January 2013 was a month of reckoning for the Chinese government. Beijing was enveloped in a thick, apocalyptic smog. The concentration of PM 2.5 touched 755 micrograms per cubic metre (g/m³) — 30 times higher than the WHO-prescribed daily average limit of 25 g/m³. This forced the government to announce a $277-billion (a tenth of the current Indian economy) plan to cut pollution across the country by the end of 2017. The capital city was expected to reduce average annual PM 2.5 concentration by a third and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area by a quarter and so on.

To achieve these targets, new coal-fired plants around Beijing and some other cities were banned and existing ones were asked to cut emissions. Iron and steel plants were asked to limit production and some cities were made to take high-emission vehicles off the roads. The plan had its desired effect. In 2017, PM 2.5 concentration in Beijing, which had set aside another $120 billion to tackle pollution, was below 60 g/m³ as targeted, a decline of 32% from 2013, according to a study by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, the reduction was 36%, and in Shanghai and Guangzhou, 41% and 38%, respectively.

Continue Reading at The Economic Times…