Air quality in May around the country was slightly worse than it was in the same period last year, with air quality in the Yangtze River Delta deteriorating the most, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). The number of days in May with good air quality for the 25 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region was only 18 out of the total of 31－five days fewer than in May of last year. Of the six major pollutants that are included in the calculation of air quality, only the readings for carbon monoxide were unchanged compared with the 2013 figures for the region. Concentrations of the five others－PM2.5; PM10; sulfur dioxide; nitrogen dioxide; and ozone－all increased. “Stronger sunshine, warmer temperatures and burning straw in the region are the three major reasons for the area’s apparently deteriorated air quality,” said an official from the Ministry who requested anonymity. Nanjing, Changzhou and Zhenjiang, all in Jiangsu province in the Yangtze River Delta region, were among the top 10 cities with the worst air quality in May. The 13 cities from the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei cluster had slightly better air quality in May compared with figures from May last year, with three additional days with good air. The situation for the nine cities from the Pearl River Delta region was virtually unchanged.

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has set up an environment and resources tribunal to hear complex environmental disputes and solve increasingly severe pollution problems. In environmental cases, it can be hard to identify those responsible, damage can have been caused over a long period and both the environment and local residents can be affected. Compared with environment and resources tribunals at the local level, legal experts expect the top court’s tribunal to involve different functions, such as providing guidelines to the local tribunals and hearing individual environmental cases. “The most important tasks for this tribunal should be researching and drafting relevant legal explanations, releasing typical case studies and providing instructions to lower-level tribunals on complicated cases,” Wang Mingyuan, Environmental Law Professor at Tsinghua University, said. The number of local environmental courts has reached more than 130 nationwide since 2007. Once the tribunal under the SPC is set up, more environmental tribunals could be introduced at local level. Out of about 11 million lawsuits heard by courts nationwide every year, only 30,000 were related to the environment.

Aerial drones have uncovered illegal emissions by some of the largest industrial companies in north China. A unit of Hebei Iron & Steel Group, Shanxi Huaze Aluminum & Power; and Inner Mongolia Yihua Chemical were found to have “serious environmental problems”, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on its website. Data gathered by the drones indicated a quarter of the 254 businesses targeted might be involved in illegal practices. The use of drones to enforce pollution laws followed trial monitoring from November to February in Hebei province. Drones equipped with thermal infrared cameras covered 1,000 square kilometers across the regions of Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia in the second half of June. The MEP said it would follow up with on-the-ground inspections to ensure companies halted illegal emissions. The use of unmanned aircraft means that companies secretly discharging pollutants at night or at weekends would find no place to hide, Xinhua reported, citing Chen Shanrong, Deputy Director of Environmental Supervision at the Ministry.

The governments of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province – known also as Jing-Jin-Ji – agreed on the need to tackle the region’s chronic air pollution, but are using different approaches. “Tackling air pollution is a focus of the plan,” said Laurence Brahm, Chief Adviser on environmental economic policy to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) under the European Union dialogue program on climate change. After rolling out their own plans to cut emissions, the three local governments also agreed that the solution required a concerted joint approach. A coordinating committee was set up in October to lead the anti-pollution campaign. Co-chaired by a Vice Mayor of Beijing and a Vice Minister of Environmental Protection, the group’s main task is to provide joint forecasts on severe smog across the region and coordinate emergency responses when it occurs. Initial results have been promising, as in the first three months of this year, the average concentration of hazardous PM2.5 dropped by 9.5% in 13 cities in the Jing-Jin-Ji area compared to a year earlier. Levels of the larger PM10 dropped by 8.3%. President Xi Jinping “has tried to overcome the persistent barriers to integration and development of Jing-Jin-Ji by pressuring Beijing to outsource its polluting industries, moving some of its population to nearby satellite cities, and by focusing on clean and high value-added sectors,” Hongyi Lai, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Nottingham’s School of Contemporary Chinese Studies said. Beijing has long blamed nearby provinces for its worsening smog. According to the capital’s environmental bureau, about 25% of air pollution is carried by wind from nearby cities, in particular Baoding, Langfang and Tangshan. Official monitors say the biggest source of Beijing’s air pollution still comes from outside the city, beating local vehicle emissions, coal burning and industrial plants combined. Cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area have been ordered to cut PM2.5 levels by 25% by 2017 from 2012 levels.

The Chinese capital’s fine-particulate pollutant intensity is expected to drop to the internationally recognized safe level of no more than 35 micrograms per cubic meter in 16 years, Pan Tao of the Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection, said. “Improving air quality in the city is not going to be an easy task,” Pan said during the 2014 Beijing International Academic Symposium on Urban Environment in July. The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said that the intensity of PM2.5 in 2013 was 89.5 micrograms per cubic meter－still two and a half times above the standard. The Bureau’s recently released plan said the intensity of PM2.5 is to be reduced to 60 mg/cu m by 2017, which is still harmful to people’s health, but achieving the goal is challenging, Pan said. “The current pollution emission is far beyond the environmental capacity of the city, and any adverse climate condition would easily result in smoggy days,” he added. “The key to current air quality improvement lies in emission reduction.” Many companies in Beijing, especially those with coal-fired boilers and cement plants, have been fined for excessive smoke exhaust, lacking or having faulty emission-monitoring facilities and leaving coal dumps uncovered in the past few months, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said. The amount of sulfur dioxide in Beijing’s air has been reduced by 77% since 1998, while nitrogen dioxide has been cut by 30% and PM10 by 42%.