China's Largest Cities to Cleanse Air, Water
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
June 21, 2000
WASHINGTON, DC, June 21, 2000 (ENS) - The world's largest municipality, Chongqing, home to over 30 million people, and China's capital city of Beijing, with 12 million inhabitants, will now be able to improve their air and water quality with World Bank loans approved Tuesday.
China's reliance on low quality coal, the recent rapid population increase, and the growth of motor vehicles in the capital city of Beijing have taken their toll on this urban environment.
Urban Chongqing, located in southern China where the Yangtze River and the Jialing River meet, currently lacks a wastewater collection and disposal system.
The Beijing Municipal Government has started a clean air program to convert all small coal boilers and burners within the urban area to cleaner fuel, require all passenger cars to meet strict emission standards, and require the planting of vegetation to control dust.
The city government is also making efforts to alleviate air and water pollution in Beijing by converting the scattered coal fired boilers to natural gas boilers and promoting energy conservation heating systems.
In addition, the government is providing wastewater collection and treatment for the Liangshi River basin, which covers over a quarter of the city of Beijing.
To partially underwrite the Beijing Municipal Government's air and water quality improvement programs, and strengthen environmental management in Beijing, the World Bank Tuesday approved a US$349 million environment loan to China.
The Bank also approved a loan of $US200 million dollars to protect drinking water and provide wastewater management services to improve the environmental conditions in urban Chongqing.
The World Bank loan is supplemented by a US$25 million equivalent grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
"This project is designed to support one of the most significant programs of urban environmental improvement in the world," said urban economist, Songsu Choi, the project's task manager. "Beijing's new environmental improvement program and the project would attempt a swift reversal of the environmental deterioration."
If successful, the project and the other parallel actions would turn Beijing's air and water quality from that barely acceptable for industrial zones to ones that comply with World Health Organization guidelines.
According to the World Bank's Resident Mission in China, the Chongqing Urban Environment Project will work to raise the quality of life for people in Chongqing, Fuling, Wanzhou and Nanbin by supporting basic urban services of wastewater management.
The drinking water supplies in Chongqing and Fuling will be protected and the water supply will be increased to the nearby cities of Nanbin and Wanzhou.
In addition to the World Bank loan and GEF grant, the overall project cost of US$1.25 billion will be financed with US$343 million from China's central and municipal governments. US$355.5 million will be provided by beneficiaries, and the remaining US$182.5 million will be financed through local commercial bank loans.