Nearly 14,000 Companies in China Violate Pollution Rules
By EDWARD WONGJUNE 13, 2017
Environmental inspectors in northern China have found
that nearly 14,000 companies, or 70 percent of the businesses they examined, failed to meet environmental standards for controlling air pollution, according to a state news agency report.
The inspectors sent out by the environmental ministry have been looking at enterprises in what is known as the Jing-Jin-Ji area, a vast urban sprawl
that includes the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as Hebei Province.
The inspectors working for the Ministry of Environmental Protection came up with those results after
two months of work across 28 cities in northern China, said Xinhua, the state news agency.
The latest announcement said that of 467 enterprises inspected in one recent round, a staggering 350, or 75 percent, had
"environmental problems." The issues included lack of pollution control mechanisms and sewage treatment facilities.
But state-owned enterprises that burn coal — including those in the power, steel
and cement sectors — remain powerful and challenge official efforts to limit coal consumption.
China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has urged countries to abide by the Paris climate accord,
even though President Trump is withdrawing the United States, historically the largest emitter, from the accord.