{"id":2622,"date":"2016-04-20T23:37:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T23:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2016\/04\/20\/china-reducing-air-pollution-its-big-cities-making-it-worse-its-smaller-ones\/"},"modified":"2016-04-20T23:37:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T23:37:33","slug":"china-reducing-air-pollution-its-big-cities-making-it-worse-its-smaller-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-reducing-air-pollution-its-big-cities-making-it-worse-its-smaller-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"China is reducing air pollution in its big cities\u2014by making it worse in its smaller ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2013, China\u00a0announced a plan\u00a0to curb\u00a0air pollution in the notoriously smoggy Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, home to many old factories. Last year it even\u00a0closed factories\u00a0near the new Disneyland in Shanghai, hoping for more cheerful skies around the park.<\/p>\n

WRITTEN BY Zheping Huang
April 20, 2016<\/p>\n

In 2013, China announced a plan<\/a> to curb air pollution in the notoriously smoggy Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, home to many old factories. Last year it even closed factories<\/a> near the new Disneyland in Shanghai, hoping for more cheerful skies around the park.<\/p>\n

Such measures have begun to work, but with one caveat: They have not been much applied to the central and western provinces, where pollution levels have actually increased.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter of this year, levels of PM2.5\u2014the smallest, most dangerous air pollution particles\u2014fell by an average of 8.8% from a year ago in 362 cities, according to a Greenpeace study released today<\/a> (April 20). Beijing and Shanghai saw average PM2.5 levels fall 27% and 12%, respectively.<\/p>\n

Of the 91 cities with rising average PM2.5 levels, 69 were in central and western parts of the country. And those 69 witnessed an average jump of 20% in PM2.5 levels.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The five cities with the highest levels of PM2.5 are all located in the autonomous region Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim area in the nation\u2019s far west. Xinjiang also recorded the worst air quality in the first quarter among all the 31 Chinese provinces, with a 46% rise of average PM2.5 concentration year-over-year. Expanded industrial activity, particularly around the capital Urumqi, is partly responsible for the surge, Greenpeace explains.<\/p>\n

Air quality in central and western China is likely to deteriorate further due to increased investment in coal-fired power plants in these regions. Last year 75% of China\u2019s new permits for such plants, with a total capacity of 128 gigawatts, were for locations in central and western regions, according to Greenpeace.
 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings show that the government\u2019s measures to curb air pollution in eastern China\u2019s key regions work,\u201d said Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Dong Liansai in a statement. \u201cBut now is not the time to selectively implement these policies. They must be introduced across the country to ensure clean air for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in the cases of decreasing pollution, some context is required. In the Greenpeace study, 86% of the ranked cities failed to meet the national PM2.5 level standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter air (ug\/m3). And tellingly, none of the ranked cities meets the World Health Organization standard of 10 ug\/m3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2013, China\u00a0announced a plan\u00a0to curb\u00a0air pollution in the notoriously smoggy Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, home to many old factories. Last year it even\u00a0closed factories\u00a0near the new Disneyland in Shanghai, hoping for more cheerful skies around the park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}