Pan Yue, vice-minister of Ministry of Environmental Protection, took personal responsibility for the deterioration of the environment Tuesday, as he repeatedly apologized while talking to students at a photography exhibit in Beijing, Beijing Morning Post reported.

Pan expressed his regret about the pollution three times in his five-minute speech to the students who came to see the environment-themed show, the paper said.

"We invited you to see what we are doing for the environment every time we held the show because we feel ashamed of what we have done and we are trying our best to improve the environment," Pan said to the visiting primary school students.

Pan also said environmental deterioration has not been curbed, the report said, and the amount of pollutant emissions is far more than the environment can handle.