Beijing "Meets" Green Goals
Today the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau announced that Beijing reached its goal of 256 "blue-sky days" -- days on which the pollution index is below 100 -- a full month earlier than planned. China attributes this success to a combination of long term investments in air quality, starting as far back as 1998, as well as some dramatic measures taken in anticipation of the Olympic Games in August.
Amid criticisms and concerns for the health of athletes from around the world, Beijing closed some area factories and notably took half of the cars in the city off the road. Car emissions were down 60% from the previous year.
While it appears that these efforts paid off, there continue to be questions about the accuracy of the air quality measures, as well as serious doubts about the reliability of the methods used. One of the most serious shadows on the reliability comes from the monitoring stations being moved from one year to the next to less polluted areas.
Greenpeace gave Beijing high marks for their environmental efforts during the Olympics, but others, including US diplomats, brought their own air quality measuring tools. This was due to concerns over China's measurements and interpretation of the data.
Whatever the absolute truth, all of the efforts around the Olympics -- especially taking cars off the road -- had to help. We'll see if the year over year improvements continue.
Most importantly, it's good that this is something that China even cares about. Imagine how much worse it would be, with all of their new coal plants, if they weren't at least trying to look green!
Greenpeace gave Beijing high marks for their environmental efforts during the Olympics, but others, including US diplomats, brought their own air quality measuring tools. This was due to concerns over China's measurements and interpretation of the data.
Whatever the absolute truth, all of the efforts around the Olympics -- especially taking cars off the road -- had to help. We'll see if the year over year improvements continue.
Most importantly, it's good that this is something that China even cares about. Imagine how much worse it would be, with all of their new coal plants, if they weren't at least trying to look green!
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