Better air quality days by 2025, city's ecology bureau says

Residents in Shanghai will enjoy more days with good air quality and a better ecological environment by 2025, the city's bureau of ecology and environment said.

The goal is to achieve an annual average concentration of PM2.5 in Shanghai below 35 micrograms per cubic meter, and a stable air quality index (AQI) of about 85 percent (equivalent to over 300 days with good air quality in a year).

The bureau aims to sharply boost 20 indicators in three categories in its new Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), including ecological environment quality, ecological environment governance, and green and low-carbon development.

Apart from improving air quality, the bureau will also focus on enhancing the capacity for pollution control.

Shanghai will build a national model city for waste classification and resource utilization. By 2025, the recycling rate of household waste will reach over 45 percent.

More than 60 percent of the main river's cross-section water quality will reach, or be better than, Class-III, and the water quality rate of coastal waters will be stabilized at about 14 percent.

Over 95 percent of contaminated land and farmland will be safely used, according to the plan.

The city will extend coverage of its urban sewage pipe network, and promote the construction of 50 ecologically clean small watersheds in streets and towns, enabling more than 40 percent of urban built-up areas to meet the requirements of the sponge city.

Also, there will be more parks and forests in the city.

Shanghai will build a ring-corridor forest area and ecological corridors, involving an increase of 240,000 mu (16,000 hectares) in forests, over 1,000 kilometers of greenways, and an additional 600 parks, resulting in the forest coverage rate exceeding 19.5 percent and per capita green areas hitting 9.5 square meters.

Furthermore, according to the plan, the bureau will help Shanghai become more "green" in manufacture and lifestyle, meaning the city will switch to low-carbon mode in the near future.

China has adopted a plan to bring its emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060. Shanghai has pledged to accomplish the targets earlier.

According to the bureau, energy consumption will become cleaner with lower use of coal and higher consumption of gas over the next five years.

By 2025, the city's total coal consumption will drop to about 30 percent of primary energy consumption, and natural gas consumption will increase to about 17 percent.