Cities need to put efforts to deal with pollution and clear the air．

Chinese cities will need to put efforts to clear up the sky when a new department to improve regional air quality is set up by 2015，according to the latest plan released by the State Council．

Besides the existing pollution control program for CO2，regional emission caps（区域排放上限） for other certain chemicals will be established in the three key air polluting areas-the Yangtze River Delta，Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region．Coal-consumption caps will also be tried out in some areas，according to the plan．

The plan is aimed at dealing with regional air pollution-such as acid rain and smog-which have become increasingly obvious in China in recent years and caused a severe threat to people's health，Zhang Lijun，vice minister of environmental protection，said in an interview on Monday．

The air quality in a city affects the areas nearby because pollutants can travel in the sky，said Chai Fahe，vice director of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences．

"So efforts to reduce air pollution in a single city，targeting a certain pollutant（污染物） will not be enough，"Chai said．

Zhang said the country's major industrial districts-the Yangtze River Delta，Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region-have recorded more than 100misty days annually in recent years．

These three regions，home to at least 200million people，occupy only 6.3percent of the country's area but consume 40percent of the country's coal and produce half of its steel，according to official figures．

Studies also show that the visibility（能见度） in eastern regions of China has dropped by 7to 15km compared to that in the early 1960s，as a result of air pollution．

Liaoning province，the Shandong Peninsula，Wuhan in Hubei province and its surrounding area，the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan region in Hunan province，the Chengdu-Chongqing region，a