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Environment watchdog ‘under pressure’ to hit targets as Shanghai air quality worsens
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SHANGHAI’S air quality was worse last year than it was in 2014, the city’s environmental authority said in a report published yesterday.
Eight heavily polluted days (with an air quality index of 300-plus) were recorded in 2015, twice as many as in the previous year, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau said.
Similarly, the proportion of days on which the air was classed as good or excellent — indicated by an AQI reading of 100 or less — fell to 71 percent last year from 77 percent in 2014, it said.
The tiny PM2.5 particles remained the major pollutant, with their mean density rising slightly to 53 micrograms per cubic meter, from 52 a year earlier. The World Health Organization’s recommended safe level for PM2.5 is 10 micrograms per cubic meter over a 12-month period, while China’s equivalent standard is 35.
“The air quality in 2015 was within our expectations,” said Liu Dailing, deputy director of the bureau’s Total Pollution Emission Control Division.
“We saw a huge improvement in 2014 compared to 2013, and had predicted a slight fluctuation for 2015,” she said.
The high levels of pollution in the first two months of the year, as well as in December weighed on the final readings, she said.
Liu blamed the worst of the pollution on particles blown into Shanghai from northern and western China, and poor diffusion conditions within the city, which meant the smog lingered.
The Shanghai government earlier set a target to reduce the average annual PM2.5 density to 49.6 micrograms per cubic meter by 2017, representing a 20 percent drop from 2013 levels.
“There is a lot of pressure for us to meet the target,” Liu told Shanghai Daily.
“We will monitor the figures closely and continue to apply firm anti-pollution measures to achieve the goal,” she said.
While Shanghai has done well in recent years to reduce the use of coal and eliminate boilers fired by the fossil fuel, two of the major tasks for this year will be to cut emissions by cars and boats, and curb the volume of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) discharged by factories, Liu said.
More than 3,000 heavy-polluting enterprises are slated for closure over the next five years, while steps to control VOC output will be introduced in a further 2,000 companies in the petrochemical and paint industries, she said.
Despite the rise in the concentration of PM2.5 particles, the average density of their larger relation — PM10 — fell to 69 micrograms per cubic meter last year, from 71 a year earlier, the report said.
The full-year figure was within the national standard of 70 micrograms, though still significantly higher than the WHO’s recommended safe level of 20.
The average densities of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide were also both above the national standard, the report said.
The bureau’s law enforcement team handled 2,590 environmental law violations last year — up 34 percent from 2014 — and collected 173 million yuan (US$26.3 million) in fines, a rise of 68 percent from the previous year.
The “daily fine” policy introduced in late 2014 was applied to 12 companies last year, generating 6.9 million yuan. Companies are liable to pay a penalty if they fail to take pollution control measures after an initial inspection and warning.
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