Some local governments are not fighting hard enough to combat pollution, China’s environment ministry said on Thursday, as Beijing prepares to launch a tough new winter campaign to curb smog and meet politically crucial air quality targets, Reuters reports. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said last week it would step up efforts to bring smog under control this winter and force as many as 28 northern cities to reduce concentrations of hazardous particles by at least 15% compared with 2016 in the coming months. The MEP’s 143-page battle plan is part of a year-long campaign launched in April to ensure that the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region meets targets set in 2013 to improve air quality. But the ministry said that some local government bodies were not pulling their weight. It said that out of more than 38,000 enterprises that have been inspected in the region since April, 57% were found to have “problems.”
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