Beijing breathes easier as smog starts to clear

The notorious smog that blights Beijing improved sharply in the first quarter this year as measures to curb air pollution took effect, according to Chinese data collated by environmental group Greenpeace.

Many other big cities recorded similar falls in pollution but elsewhere in the country air quality remains extremely poor and could worsen as government measures to move heavy industry into poorer regions take effect.

Noxious air in many parts of China has become a political liability that the government has sought to counter with targets and policies aimed at reducing industrial and vehicle emissions in the most populous and prosperous centres.

Last month, a documentary critical of China's air pollution racked up 150m views on one website alone before being pulled from domestic video platforms the same week as a national political meeting in Beijing.

Concentration of PM2.5 fine particle pollution improved by 13 per cent in Beijing in the first three months of the year compared with the first quarter of 2014, while in Hebei, the steelmaking province that rings Beijing, PM2.5 fell by 31 per cent. Data for the central and western areas, which showed the heaviest pollution in the first quarter, could not be compared with the year before.

PM2.5 levels rose about 13 per cent in Shanghai, where smog is increasingly becoming a complaint among wealthier urban residents. Steel production data show that a portion of steel output has shifted southward as Beijing's curbs closed capacity in the north.

"Our expectation is that PM2.5 in coastal cities will gradually improve but this will be offset if not overtaken by ever-increasing PM2.5 in China's central and western cities," said Zhang Kai, Beijing-based climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace.

The Chinese government in 2013 published an air pollution control plan to cut smog in the country's three most prosperous regions - Beijing and surrounding areas, the Yangtze river delta including Shanghai, and the Pearl river delta, the country's main export manufacturing base.

The plan, which promotes coal-intensive industry in the poor and arid hinterland, has been given added political clout by China's commitments to ensure a peak in its carbon emissions by 2030.

China's coal use dipped in 2014 amid slowing economic growth, a rise in hydroelectric power capacity and relatively mild weather, which reduced the need for air conditioning in the summer and coal to heat homes in winter.

Other signs point to weather playing a strong role in the new data. Beijing has already experienced several sandstorms this spring, thanks to the relatively warm and snow-free winter, which has caused soil in surrounding regions to dry out.

In Mongolia, China's neighbour to the north, air pollution in the capital Ulan Bator also improved this winter, the warmest in 50 years, according to Sonomdagva Chonokhuu, an environmental scientist at the National University of Mongolia.

"The government tends to explain it's because of their efforts, like introducing cleaner coal-burning stoves, but actually our research indicates it's because of the temperature," he said.

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