Caixin Weekly | Air Quality Standards Revised Again (AI Translation)

财新周刊｜空气质量标准再修订

In February 2025, Li Tianwei, Director of the Atmospheric Environment Department at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, announced that work to revise China’s Ambient Air Quality Standards (the “air quality standards”) began in 2022, with significant progress made in areas including health impact assessments and revision of concentration limits. This was the government’s first public update on revising these standards, which have been previously updated in 1982, 1996, 2000, and 2012. The 2012 version notably included PM2.5 for the first time, following strong public demand prompted by growing awareness of the health risks of fine particulate pollution. These standards are central to evaluation, regulation, societal oversight, and industry mobilization for air quality management, having played a leading role over the past decade in China’s notable improvements in air pollution control. [para. 1][para. 2][para. 3][para. 4]

Under the 2012 standards, the annual average PM2.5 concentration for compliance was set at 35 µg/m³, corresponding to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first interim target. By 2024, China’s national average PM2.5 dropped to 29.3 µg/m³, remaining below the standard for five consecutive years. Out of 339 prefecture-level-and-above cities, almost 75% have reached the standard, with half of these cities recording annual PM2.5 averages below 25 µg/m³. Beijing saw its annual average drop to 30.5 µg/m³ by 2024, compared to 89.5 µg/m³ in 2013, and maintained compliance for four straight years. [para. 5][para. 6][para. 7][para. 9][para. 12]

Despite remarkable national improvements, challenges remain. Certain central and western regions, such as Jianghan Plain and Sichuan Basin, experienced local reversals—PM2.5 levels in some cities increased by 8.5-30.8% from 2020 to 2023. The Ministry continues to target key regions with focused actions, with the latest national plan aiming to further lower PM2.5 in the Yangtze River Delta and keep Beijing under 32 µg/m³. These gains have not hindered economic development, as seen in examples like Tangshan, a steel-producing city whose economic output continued rising alongside air quality improvements. [para. 15][para. 16][para. 17][para. 18][para. 21][para. 22]

China’s air quality standards are critical legal and administrative tools, setting binding pollutant limits based on risk assessments and technical feasibility. Previous tightening of the standards initially left the majority of cities out of compliance, but policies and action plans—like the “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” (“Ten Plan for Air”)—spurred substantial reductions in PM2.5. From 2013 to 2020, average urban PM2.5 concentrations fell from 50 to 33 µg/m³, and cities in compliance rose from 3 in 2013 to 252 by 2024. [para. 8][para. 10][para. 11][para. 12][para. 13][para. 14]

Looking ahead, the rapid gains from end-of-pipe interventions have plateaued, pointing to the need for structural changes in energy, industry, and transport, as well as coordination with climate change (“dual carbon”) policies. Scientific consensus and WHO guidelines suggest even low concentrations of PM2.5 cause health harms, with recent research linking air pollution not just to respiratory and cardiovascular disease, but also to metabolic and neurodegenerative illnesses. The most recent WHO air quality guideline set the annual PM2.5 limit at a stringent 5 µg/m³—much lower than China’s current standard. [para. 23][para. 24][para. 25][para. 26][para. 27][para. 28][para. 29][para. 30]

A January 2024 report from leading Chinese institutions advocated raising standards progressively: tightening to 25 µg/m³ before 2025, 15 µg/m³ by 2035, and 10 µg/m³ by 2050. Such changes would yield major public health benefits, but would also increase compliance pressure for many localities, reiterating that standards revision guides the direction for progress rather than immediate compliance. Government officials echo that revised standards should be ambitious yet attainable, balancing health, feasibility, and economic considerations, and not imposing unrealistic burdens on cities. [para. 31][para. 32][para. 33][para. 34][para. 35][para. 36][para. 37][para. 38][para. 39][para. 40][para. 41][para. 42][para. 43][para. 44][para. 45][para. 46]