What they say

Editor's Note: The Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China invited representatives of CPC members in ecology and environment departments to meet journalists and answer questions about building a beautiful China on Wednesday.

Li Yunting, air quality monitor with the Beijing Municipal Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Center

It made me nervous to see that air pollutants kept fluctuating a few years ago. But I felt reassured with more clear days in recent years. There are many environment workers on the front line of emission reduction, monitoring and law enforcement. They work around the clock to help reduce pollutant concentrations microgram by microgram. Beijing's air quality has improved significantly since 2013, when the average annual PM2.5 level was close to 90 micrograms per cubic meter. By 2020 the number had decreased to 38. The proportion of clear days rose from less than 50 percent to 75 percent over the period. The sense of achievement my colleagues and I felt while doing year-end reviews on our work in recent years was like seeing rainbows after a heavy storm.