As smog continues to cover the airspace of Beijing and other cities of China as result of environmental pollution, the country's Premier, Mr Li Keqiang has announced a wide range of measures at the opening of the country's parliamentary session to find a solution to the hazard. For sometime now residents of Beijing have to use nose masks to avoid effects of the smog.
Worried about the situation, China's President, Mr Xi Jinping recently stepped on the streets of the capital to mingle with the people to show that authorities were concerned about the matter.
Opening the Second Session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), Premier Li acknowledged that the smog, which was affecting larger parts of the country, had become a major problem.
He described the situation as"nature's red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development".
Mr Li gave assurance that strong measures would be taken to strengthen pollution prevention and control.
"We will improve the new mechanism of involving government, enterprises and the general public , coordinate prevention and control efforts in affected regions and fully implement the action plan for preventing and controlling air pollution", he said.
This year alone, 50,000 small coal-fired furnaces would be shut down while the government plans to carry out desulphurisation in coal-burning power plants with production capacity of 15 million kilowatts, denitrification in plants with 130 million kilowatts of production capacity and removal in those with 180 million of production capacity.
In addition, 6 million old high emission vehicles would be removed from roads while diesel fuel for vehicles that met fourth-stage national standards would be provided nationwide.
Mr Li stated that China would also implement the clean water action plan, strengthen the protection of sources of drinking water, prevent and control water pollution in key river basins and carry out land restoration.
"We will declare war against pollution and fight it with the same determination we battled poverty", he declared.
In addition, the country aims at carrying out the project to convert marginal farmland back to forests and grassland since ecological conservation and environmental protection would benefit future generations.
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