Shanghai announced yesterday it will cut emissions from industry
by up to 90 percent over the next three years - a move that will
lessen the chance of acid rain developing.
It is also a key part of the city's ambition to reduce its
overall industrial emissions by 27 percent from 2006 to 2010.
This year's reduction target is two percent, double that of last
year.
Details on the levels of emission reduction were published
yesterday on the official Website of the Shanghai Environmental
Protection Bureau.
"Our target is to improve the city's air quality, for the sake
of people's health and climate change," Su Guodong, director of the
bureau's pollution control section, said.
He said local factories and power plants need to upgrade their
boilers over the next three years so that emissions, such as sulfur
dioxide, should be cut by up to 90 percent.
Different industries will have different emission targets - for
example the nitrogen dioxide emissions of coal-fired boilers will
have to be reduced by more than 50 percent.
Companies whose emissions do not meet the new standards will
receive an administrative punishment or may even lose their
production licenses from 2010.
Although no one knows exactly how many boilers are at work in
the city's industries, environmental bureau officials say their
emissions are a major pollution factor.
Boilers are essential for many industries from steel-making to
power generation and since they are heated by coal, gas or oil,
they all produce pollutants.
Su said the reduction of industrial emissions will lessen the
possibility of acid rain - a form of air pollution created when
oxides of sulfur and nitrogen combine with atmospheric
moisture.
Also this year, more than one third of the local bus fleet will
be upgraded to lessen their exhaust emissions - one of the major
pollutants affecting respiratory health.
Several government departments, including the city's transport
and environmental authorities, will work together to supervise the
upgrade project and check on their effect, officials said
yesterday.
Some transport business insiders have suggested that bus
companies have been reluctant to pay the cost of upgrading their
older buses.
(Shanghai Daily August 3, 2007)