China's PM2.5 air pollution fell 23.6 percent last year from 2013 due mainly to the government's efforts to upgrade industries, according to a report.
Last year, the average level of PM2.5 was 55 micrograms per cubic meter in 74 major cities, a drop of 23.6 percent from 72mg per cubic meter in 2013, said a report by the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The 74 cities suffered a combined 238 days of severe air pollution in 2015, down 49.9 percent in 2014 and 63.7 percent in 2013.
The reduction of coal consumption has contributed 21.2 percent to the drop of PM2.5 from 2013 to 2015, the report said.
From 2014 to 2015, more than 2,000 coal plants were closed, and the whole industry shrank by nearly one quarter in terms of number of companies. Last year, the total production of coal in China fell 3.3 percent from 2014 to 3.8 billion tons.
Industrial upgrading also helped cut 21.2 percent in the level of PM2.5, the report said. Last year, output in the advanced technology sector grew 10.2 percent, higher by 4.1 percent of all industries in China. Meanwhile, the use of clean energy helped upgrade the energy consumption structure, with the output of new-energy vehicles reaching 500,000 last year.
