Environmental commitments

After special environmental inspections by the top environment watchdog exposed some serious issues, seven provincial-level governments including Beijing and Shanghai recently made public their rectification plans.

Most of them have set up a leading group with their top leader acting as the head to supervise the rectification work, and adopted a list system that sets out concrete responsibilities, remedial measures, specific targets and deadlines.

In its rectification program, for instance, Beijing published a list of 47 detailed tasks, including trying to control the intensity of PM2.5 in the atmosphere within 60 micrograms per cubic meter this year and reducing the PM2.5 intensity by 30 percent by 2020 from the 2015 level. It also vowed to keep its city-wide polluted water treatment ratio above 95 percent by the end of 2020.