Beijing Municipal Government continued giving a priority to environment protec tion in 2004, to fur ther the prevention and treatment of air quality and to push forward the environmental pollution control as well as ecological construction completely.

    Air Quality

Number of days with national standard or better air quality for the past several years

    In 2004, the number of days that air quality was equal to/above national standard in the urban area reached 229, 62.5% of the year. It increased by 14.4% than in 2000. SO2 density was up to the national standard for the first time in the last 20 years.

Air quality in Beijing (mg/m3)

    1. Prevention and Treatment Measures

Ji lin, Deputy Mayor of Beijing inspecting the smoke emission of city's heating boilers.

    Prevention and treatment of soot pollution

    In 2004, about 1000 coal-fueled boilers were converted to use clean energy. More than 80% of urban coal-fueled boilers weighing below 20 tons was converted. The total consumption of natural gas was 2.5 billion cubic meters. Heating coverage reached 87,770,000 square meters.

    Prevention and treatment of automobile pollution

    In 2004, second-phase emission standard was applied to new-licensed heavy gasoline vehicles and motorcycles. Fuel quality standard for local vehicles was developed and implemented.

    To strengthen the supervision of automobile emission

    As main index of vehicle emission, annual average of CO content was reduced to 2.0mg/m3,26% less than 2000.

    Prevention and treatment of dust pollution

    Environmental protection standard for construction site was revised to reinforce the monitoring and supervision of dust pollution, waste transporting leakage and open waste-burning, etc.

    More work was done to further the monitoring and super vision of cart sweeping, washing and dust-preventing spraying and artificial rainfall/ snowing.

    Prevention and treatment of industrial pollution

    To carry out specific inspections of key polluting units in field of metallurgy, construction materials and electricity, Standard for air pollutant emission of construction materials, smeltery and other industrial furnace was set and implemented. The list of most polluting 28 enterprises was publicized. The total pollutant emission reduction plan was urged to be implemented.

Special supervisors for air pollution employed from the public

    2. Environmental Economic Policy

Investment in Environment Protection

    During recent years, Beijing Municipal Government increased its investment on environment protection year by year and reached 14.08 billion yuan RMB in 2004.

    The municipal government has encouraged both corporation and individual to use clean energy through offering subsidy, doubling economic penalty, raising charge standard for pollutant emission, etc. These measures strengthened the environment protection of Beijing city and were very successful.

    Annually, the municipal government spends 400-600 million RMB as subsidies on coal-fuel boilers conversion. Water and electricity consumption taxation was exempted for the enterprises using new clean energy. Some other economic leverage is used to change the enterprise behavior, such as raising charge standard for SO2 emission.

    3. Local Standard for Pollutant Emission

    Since 1998, Beijing Municipal Government developed 18 local standards which were based on and even stricter than national standards. They are Beijing's Standard for WasteGas Emission, Comprehensive Standard for Boiler Pollutant Emission, Pollutant Emission Standard for Gasoline Steady Loading, and Standard for Waste Gas Pollutant Emission of Automobile Fuel, and so on. The implementation of above standards greatly improved the speed of environment protection and offered a great support for hosting Olympic Games in 2008.

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