China fast country to improve air quality: Report

Islamabad: China has become the world’s fastest country in improving air quality with a dramatic drop in the emissions intensity of major pollutants and carbon, said a report.

“China’s annual average PM 2.5 concentration and sulfur dioxide concentration have fallen by about 56 and 78 percent from 2013 to 2021, respectively, making China the country that has improved its air quality with the fastest speed in the world”, mentioned the report by Clean Air Asia (CCA), an international NGO that works for better air quality and healthier cities throughout Asia with its headquarters in Manila, the Philippines.

CCA released the report on China’s past decade of cleaner air and climate change at the China Blue Sky Forum 2022 via video link, assessing the air quality situation in 20 countries, including the US, the UK and Germany, as well as 17 other countries in Asia, such as China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Pakistan.

The report said air quality in mega cities covered in the analysis had generally improved over the past decade, particularly in East Asia. From 2018 to 2021, eight of the nine cities that saw their three-year moving average of PM 2.5 concentration drop by more than 10 percent were in East Asia and six of them were in China.