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Wendy Wu

Residents of Beijing are enjoying unusually clear skies this winter as officials indicated that measures to tackle the city’s notorious pollution problem appear to be having some effect.
However, experts cautioned that the improvement was still fragile and said there was a risk the problem could recur.
Thanks to improving conditions, the average reading of PM2.5 – particle matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter – fell by 54 per cent in November compared with the previous year to 46 microgrammes per cubic metre.
The city’s environmental protection bureau, which compiles the data, said this was the lowest November total for five years.
The reading stood at 38 microgrammes per cubic meter since the city officially turned on the heating for the winter on November 15, compared with an average of 93 in the previous four years, the official news agency Xinhua reported.
Local residents who remember the horrible smogs they suffered back in January have noticed many more blue sky days this winter.


According to official data released on December 15, the number of heavy-pollution days in Beijing fell to 21 in 2017, compared with 58 days in 2013.
China launches world’s biggest carbon-trading scheme in fight against climate change
“The government has taken efforts to curb pollution. Also the weather has helped,” Ma Jun, a leading environmentalist in Beijing and the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the South China Morning Post.
He said the weather this winter, which was characterised by frequent strong winds and cold air, was an important factor in diffusing air pollutants, while the authorities in the city and the neighbouring region had taken tough measures to curb air pollution this year.
China’s pollution is easier to beat than its dirty bureaucrats
Ma said there was no doubt that Beijing would meet a target to limit the city’s PM2.5 concentration to 60 microgrammes per cubic meter at the end of this year – the deadline for the city’s five-year plan to curb air pollution.
But he warned that the improvement was “fragile and unstable” and did not rule out the possibility that smog could return to the city once the weather reverses.

Ma also said other cities – including Chengdu in the southwestern province of Sichuan and urban parts of the Yangtze Delta, such as Shanghai – had suffered air pollution at the same time that residents in Beijing were enjoying the blue skies.
China to start making polluters pay to clean up their mess
This suggests it will still be a huge challenge for China to meet another target of reducing PM2.5 concentration levels to 35 microgrammes per cubic meter by 2030.
The Chinese government has listed fighting pollution as one of its top priorities for next year.
It will introduce a nationwide scheme to force polluters to pay for the damage. The country also aims to switch 70 per cent of northern cities to heating from coal to natural gas by 2021.
Why China’s winter fuel crisis is a cold, hard lesson in the law of unintended consequences
China has tightened its environmental regulations this year, forcing the shutdown of factories which failed to meet environmental protection standards.
It has also stepped up the shift from coal-based fuel to natural gas in both the industrial and residential sectors – although overzealous local officials have been blamed in state media for gas shortages that left many households without heat earlier this month.

Ma said it was a challenge to sustain the anti-pollution measures over the long run. He warned that the industrial infrastructure in northern China, which has been a major source of pollution over the years, was still a problem for the drive for clean energy and the rules needed to be properly enforced.
“It is important to establish the rule of law to enhance environmental scrutiny, to increase information transparency and introduce the public supervision,” he said.


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China pollution

Why blue skies over Beijing this winter could herald a turning point in city’s battle against pollution

Beijing residents are enjoying much clearer skies this winter and lower levels of pollution have been recorded. Photo: EPA-EFE

FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a respiratory protection mask walks toward an office building during the smog after a red alert was issued for heavy air pollution in Beijing's central business district, China, December 21, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

A Chinese flag flutters at Xinhuamen Gate of Zhongnanhai leadership compound in central Beijing, China December 15, 2017. The construction site of China Zun, planned to be the tallest building in Beijing, is seen behind. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Brrr ... Xi’s heavy handed pollution policy goes up in smoke

Sculptures at a park in Henan province, China. Photo: Reuters

Cars line up at a filling station for liquid natural gas (LNG), one of a few that is open for business, in Baoding, Hebei province, China, December 5, 2017. Picture taken December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

A man shovels coal he uses to heat his home in his courtyard in the village of Heqiaoxiang outside of Baoding, Hebei province, China, December 5, 2017. Picture taken December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

A liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility of the ENN Group Co is under construction in Baoding, Hebei province, China, December 5, 2017. Picture taken December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Hebei province. Photo: Reuters

A man wearing a face mask rides a bicycle on a bridge in front of the financial district of Pudong covered in smog during a polluted day in Shanghai, China November 22, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song

China’s air pollution may be easier to beat than its dirty bureaucrats

President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has made major strides, but much of the government’s institutionalised decadence has just found shadier places to thrive

(FILES) This file picture taken on March 5, 2017 shows Zhang Yang (C), the director of the state's Central Military Commission's political department, applauding China's Premier Li Keqiang's speech during the opening session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. Zhang, a Chinese general, has hanged himself in his Beijing home after becoming the latest top official ensnared in President Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption campaign, state media said on November 28, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Greg Baker

Photo: AFP

(171213) -- XUZHOU, Dec. 13, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with representatives of model workers and skilled experts at Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG), in Xuzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Dec. 12, 2017. Xi made an inspection tour in Xuzhou from Dec. 12 to 13.  (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) (dhf)

Li Shulei, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, speaks to media during an event in Bern, Switzerland December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets delegates at the 19th CPC National Congress. Photo: Xinhua

Why China’s winter fuel crisis is a cold, hard lesson in the law of unintended consequences

Illustration: Adolfo Arranz

FILE PHOTO: A resident stands next to a newly installed gas meter in Xiaozhangwan village at the outskirts of Beijing, China, November 15, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo

Thousands of heavy-duty trucks loaded with coal are lined up for up to 130 kilometres from the Mongolia-China border on a sole road in the Gobi desert, Mongolia, October 29, 2017. The journey can take more than a week. REUTERS/B. Rentsendorj SEARCH "RENTSENDORJ KHANBOGD" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES.

A worker works on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker at a port of the China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC) in Tianjin, China November 6, 2017. Picture taken November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.

China to start making polluters pay to clean up their mess

Companies will now have to pay clean-up costs and for damaging the environment. Photo: AFP

Residents plant trees, in an attempt to rejuvenate the soil, in front of the huge state-owned lead smelter in the town of Tianying, Anhui Province, November 19, 2012. In ramshackle semi-industrial Tianying in China's Anhui province, a state-owned lead smelter and foundry sits at the centre of town, behind high walls and secure gates that make it look more like a prison than the mainstay of the local economy. Decades of pollution from it and similar plants - Tianying once accounted for half of China's total lead output - has made much of the town's land uninhabitable and its water undrinkable. Picture taken November 19, 2012. To match Feature CHINA-CONGRESS/ENVIRONMENT REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY POLITICS)

Rubbish floats on a river crossing the city of Hefei, east China's Anhui province, November 9, 2006. China's pollution problems have damaged 10 million hectares, or one tenth, of the country's arable land, said the environment watchdog Tuesday as it called for expanding grass- roots monitoring staff in the rural areas, Xinhua News Agency reported. REUTERS/Jianan Yu (CHINA)

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Politics

Favourable weather and efforts to curb emissions have given residents of the Chinese capital some respite from its notorious smogs
