One of Beijing's top environmental officials has lent his support to a campaign to cut car use and promote walking.

Leaving his home in northwest Haidian District shortly after six yesterday morning, Du Shaozhong, 52, trekked 6 kilometres to his office in the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau in Chegongzhuang, Xicheng District, where he is deputy director.

"This definitely is not just for show," he told several reporters who came to take photos.

"This is just to demonstrate my personal support to the suggestion in my role as a civil servant," he said.

The "suggestion" he was referring to is a popular slogan: "If we don't drive for one day, we can have one more blue sky day."

So far 79 car clubs in the capital, involving more than 200,000 drivers, have voiced their support for the movement, which asks drivers to leave their cars at home one day each month and walk.

And Du hopes that the slogan would not just be a faint cry drowned out by the cacophony of the horns of the city's 2.6 million vehicles, a fleet increasing at an average of about 1,000 a day.

The sandy conditions that prevailed in the city in early April, which put Du's bureau under huge pressure, are also a cause of public complaint.

"We cannot control the weather, but we can control our wheels," said Wu Zhonghua, chairman of the Sohu Car Club, one of the sponsors of the slogan.

"We cannot simply blame sand from other places and forget our own huge emissions,"

The capital set a goal this year of achieving 237 "blue sky days", days that reach a second-class environmental standard, four more than last year.

(China Daily May 17, 2006)