A group of lawyers has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government for failing to prevent the severe smog that has covered the north over the past week, underlining the discontent voiced by tens of millions of citizens online.

因中国政府未能阻止过去一周里覆盖中国北方的严重雾霾，多名律师发起了针对中国政府的诉讼，令人注意到数千万网民发出的不满声音。

Beijing and many other cities in north China are entering their sixth day running of pollution “red alerts”, which have closed down schools, roads and factories. More than 350 flights were grounded in Beijing on Tuesday due to poor visibility.

北京和华北其他许多城市正在进入空气污染“红色预警”的第六天。这一“红色预警”导致了诸多学校、公路和工厂关闭。周二，由于能见度太差，北京市有超过350架航班不能起飞。

“Progress on air pollution has been lots of talk and hardly any action for the past few years,” wrote Cheng Hai, a Beijing-based lawyer, in the preface to the lawsuit. He is one of five lawyers bringing a case against the local governments of Beijing, Tianjin and Heibei — three major regions in the smog-afflicted north — for failing to implement their own environmental laws.

北京律师程海在诉状的序言中写道：“雾霾治理近几年雷声大雨点小。”程海是因北京、天津和河北地方政府未能实施环保法律而起诉这些地方政府的五名律师之一。北京、天津和河北是受雾霾影响的中国北方的三个主要地区。

"This is the first time that lawyers have used an administrative lawsuit to protest the government's treatment of air pollution,” said Wu Qiang, a former lecturer in politics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University who writes on political protests. “It marks a new stage in the environmental movement.

北京清华大学(Tsinghua University)前政治学讲师吴强表示：“这是首次有律师动用行政诉讼手段来抗议政府治理空气污染不力。它标志着环保运动进入新阶段。”吴强撰文评述各种政治抗议活动。

“Pollution affects everyone, across different classes, different backgrounds — and people are becoming more aware of the issue.”

“污染会影响不同阶层、不同背景的每个人——人们越来越注意到这个问题。”

The lawyers’ letter was shared on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, but several posts have since been deleted. These posts can still be seen on FreeWeibo.com, a website that tries to save censored Weibo posts before they are taken down.

在中国版Twitter——新浪微博(Weibo)网站上，五名律师的信被四处分享。不过，自那以来已有多个帖子被删。这些帖子在FreeWeibo.com网站上仍然可以看到，这是一个试图在受到审查的微博帖子被删前将其保存的网站。

“Severe pollution” is one of the top ten trending topics on Weibo, with over 230 million readers.

“最严重雾霾”是微博十大热门话题之一，读者人数超过2.3亿(截止出版时，该话题排名第13位，读者2.4亿——译者注)。

Links to several local media articles of the letter can no longer be opened, suggesting that these articles have also been deleted.

几家中国国内媒体有关这封信的文章链接已无法点开，意味着这些文章也已被删除。

A popular documentary on air pollution, called “Under the Dome”, was pulled by censors last year after racking up over 160 million views.

去年，一个有关空气污染、名为《穹顶之下》(Under the Dome)的高人气纪录片，曾在累积逾1.6亿次点击后被审查机关撤下。

“Outside of protests, there is still a lot of room for the environmental laws to be implemented,” said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) in Beijing, a non-governmental organisation.

北京非政府组织——公众环境研究中心(Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, 简称IPE)主任马军表示：“除了抗议以外，环保法律还有很大实施空间。”

Although China’s environmental laws ask for city governments to compel polluting firms to release public data on their emissions, this has not been implemented since the law came in force at the start of the year, Mr Ma said.

马军说，虽然中国的环保法律要求市政府迫使排污企业公布关于各自排放量的公开数据，但这一点自该法今年初生效以来尚未得到执行。

“The cost of implementing real-time emissions disclosure would be much less than the cost of restricting the number of cars on the road,” argued Mr Ma. Beijing is currently halving the number of vehicles allowed on its roads, a usual procedure during heavy smog alerts.

“实施实时排放量披露的成本远远低于限制上路汽车数量的成本，”马军辩称。目前，北京将允许上路车辆减少了一半，这是严重雾霾预警期间的通常做法。

Mr Ma hopes that a recent rise in online reporting of pollution incidents by citizens can put pressure on governments and companies to clean up.

马军希望，最近公众在线报告污染事件增加，可能对政府和公司施加压力，要求它们进行清理。

IPE has launched a “micro-reporting” app which allows its 3m users to access real-time air pollution data from the 3,000 companies that do comply with the emissions disclosure law, and to post complaints on Weibo or to the relevant government ministry.

公众环境研究中心推出了一个“微举报”APP，让其300万用户访问由3000家确实遵守了排放披露法律的公司发布的实时空气污染数据，并在微博上或向相关政府部门投诉。

But it is likely that the court will reject the lawsuit, said Qiao Mu, professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

但北京外国语大学(Beijing Foreign Studies University)副教授乔木说，法院很可能会拒绝受理这类诉讼案。

“As in previous cases, anything related to politics, information disclosure, censorship et cetera, they have usually rejected,” Mr Qiao said, adding that details of how Beijing’s anti-pollution budget is spent are never disclosed.

乔石说：“与以往的案子一样，任何与政治、信息披露和审查等相关的案子，法院通常都会拒绝受理。”他接着说，北京污染治理预算的支出细节从未披露过。

The central government is trying to move the country’s electricity supply from coal power to renewables, and is slowly allowing heavy industry in the north-east with overcapacity to close down. But experts reckon that it will take at a couple of decades for the country to reach international standards for air pollution.

中国中央政府正在努力把该国的电力供应从煤电转向可再生能源，并正缓慢地让东北地区产能过剩的重工业停产。但专家们认为，中国将需要20年时间才能达到空气污染方面的国际标准。

On red alert days, and on special occasions such as the Beijing Olympics, local governments close smoke-belching factories and halt construction. But these measures deal a blow to the government’s much-watched GDP figures.

在发布红色预警的日子，以及在北京奥运会(Beijing Olympics)等特殊场合，地方政府会关闭那些排放浓烟的工厂，并叫停建筑施工。但这些措施对政府十分关注的国内生产总值(GDP)数字造成了打击。

“The only outlet for the public now is to take advantage of social media platforms and the media to impose pressure on the government, and in some cases protests are even allowed on the streets,” Mr Qiao said. “But overall the policy direction is not right for fixing the air problem.”

“现在公众唯一的发泄渠道是利用社交媒体平台和媒体对政府施加压力，在某些情况下，甚至能够获准上街抗议，”乔木说。“但总体而言，当前政策方向不利于解决空气污染问题。”