Despite some improvement in Beijing’s air over the past year, readings of risky particles yesterday were as high as a dozen times the safe level, in what has become an embarrassment for a government that has made a priority of cleaning up the legacy of pollution left from years of full-tilt economic growth.
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Much of the Chinese capital shut down Tuesday after Beijing’s city government issued its first red alert for pollution – closing schools and construction sites and restricting the number of cars on the road.
Schools were closed, work at outdoor construction sites suspended, and factories have been ordered to halt operations.
“The issuing of a “red” pollution alert means, first and foremost, that the Beijing authorities are taking air quality, and related health issues, very seriously”, Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer, the representative of the World Health Organization in China.
“Countries should be allowed to seek their own solutions, according to their national interest”, he told delegates.
Most of China’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of coal for electricity and heating, which spikes when demand peaks in winter and is the main cause of smog.
The red alert is the most serious warning on a four-tier system adopted in recent years. The city is now under an orange alert, the second-highest level.
“And air purifiers at home are a must”, Beijing resident Sun Yuanyuan said at a downtown Beijing juice shop.
Beijing’s environmental protection bureau defines heavy pollution as anything above 200. The city’s alert was triggered by a forecast Monday that pollution levels would be above 300 for three days straight. The media outlet said that hundreds of people, including some preschool-age children, watched a flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square, and others were ignoring the limitations on the use of their vehicles. “The air in our office is totally “poison gas”,” said one poster on Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter.
Authorities are under fire for failing to issue a red-alert last week when Beijing was also covered by risky smog.
Despite the warning, Beijing’s streets remained busy as people went about their routines, with only a few donning masks to protect against the foul air.
“This week in Paris, China is rightfully getting credit for its policies to tackle climate change”, Alex Wang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies Chinese environmental policy, said in the New York Times article.
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State radio said some people were ignoring vehicle use restrictions, which on Tuesday banned vehicles with odd numbers at the end of the licence plate getting on the roads, though the roads were noticably quieter.
