North China has been experiencing severe air pollution and there are suspicions that the problem was the acts of climate change in general and a decreasing northerly wind in particular. %and the increasing temperature are involved in the process. We take a retrospective approach to analyze 38 years (1979-2016) historic climate data from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in conjunction with ground level PM$_{2.5}$ in 32 cities to quantify effects of the climate variables on the concentration of PM$_{2.5}$. The study has detected statistically significant changes in the surface temperature, relative humidity and boundary layer structures and integrated vertical wind profiles in the region over the 38 years span. It is found that these changes have actually lead to reduced PM$_{2.5}$ in most cases. Hence, the climate change has not aggravated the air pollution situation in North China.