Beijing's Green Olympics: How Green Are The Games?

The events leading up to today's opening ceremony illuminated much of Beijing's environmental issues. China went to great efforts to reduce the city's overcrowding, pollution, and overall environmental damage. Today reports surfaced of cutting electricity in Shandong Province to power Beijing. From the US cycling team's arrival at the Beijing airport sporting smog masks to the perpetual white veil of pollution that covers the city, this year's Olympics may not be as green as had been hoped.

The Wall Street Journal's Keith Johnson reflects on the China's pollution.

How can Beijing still continue to tout "green" Olympics? Aside from chasing away cars and closing factories, Chinese authorities did spend almost $20 billion on mass transit and to add new renewable energy, which is meant to provide about 20% of the power for Olympic venues. There are also plenty of flashy clean-tech touches around the venues. But the last, best hope might be inside the venues themselves.

But just like the marathoners preparing to brave heat, haze, and humidity in their quest for gold, Western companies trying to cash in on Beijing's furious race for green have to ask themselves: What happens if the pollution never lifts?

Huffington Post blogger Andrew Smeall encourages the United States and China to team up to combat climate change.

We are right to call attention to China's pollution problems and their growing carbon footprint, but China is also correct in pointing out that we in the U.S. emit more than our fair share. Although China is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter by volume, it remains far down the list of per-capita polluters. On that front, America is still number one. As two nations that are, and will remain, heavily dependent on abundant coal, the U.S. and China need to start thinking about collaborative solutions to the climate change problem.

Blogger Alex Pasternack of the Huffington Post hopes that the "green games" will serve as China's wake-up call to its damaging emissions.

To be sure, the city has made great strides in reducing sources of pollution, from phasing out high emission vehicles to transitioning from coal-fired to electric heat to deploying a fleet of clean natural gas buses. It's also succeeded in getting cars off the roads in the world's grandest anti-pollution experiment, thereby reducing emissions in the city by 20 percent, the government says. To clean up the city for the Olympics, it says it has spent $17.6 billion.

But longer-term and systematic issues have not been addressed. For example, there remains debate over what the source of the pollution problem actually is. Is it the exhaust from all those cars the new middle class is buying? The volatile organic compounds that small factories exhale into the atmosphere? The high emissions of old trucks that have been banned from the city center? Dust and sand from the factories and deserts growing in Inner Mongolia? Straw burning farmers in the suburbs?

Related:
::Read Alex Pasternack's blog: "Is the IOC Helping Beijing Hide It's Pollution" on the Huffington Post.
::Read about the Top 15 Eco-activist athletes at China's Green Olympics on the Huffington Post
::Read more at the Huffington Post Olympics big news page.

Comments

[Ohg]

In a global climate affected by humanity China demonstrated in their opening ceremony the need for individuals to work together.......................................................http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/08/10/the-birds-nest-cradle-of-the-future-video/

[rini]

Green or not, I will not watch an Olympics hosted by a country that cannot abide by international standards of human rights, and trashes the environment of it's own people.

You know, lately, I wouldn't blame other countries for boycotting if the games were held in the U.S.....sad to say.

[1will]

I don't care how green the games are. Bring on the Women's Volleyball team.

[realityczech4u]

And I don't care a whit about the athletics. All that matters to me is how "green" the d a m n games are. I don't really care about anything anymore except how "green" everything is.

[ohiomark]

It's hard to tell through all the smog.

[dtlmetsfan]

After watching the opening games.... I'd be surprised if China did not now have a larger footprint than the rest of the world. In all seriousness... How do you think HuffPo is reporting the games?

Josh Xiong thinks they're playing politics.

http://joshxiong.com/?p=58

[chinationreport]

Here is a different view:
http://www.thestreet.com/s/china-is-greener-than-you-think/newsanalysis/investing/10432546.html?puc=googlen&cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Excerpt:
Air quality in Beijing is poor. Some 300 million people, about the population of the U.S., have risen to middle-class status in China. This doesn't happen without constructing buildings, roads and power plants

The irony is that China is rapidly becoming the world's biggest manufacturer of the technology demanded by environmental movement. China is now the world's production center for all your green needs, like carbon-lowering solar cells and wind turbines.

It is already the world's largest producer of solar cells, will be the top manufacturer of wind turbines by 2009. It is fair to say that if you name a green technology, China will have big market share. The central government has been very aggressive in its pursuit of establishing a green technology industry within the country.
Yes, China is the biggest global greenhouse gas emitter on an aggregate basis, but that figure is misleading. It is more appropriate to break it down on a per-capita basis. Only then, the true gluttonous nations are revealed. In 2007, the average Chinese citizen emitted 5.1 tons of carbon, the average European 8.6 tons, and -- you guessed it -- the average American emitted 19.4 tons, almost four times the average in China.


http://www.chinationreport.com/ for more balanced news about China

[mlaiuppa]

Too little, too late.

If China wanted to clean up Beijing they should have limited the cars, shut down the factories, etc. right after their venue was chosen. Waiting until a month or two before the games is too little, too late. All they've done is paint a thin layer of 'greenwash' on everything. Everyone knows as soon as the games are over, Beijing will return to it's old, dirty, polluted self.

And it will make the news. You'd think China would realize that.

[mergina]

As I was stuck in traffic on the way home today, I thought about the rather putrid looking air over Beijing, and how L.A. looked to me the first time I visited it back in the 70's, not much better. I then thought that we must have made quite a difference because here i was, stuck in a miserable friday traffic jam, with more cars than they are driving in China, yet out air looked crystal clear, the sun was shining brightly, and surprisingly not even an exhaust spewing truck was seen belching their exhaust into the air. China DOES NOT NEED to be the polluter that it is. It DOES NOT NEED to have its factories spewing unchecked pollution into their skies. It DOE NOT NEED to still be burning COAL with no pollution checks in place. It DOES NOT NEED to be burning gasoline that is leaded. China DOES NOT NEED to be 30-100 years behind the environmental times.

[racetoinfinity]

Right- that's why we have progress and evolution - so countries and societies moving behind us in development can leapfrog over our mistakes.

[mergina]

About as green as the algae they are undoubtedly still cleaning up.

[chinationreport]

Remember London and Pittsburg in the good/bad old days? Smoky, foggy, coal mines, steel mills...
As far as I remember, I don't think Chinese people at that time pointed fingers at Britsh and Americans when they polluted in their own land? How come blaming China nowadays is so easy and tempting?
Hey, aren't we blaming China for taking those jobs in the mines and mills away? Well, thank them for taking the pollution away too. After all, they managed to pollute their sky and rivers in exchange of selling goods for dollars. So, what does America want? Cheaper goods or more industry/more jobs?
Honestly, I think the big nations need to work together. There is no need and we can't afford to repeat same old mistakes. China will overcome pollution one day and hopefully faster than the early industrializations. The world has a long way to go but certainly it is a lot more transparent. Information is faster, technology is more available, the pressure is mounting... Blaming does not help. Ideas and cooperation do.

www.chinationreport.com for daily balanced news and views about China

[darthdarcy]

China's Coal Seam Fires alone create more CO2 than all the cars and light trucks in the United States also a great source of heat going into our atmosphere..

They are so bad they can be seen from space with the naked eye..!

There is nothing green about China nothing at all..!

[KillTheMessenger]

How green were the Olympic Games since the 1970s when hundred of thousands of people FLEW in from all over the world to see them? Did anybody care? Don't think so. Does anybody care how many tons of CO2 are being emitted in the US for powering those shiny new flat screen screens at 200-400W a piece that were bought to see the Superbowl in HD? I don't think so, either.

[mh01]

How green are the games?

Who cares?

[ilovemydoggy]

People throw the term "green" around very loosely. I have heard the air is really bad in China. But China is on the beginning end of the growth curve.

For some good "green" articles & insights visit Vaboomer,
http://www.Vaboomer.com

(where baby boomers meet, commiserate and talk about 'the good 'ol days".