownership and wean itself off coal.

"Cleaning up Beijing's air is likely to cost the entire society nearly one trillion yuan (US$163 billion) in the next five years, and government investment is likely to be 200 to 300 billion yuan," said Fang Li, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, on Monday at a press conference about the action plan.

According to the plan, automobile ownership in Beijing will be capped at 6 million by the end of 2017. The city already had 5.35 million cars on the road at the end of July of this year, contributing to 22.2 percent of PM 2.5 density in Beijing through exhaust fumes.

At present, only 20,000 car license plates are distributed each month to prospective car buyers under a lottery scheme to curb car growth. The quota is set to shrink further if Beijing wants to cap cars at 6 million by 2017, leaving more aspiring car buyers waiting hopelessly.

Authorities have also limited the number of cars traveling on the road based on the last digits of license plates to ease traffic gridlock, a problem transport authorities say often goes hand in hand with air pollution.

"When traveling speeds slow to 20 km per hour from 25, the pollutants discharged from cars increase 20 percent," said municipal transport spokesman Rong Jun.H While such measures run contrary to the wishes of residents to own and drive cars, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport says they are at the center of the city's effort to curb air pollution -- an effort that has produced marked effects.

Rong said that by parking 900,000 cars each day, the city managed to reduce 42,000 tons of car emissions in 2012.

To counter the inconvenience caused by these restrictions, the commission also promised to increase use of public transport and promote vehicles powered by alternative and clean energy.

Industrial production in and around the nation's capital is also likely to undergo profound changes as the action plan leaves energy-guzzling factories to either upgrade to fuel-efficient and clean production or shut down.

A consensus has emerged that air quality in the nation's capital will not improve unless Beijing's neighbors join the fight. Industrial activities in neighboring regions, home to a number of steel plants, are a major culprit in Beijing's increasingly unhealthy air.

In a more coordinated move to combat air pollution, the governments of Beijing's neighboring regions recently signed an agreement with the Ministry of Environmental Protection on what they will do to mitigate the environmental impact of local industrial production.

Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province has vowed to phase out 60 million tons of steel production capacity and slash coal consumption by 40 million tons by 2017. A similar but smaller cut will also be enforced in Beijing, where coal consumption has dropped continuously in the past decade to 2.3 million tons last year and is expected to be more than halved by 2017.

Hebei's cuts will likely take a heavy toll on the province's economic growth, as steelmaking has been the region's pillar industry. Worsening air pollution is forcing the province to accelerate a transition toward other environmentally friendly industries.

"Both Beijing and Hebei are under tremendous pressure to meet the coal reduction targets, but we are resolved to make it against all odds," said Gao Xinyu, head of the division of energy development at the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.