中国仅三个城市空气质量达标

An archipelago known for its Buddhist temples, the Tibetan capital and a seaside city known for corrupt real estate deals, are the only three cities in China to meet national air quality standards, in a stark illustration of how pervasive pollution has become in the world’s most populous country.

中国只有三个城市达到国家空气质量标准，一个是以佛教寺庙出名的群岛城市舟山，一个是西藏省会拉萨，还有一个是以房地产腐败窝案闻名的滨海城市海口，凸显了世界人口第一大国污染现象有多普遍。

Unrelenting smog – including a week-long stretch last month of “hazardous” air in Beijing – has become a focus for public discontent, particularly in prosperous urban areas. Last week, Li Keqiang, China’s premier, told the annual meeting of the country’s legislature that his government would wage “war on pollution”.

弥漫不散的雾霾已成了引发群众不满的一大问题，尤其是在城市居民中间。上个月，北京曾连续一周被笼罩在“有害”雾霾之下。中国总理李克强上周在人大会议上表示，中国政府将“向污染宣战”。

Haikou, the capital of sub-tropical Hainan Island, Zhoushan – an archipelago just south of Shanghai that consists of 1,390 islands and 1.1 million people – and Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, were the only three to meet national standards in a survey of 74 of the nation’s largest cities, vice-minister of environmental protection Wu Shaoqing told journalists at the wekend.

环境保护部副部长吴晓青在周末的记者会上说，去年全国实施新空气质量标准的74个城市中，仅有拉萨、海口、舟山三个城市完全达标。拉萨是西藏省会，海口是海南岛省会，处于亚热带地区，舟山在上海以南，由1390座岛屿组成，有110万人口。

Of the 10 worst cities, seven were in Hebei, the industrial province that rings Beijing where winter pollution levels regularly go off the scale.

而在空气质量相对较差的前10个城市中，有7个在河北省，河北是将北京环抱在内的工业大省，冬季污染指数频频爆表。

Last year, China issued a plan to cut emissions and polluting steel capacity in the populous east – particularly in Hebei – while encouraging more coal and industrial development in the poor and arid west of the country.

去年中国公布了一项计划，决定在人口密集的东部地区（尤其是河北）减少污染物排放，压减钢铁产能，同时鼓励煤矿和工业向西部贫瘠落后地区发展。

Hebei officials have hastened to demonstrate their commitment by inviting state television to film the detonation of steel mills and cement plants. But steel industry officials say most of these blown up were already closed due to high debt levels and poor profitability, throwing doubt over any long-term impact on pollution levels.

河北省官员为表明决心，匆忙邀请国家电视台拍摄了他们引爆钢厂和水泥厂的场景。但据钢铁业官员表示，多数被爆破的工厂早已由于债务沉重、效益差而倒闭，令人质疑这种举动对降低污染水平是否有长远作用。

Sixteen of Hebei’s 148 steel plants have closed for economic reasons, provincial governor Zhang Qingwei said on Friday, allowing Hebei to meet its closure targets sooner than required. Mr Li said in his address to the legislature that the national target of shuttering 60m tonnes of steel capacity by 2017 would be met one year earlier than originally planned.

河北省省长张庆伟在上周五表示，河北省有148座钢厂，其中16座已因经济原因关闭，河北省能够提早达到关停目标。到2017年，河北将压减6000万吨钢铁产能。李克强在人大会议作政府工作报告时表示，将确保提前一年完成淘汰落后产能的任务。

The central government has attempted for many years to regulate pollution and industrial overcapacity by mandating shutdowns, an approach that tends to backfire as industrial bosses frantically expand to create plants too big to fail.

中央政府多年来试图通过行政命令，强制企业关停工厂，以控制污染和工业产能过剩问题，但结果往往适得其反，企业主们为防止工厂因规模小被关闭，疯狂地扩建工厂。

An environmental tax could be considered at the annual session of the legislature, under way this week. Changes to China’s 1989 environmental protection law are undergoing a third round of revisions, Mr Wu said: “We believe the biggest part to be revised is how to fix the problem that the cost of polluting is low while the cost of mitigating it is high.”

本周人大会议可能考虑立法开征环境税。中国正在对1989年环境保护法进行第三轮修改，吴晓青说：“这次修改的亮点，就是解决违法成本低、守法成本高问题。”

For many Chinese cities, part of the problem is that local polluters are often the biggest taxpayers and employers, or have tight ties to local governments. Most of the 10 best cities cited by Mr Wu are on the coast, where sea breezes clear the air.

中国许多城市面临的一个问题是，污染排放企业通常是当地纳税和就业大户，或是与地方政府有紧密联系的企业。吴晓青所说的10个空气质量相对较好的城市大多在沿海地区，海风能净化空气。