Overall pollution levels in Beijing were down for the second consecutive year but skyrocketed in December, when a thick gray soup enveloping the capital prompted the government to issue a first-ever "red alert" warning, limiting automobile use and closing schools.
The Greenpeace study released today found the northern Chinese region surrounding Beijing has seen concentrations of microscopic PM2.5 particles drop by a quarter since 2013.
Still, 80 per cent of Chinese cities did not meet national air quality standards, the group found, pinning blame on coal consumption. China, the location of the vast majority of coal power plants added in the last decade, has been the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, although the United States far exceeds it on a per capita basis.
Chinese leaders have vowed in recent years to seriously confront pollution and the trail of environmental damage left by decades of runaway growth.
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The central government has passed a series of legislative measures since Premier Li Keqiang declared a "war" on pollution at China's annual parliament meeting in 2014 and continued to push renewable energy technology, but changes have not always trickled down to local authorities under pressure to meet economic output targets.
Researchers at Germany's Max Planck institute have estimated that smog has led to 1.4 million premature deaths in China every year, while the non-profit group Berkeley Earth in California had a higher figure, 1.6 million.