Clearing the Air_The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution by Tim Smedley

Author:Tim Smedley [Smedley, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science
ISBN: 9781472953308
Google: 2-twDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07HWPB9L4
Goodreads: 40653218
Publisher: Bloomsbury SIGMA
Published: 2019-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Beijing’s Olympian feat

In the spring of 2014, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped outside for a photoshoot in the smog. Chinese anthologist Jerry Zee later described its significance as a moment when, ‘the highest official in China allowed himself to be captured throwing in his lot with the common Beijinger … held together not by citizenship but by shared exposure to toxic weather.’ Beijing residents had flooded social media with facemask selfies, holding placards reading ‘#I don’t want to be a human vacuum cleaner’ (#我不要做人肉吸尘器), and were getting a response. Xi Jinping’s number two, Li Keqiang, gave a speech later describing air pollution as ‘nature's red-light warning against inefficient and blind development’. Live on Chinese state television he declared a ‘war against pollution’. It was a game changer. Li immediately outlined the measures to be taken: reducing PM and eliminating outdated power stations and industrial plants. China cut steel production capacity by over 27 million tonnes (the equivalent of Italy’s entire output), slashed cement production by 42 million tonnes and shut down 50,000 small coal-fired furnaces. Li promised to change ‘the way energy is consumed and produced’ and to promote green and low-carbon technology. Beijing, until recently reliant on coal for its energy, closed its last remaining coal-fired power station in 2017.

The Beijing-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) is a short but confusing walk from Jianguomen Metro station, and when I arrive at the tower block there is no company or organisation branding, simply unmarked doors and an elevator. I phone to check I am at the right place, and am told to come up a few floors, where I’m met by a young American who speaks fluent Chinese, Kate Logan, a director at IPE and a board member of the Beijing Energy Network. She offers me the customary drink of steaming hot water. IPE was founded in 2006 by Chinese environmental activist Ma Jun to promote information transparency and public participation in environmental reporting, and was China’s first genuinely independent environmental non-profit. IPE began by collecting public (but often obscure) environmental information and collating it into an easily accessible database. This became the China Water Pollution Map, and later a broader database of environmental violations including air quality information known as the ‘Blue Sky Roadmap’. I’m intrigued to know how IPE got away with openly criticising the government in the days when air pollution was not officially recognised, publishing statements such as ‘large cities are increasingly suffering from the rapidly expanding and serious problem of air pollution’ and criticising ‘China’s lax environmental supervision and the low cost associated with violating’ as early as 2011.

‘In the beginning it was very sensitive in a lot of ways,’ admits Logan. ‘I think when IPE first started producing the database, the specific decision was made to only take information from government sources or officially verified sources. That was basically a means of mitigating that sensitivity … if anyone came doubting the validity of the data, you can verify the source [because] it’s an official source.

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