The Ministry of Ecology and Environment held a regular press conference today (24th). A relevant person in charge of the Atmospheric Environment Department said at the meeting that the national environmental air quality will be stable and improving in 2024, and all annual goals and tasks of air pollution prevention and control have been successfully completed.

Relevant person in charge introduced that the national environmental air quality improvement will be large in 2024. The PM2.5 concentration was 29.3 micrograms per cubic meter, a year-on-year decrease of 2.7%; the proportion of excellent days was 87.2%, an increase of 1.7 percentage points year-on-year; the proportion of severe and above days was 0.9%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.7 percentage points, and the three binding indicators were all better than the annual target. Among them, Beijing has steadily reached the national second-level standard for four consecutive years, and "Beijing Blue" has gradually become the norm.

The six major regions, including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the northern slope urban agglomeration of Tianshan Mountains, the Chengdu-Chongqing region, the Fenwei Plain, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River urban agglomeration, and the Yangtze River Delta region, have a population and economic output of more than half of the country. The PM2.5 concentration has decreased by 3.4%, 13.4%, 10.8%, 4.8%, 4.4%, and 0.9% year-on-year respectively.

Li Tianwei, Director of the Atmospheric Environment Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment: 2025 is the final year of the "14th Five-Year Plan" goal tasks. We will focus on pollution control and emission reduction, accelerate the promotion of key tasks such as clean heating, ultra-low emission transformation, VOC (volatile organic compounds) pollution control, and mobile source pollution prevention and control, and comprehensively promote the green and low-carbon transformation of the industrial, energy and transportation structures.

(CCTV reporter Jiang Xiaoping and Yao Wenli)