Local Vehicles Blamed for Majority of Beijing's Air Pollution

Two-thirds of all Beijing-area PM2.5-type pollution are attributed to local sources, while one-third is attributed to outward-lying regional sources. Out of last year's annual average PM2.5 level of 58 micrograms per square meter, 20 came from outside of Beijing.

And with coal use largely banned throughout the city, local vehicle emissions have become Beijing's primary source of PM2.5 levels (45 percent). Flying dust came in second place at 16 percent, followed by industrial sources (12 percent), residential (12 percent), and other combined sources that include agricultural and natural sources (also 12 percent).

Coal use was only responsible for creating 3 percent of Beijing's total PM2.5 levels, said the report jointly-written by the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Skeptics of the latest government report will find that authorities have been largely consistent with their findings.