Local governments face most scrutiny in environmental inspections

The 2014 special environmental inspection of how laws are being enforced will focus on airborne pollution prevention and control, water pollution caused by key industries, and correction of problems discovered in previous inspections, according to a teleconference attended by officials from eight ministries in Beijing on Thursday.

The uppermost area of inspection for airborne pollution control will target local governments, said Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian.

"The inspection will evaluate how local governmental officials have made up their annual plans and carried them out, including plans on measures to cut energy consumption, desulfurize, remove polluting motor vehicles from the roads and control total coal consumption within the region," said Zhou.

The State Council has decided to remove 6 million old cars from the streets this year. Target details were sent to 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in May.

More than 40 percent of the old cars will disappear from roads in the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province cluster, the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region — the places with the worst air quality.

The latest research has shown that pollutants generated by motor vehicles account for 31.1 percent of all sources of PM2.5 — particulates smaller than 2.5 microns that can penetrate the lungs and harm health — in Beijing, and 25.8 percent in Shanghai.

About 50 percent of the pollutants discharged by motor vehicles come from older ones, which account for only 10 percent of all cars, according to information provided by the ministry.

Zhou said experience has shown that the special environmental inspection of law enforcement plays a vital part in improving environmental quality.

Last year, the proportion of water samples with relatively good quality coming from 10 key river basins increased by 2.7 percentage points compared with the figure from 2012. The proportion of water samples with the worst quality, on the other hand, dropped by 1.2 percentage points, said Zhou.

He said the annual PM2.5 concentration in 74 major cities also decreased by 7.5 percent last year compared with 2012.