China faces difficulties in meeting its smog-fighting target for 2017, its environmental protection minister said during a visit to four heavily industrialized provinces in northern China, where the country’s air pollution problem is especially acute.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China faces difficulties in meeting its smog-fighting target for 2017, its environmental protection minister said during a visit to four heavily industrialized provinces in northern China, where the country’s air pollution problem is especially acute.
China has pledged to cut average concentrations of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 by more than 15 percent in the coming winter months from a year earlier in 28 northern cities.
“Currently the air pollution control work is challenging and complex,” Li Ganjie, minister of environmental protection, said during a tour earlier this week to Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan provinces, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website on Wednesday.
He said air quality has fluctuated, with some areas seeing a significant slowdown in improvement, and even a worsening.
“The completion of the annual targets for air quality control faces huge difficulties,” Li said.
