Beijing, neighbors to draft regional air pollution treatment plan

BEIJING - Beijing and its surrounding areas will draft a regional plan for air pollution prevention and treatment.

The blueprint, assigned to the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, will set goals for regional air quality by 2030, said Li Lixin, an official with the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, at an air pollution treatment seminar on Tuesday.

As core areas, Beijing, Tianjin municipality and Langfang, Baoding, Tangshan and Cangzhou cities in Hebei province, should take the lead in adopting unified pollution standards and emergency measures, said Li, who is in charge of coordinating pollution prevention.

The Ministry of Finance will spend 5.9 billion yuan ($967 million) on air pollution treatment in the region this year, she said.

Beijing and its possible co-host Zhangjiakou in Hebei are bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, an opportunity for air pollution treatment of the region.

In Beijing and surrounding areas, the density of PM 2.5, airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter, should fall by about 25 percent from 2012 levels by 2017, according to government plans.

Last year, the density of PM2.5 in Beijing and adjacent areas dropped 14.6 percent. In the first four months this year, the PM2.5 density fell 20 percent in the region over the same period last year.