SOHO chair calls for tighter air quality control

With smog blanketing Beijing, a growing group?leading by?China's real estate tycoon, call for using tighter monitoring standards to rein in Beijing's air pollution.

Heavy fog shrouded the capital city on Oct. 21.

Pan Shiyi, chairman of SOHO China, one of the largest developers in Beijing, initiated a public voting on his micro-blogging space to urge the authorities to use PM2.5, a different reading from the American Embassy to gauge finest particles in air, to check Beijing's air quality.

On last Sunday, the U.S. embassy's monitor rated Beijing's air as "hazardous" as thick smog blanketed the city, while official Chinese measurements said the pollution was "slight."

Beijing's meteorological authorities has been using PM10, which measures only coarser particles, to track the city's air pollution.

Both sources defended their stances by saying that the difference was not manipulated but was the result of different measurements.

More than 21,203 people, about 95 percent of the voters who responded to Pan's initiative, agreed "the authorities would adopt PM2.5 measurement this year," four percent of the respondents believed "it can wait until next year" while only 1 percent opted for "there is no need for PM2.5 measurement."

Experts say it is a worldwide trend to adopt PM2.5 measurement to check air quality and it is only a matter of time for Beijing to follow suit.

"Only when the state issues strong standards, the rules will be enforced by municipalities," Pan said. "And only when people have the knowledge of the air quality around them, will they change unhealthy behaviors."

Pan said he would wait a week to see the result of the voting and submit it to the Minister of Environmental Protection for policy consultation.