Hebei Province is home to a number of highly polluting heavy industries such as steel, cement and coal power. (Photo : www.theguardian.com)
Beijing and Tianjin, two of the five national central cities in China, carried out actions to reduce air pollution in four cities in Hebei.
According to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, four cities in Hebei--Langfang, Baoding, Tangshan and Cangzhou--are set to receive financial and advanced technological support from Beijing and Tianjin.
Langfang and Baoding will be handled by Beijing, while Tangshan and Cangzhou will be attended by Tianjin.
Six other cities in Hebei will also be supported to establish a centralized emergency response system to deal with heavy air pollution as well as forecast heavy smog and excecute emergency response measures, the environmental committee said.
The project will be based from the information gained from the 26th annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering held in Beijing in Nov. 2014, wherein strong collective measures were adopted by the local governments of Beijing and Tianjin, along with the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to enhance air quality.
The move of the provinces caused the suspension of more than 14,000 factories and 40,000 construction sites proven to have caused pollution in the country.
Exhaust emissions and coal consumption, the amount of straw burned by farmers, industrial overcapacity, emissions of volatile organic compounds and pollution at ports in the country will also be cut down this year, according to reports.
"Seven of the 10 Chinese cities with the worst air pollution are in Hebei, but the province is making efforts to take at least Langfang off the list this year," an official of the environmental committee said on Wednesday.
In a research performed by the committee, 28 to 36 percent of PM2.5--an air pollutant that generally comes from activities that burn fossil fuels such as driving, smelting and metal processing--in the atmosphere of Beijing comes from surrounding areas, including Hebei.
Currently, air pollution is one of the major problems in China. It has caused diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, acute and chronic respiratory symptoms, and even death for the past years.
