Beijing Claims It Has Met Pollution Goal

BEIJING — Beijing said Monday it has already reached its target number of 256 "blue-sky days" this year, with the help of ambitious environmental measures the city imposed to cut emissions for the Olympic Games.

China's notoriously polluted capital of 17 million reached the clean-air day target on Sunday, 31 days ahead of schedule, Beijing's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said.

"The quality of our city's air has shown constant improvement over the last 10 years," Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the bureau, said in a statement.

Beijing had only 100 blue-sky days in 1998, when it introduced a clean-air campaign and began investing more than $15 billion to improve air quality, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The long-term measures as well as more drastic efforts taken ahead of the Olympic Games in August helped reach the goal, the bureau said.

Beijing pulled half the city's 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, halted most construction and closed some factories in the capital and surrounding provinces ahead of the games.

The Olympics proved that controlling emissions is the main way to reduce pollution, the bureau said. Car emissions, Beijing's main source of pollution, were reduced by 60 percent from a year earlier because of the measures, it said.

So far this year levels of inhalable particulate matter _ tiny dust particles that are among the worst pollutants _ were reduced by 16 percent from a year earlier, and other pollutants such as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide showed reductions of more than 20 percent, the bureau said.

China's daily air pollution index, which ranges from 1 to 500, uses a standard calculation derived from levels of major pollutants. A reading below 50 is considered good, and 51 to 100 is moderate. Below 100 is considered a "blue-sky day."

Only 56 days have measured "good" so far this year, the bureau said. But environmentalists say a blue-sky day is still more polluted than what is considered healthy by the World Health Organization.

Steven Andrews, an independent environmental consultant based in Washington, said Beijing's claims of improved air quality are not reliable because the city has moved monitoring stations to less-polluted areas and has varied the way it has measured pollutants since 1998.

"They've measured different things during that time period and it has a huge impact on the number of days that meet the national standard," Andrews said in a telephone interview.

Such inconsistencies mean that the increase in the number of blue-sky days may be due to the change of monitoring locations, rather than a reduction in overall pollution levels, he said.

Comments

[sonoffestus]

Right and my retirement fund is up 120% this year.

[karela]

We know from the evidence of our eyes, both before and during the Olympics, that China did something to clean the air up during that time. We also know this because the athletes said that they were able to breath there and at other times athletes have said that they weren't able to. If China continues with those efforts, that's good because it's progress. If someone tries to do better and all we ever give them in the way of feed back is a loud shout of NOT good enough, we won't accomplish accomplish what we hope to accomplish. Patting a dog or anybody else and saying Good Job when they make some headway is always more effective. Anybody ought to be able to figure out that people (and dogs) work a lot harder in the face of approval and praise than they do under a constant barrage of negative feed back. China's entire culture is based on the need to be recognized for excellence. (Hence the need to have the most gold medals.) If we start giving them kudos for innovation and success, they'll pour everything they have into showing the world that they're number one. (Yes, they might also cheat a bit, but they might also come up with some pretty cool technology.) So----Good Job China! Good for you! I can't wait to see what you're going to show us next! You guys are so great at finding new ways to do the job! Wow!

[KillTheMessenger]

One can not tell China to do anything. But China will not refuse technological help if we are willing to give it to them at a reasonable price.

[wwwtips]

Fair comments and good judgement are always welcome by the readers. Thank you killthe messenger for your comment. China recognized their huge pollution problem, and they are working to solve them. American and Canadian should work closely with them to solve this problem soonest.

eugenefromcanada

[JuniorNorman]

This Country is polluting us with tainted milk, candy, vitamins,pharmacueticals,lead toys etec, etc.... Now its green country :)

[KillTheMessenger]

I haven't heard the Chinese call themselves a green country. The problem has been acknowledged and is being worked on. And if you happen to remember the 1960s and 1970s, pollution was a huge problem in Europe and the US, too. We recognized the problem and began cleaning up our act. We are still not finished as regular smog alerts in many cities can tell. Same for the Chinese. They admit that they have an environmental problem. They are working on it. And it will still take them trillions of dollars and many decades to clean up. That's no different from us.

[Hawka]

So, any bets on which of us gets across the finish line first?

[jnah]

we still lead as the worst per capita so we can't really point fingers huh