Bad news if you like breathing. In a surprising announcement from environmental authorities, Shanghai’s air quality has been revealed to have worsened last year with 2015 officially more polluted than 2014.
The city saw its number of heavily polluted days (with AQI over 300) double from four to eight over the course of the year, with the proportion of ‘good/excellent’ days (AQI under 100) falling from 77 percent in 2014 to 71 percent in 2015.
These figures come as a setback to the city’s progress on pollution after 2014 saw significant improvements on 2013’s record.
Earlier this month the World Health Organisation issued an official warning about global levels of air pollution in what it termed a “public health emergency”, saying health services risk being overwhelmed and governments left with serious financial burdens as a result.
1.4 million people die every year in China due to air pollution - that's 4,000 deaths every day - according to the UN, more than any other country in the world, it was reported in The Guardian. Globally there are now 3.3 million premature deaths from air pollution per year.
“The air quality in 2015 was within our expectations”, deputy director of the Total Pollution Emission Control Division Liu Dailing told Shanghai Daily. “We saw a huge improvement in 2014 compared to 2013, and had predicted a slight fluctuation for 2015.”
Environmental departments are under pressure to meet targets on pollution after the Shanghai government pledged to reduce the average annual PM2.5 density to 49.6 micrograms per cubic meter by 2017, a 20 percent drop from 2013 levels. Local authorities are taking steps such as banning all fireworks within the outer ring road in the name of combating air pollution.
China’s air pollution crisis was put under the spotlight last year by the documentary Under the Dome, a film which proved so popular the government decided to ban it from China’s cyberspace. You can still watch the documentary on YouTube – and find 10 things we learnt from the film on our website.