New amendments to the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law passed by the National People’s Congress aim to combat harmful air emissions at their source by holding both polluters and governments accountable.
The amendments, passed in August and effective 1 January 2016, overhaul the previous revision. They nearly twice expand the law and introduce new chapters on attainment plans for achieving air pollution goals, joint prevention and control in key regions and counter measures to incidents of heavy pollution. Key regions are to establish early warning systems for heavy pollution. Neither the key regions nor a definition for heavy pollution have yet been stipulated.
