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April 2, 2015

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Home » Metro » Environment

End of the road for dirty vehicles

SHANGHAI’S air quality is getting worse due to rising vehicle emissions, the high number of construction projects and various meteorological factors, a senior official said yesterday.

In the first three months, the average density of PM2.5 pollutants — the tiny particles that are particularly hazardous to health — rose 14 percent from the equivalent period of last year to 66 micrograms per cubic meter, Vice Mayor Jiang Zhuoqing told a conference on pollution.

The increase was mostly due to dust from building sites, vehicle emissions and a “fluctuating climate,” Jiang said.

He did not elaborate on the climate reference.

In contrast, the air quality in neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in the first quarter improved by about 8 percent in terms of PM2.5 densities, Jiang said.

“The poor start to the year has made the situation quite difficult,” he said.

“But we must strive to achieve air quality levels of at least as good as last year and then move on from there,” he said.

Over the whole of last year, the average PM2.5 density in Shanghai fell 16 percent from 2013 to 52 micrograms per cubic meter.

While the decrease was rightly regarded as progress, the figure remained far above the World Health Organization’s recommended safe levels.

Despite the poor start to 2015, the government has set a target to reduce carbon emissions in the city by 8.7 million tons, or 2 percent, from last year, the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission said yesterday.

Meanwhile, coal consumption will be capped at 4 million tons, it said, without providing a comparative figure.

In a bid to meet those targets, 15 major state-owned enterprises in the electricity, steel and concrete sectors will be required to upgrade 39 of their facilities to help reduce carbon emissions.

The city government has set a deadline of July 1 for the completion of the work, Jiang said.

Before the end of the year, 150 industrial companies will have taken similar steps to upgrade their operations, he said.

A major program of denitrification is also under way at major coal-burning power plants. This is scheduled for completion in October, with an equivalent scheme set to cover all such facilities by 2017.

On the subject of traffic pollution, Jiang said that all high-polluting vehicles will be banned from Shanghai’s roads by the end of the year.

Despite restrictions introduced last year, which eliminated 172,000 such vehicles, about 90,000 are still in operation, he said.

The city government will also continue to promote the use of prefabricated structures to help reduce air pollution from construction sites he said, adding that more than half of all new buildings in the city this year will be prefabricated.

To help improve water quality in the city, more sewage pipelines will be built, Jiang said.

“Air and water quality are the top concerns of Shanghai citizens,” Vice Mayor Ai Baojun told the same conference.

Meanwhile, officials from Chongming said yesterday that it will become China’s first “green island,” by using only wind power to meet its electricity needs.

The island has five wind farms, which generated 268 gigawatts of electricity in 2014. By the end of this year they will have enough output to also supply other districts.

Since becoming operational, the wind farms have helped save 92,000 tons of coal and reduce carbon emissions by 239,200 tons, Shanghai Electric Power Co said.




 

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