China will establish a nationwide standard for heavy air pollution, a top Chinese meteorological official told media during the country's two sessions.
"With the [rising] public attention to [air pollution], we will cooperate with environmental protection departments to establish a national standard on [the classification of] heavy smog. For example, the development of a unified air pollution standard in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is now underway," Zheng Guogang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, was quoted as saying by China Economic Weekly.
Monitoring of pollutants should be strengthened, while the country's numerical forecasting system should also be improved to provide accurate forecasts of heavy smog, Zheng said.
According to Zheng, China will have fully modernized the core of its meteorological system by the end of 2020.
"In the future, we will provide hourly forecasts, with a resolution that will reach 1 kilometer," Zheng said.
Zheng also called for the popularization of science to help the public understand smog and encourage them to protect the environment.
Severe air pollution has been a major concern for both China's government and its public. On December 7, Beijing issued its first-ever smog red alert, the highest in the city's four-tier warning system, banning half of the city's 5.57 million registered vehicles from roadways and closing up to 2,100 factories.
China also implemented the latest Environmental Protection Law in January 2015, imposing more stringent provisions for tackling smog.
