空气质量专项督查(kōngqì zhìliàng zhuānxiàng dūchá): Special air quality inspections

To curb the ever deteriorating air pollution in North China, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has been carrying out special air quality inspections since Wednesday.

Minister of Environmental Protection Chen Jining and four vice-ministers are leading the inspection teams, and the special inspection work will last one month.

Local authorities face great challenges controlling the air pollution. Therefore, the main goals of these special inspections are to inspect local authorities' implementation of air pollution control measures, their air pollution emergency response, the cleaning up of coal-fired boilers, as well as clamping down on enterprises' illegal emissions.

The ministry is carrying out the inspections in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei province and the surrounding areas.

The ministry's special inspections have exposed problems such as the local authorities failing to take effective air pollution emergency measures and failing to achieve their expected emissions reduction goals. The inspections have also found some serious air pollution problems in some enterprises, especially illegal emissions.