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How To Read China’s Climate Pledges In Paris

No red alerts, however, will be issued anytime soon. But now that they’re canceling school, it becomes really inconvenient.

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Cars with even and odd number license plates will alternate daily in using the city’s roads, they explained. 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. That’s classified as “very unhealthy” at 10 times higher than the World Health Organization deems safe, and the air quality was not expected to improve immediately. “Smog surely highlight the urgency of dealing with climate change and consolidate our resolution to resolve it”, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. “We are taking active measures to cope with climate change”, she said while replying to a question on the impact of Beijing’s pollution problem on the Paris summit.

“I still need to work”, he said, but “I feel relieved about the schools’ cancellation of classes, because my daughter can stay at home and I don’t need to worry about her breathing bad air”.

A grey haze descended on Tuesday on the city of around 21.5 million people, with levels hitting above 300 micrograms per cubic metre, according to the USA embassy, which issues independent readings.

A vehicle paint workshop in downtown Beijing was sealed up on Tuesday by the city’s environment protection agency after it received reports of its illegal operation from the public.

“I like this kind of haziness”.

It’s the second time in the past few months that notoriously polluted Beijing has experienced a prolonged bout of smog.

The city authorities’ decision to issue a red alert has widely been interpreted as a response to pressure from central government, after the decision to leave the alert at amber after last week’s heavy pollution attracted criticism from charities and local residents. As an example, one Beijing monitoring site at midday showed an index reading of 308 and a PM2.5 reading of 258. They needed to travel relatively far, because almost all of China’s northeast was affected, and some cities – including nearby Shijiazhuang – were even worse than Beijing.

A Beijing resident surnamed Li said the current smog wasn’t as strong as last week’s “airpocalypse”, however, when a yellow alert was issued.

China’s central government has been criticized for laying out contradicting accounts about what has caused the acute air pollution that has smothered northern China on Monday and triggered a red-alert in Beijing on Tuesday.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions mostly come from coal-burning power plants which produce about 60 percent of its electricity and much of its heating.

Six people have died and another four have been injured in the 33-vehicle pileup in China.

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Walking around the Chinese capital for 100 days with a vacuum cleaner, he sucked up particles in the air to raise awareness of the severe pollution in China.

Beijing Skyline Barely Visible as Pollution Hits 'Red Alert' Level