BeijingAirblog.com

Over the last 3 months it has been tempting to think that the air quality in Beijing was actually improving since the start of the year, but the last weeks have been as bad as we are used to. The graph below shows the daily API values in blue, with a black trend line of 10-day moving average, which stays below the 100 (yearly average) for roughly the first 10 weeks of 2008. 71 so-called ‘blue sky days’ out of 98; that is 72% which is a bit higher than the 67% of last year. A stroke of good luck, plus the effect of less industrial activity around Lunar New Year? On 18 March the first sand storm hit Beijing, and the API went up to 304.

You can see in this graph that February was an exceptionally good month, with an average API of only 73, well below the yearly average of 100. This article reports that 10 key polluting factories in Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin have already been closed to improve the air quality ahead of the Olympic games, and the provinces of Shandong, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia are also being involved in the efforts.

Before we get to optimistic, let’s remember the monitoring station shift described on this blog before, which will make it easier to get lower API values without actually getting better air quality. BOCOG environmental director responded to this story with the statement that the stations ‘were not moved’, but as we have demonstrated, the list of 27 stations simply has changed. In fact it is not so complicated for anyone who wishes to see for themselves; an effort this person obviously did not make. According to China Daily, 66% of Beijingers recently polled about the air quality, think it has improved. Probably the poll took place in February, a stroke of luck.

Beijing is seeing an unusually long series of ‘blue sky days’, today is the 8th one in a row (SEPA API 21-28 Jan), but you may have noticed the air smells of sulphur more than usual. Indeed for the last 4 days (25-28 Jan) SEPA is reporting SO2 as the main pollutant. Strange after China Daily (17 Nov 2007) reported the end of coal heating in Beijing, and since EURO 4 fuel standards were introduced from the start of this year.

The New York Times reports that the USA olympic team will bring up to 1000 air pollution face masks to Beijing, and it seems this is not the first time:

United States triathletes wore masks in China last September, but removed them before competing. They stepped off the bus looking like a group of incredibly fit surgeons or, as one triathlete put it, a gathering of Darth Vaders.

The team’s lead exercise physiologist mr Wilber has a lot of interesting things to say,

He is also testing possible Olympians to see if they qualify for an International Olympic Committee exemption to use an asthma inhaler. And, in what may be a controversial recommendation, Mr. Wilber is urging all the athletes to wear specially designed masks over their noses and mouths from the minute they step foot in Beijing until they begin competing…[he] has traveled to Beijing three times to measure the pollution at each Olympic site. Along the way, he has bumped into some of his colleagues, all stealthily measuring the same air. He said none of them wanted to rely on the statistics provided by Chinese officials. Mr. Wilber said his numbers were disturbingly high, with levels of certain pollutants “significantly higher” than they were at the 2004 Athens Games and at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. [my emphasis, Tom]

And some star athletes might simply not show up:

The marathon world-record holder Haile Gebrselassie, who has allergies, and the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player, Justine Henin, who has asthma, have expressed reservations about competing in the Olympics for fear that pollution will exacerbate their breathing problems.

Today’s API is 66 only, much lower than the last 3 days, probably because of the snow that cleared out the air last night. Interesting to note however that the main polluting substance was not PM10 (fine dust) as it is 99% of the time, but SO2 (sulphur dioxide) first time this year, the main cause of acid rain as far as i know, and emitted by burning not-so-clean fossil fuels (coal and petroleum products). 

This is also a reminder that although Beijing’s main problem is PM10, the other common pollutants (SO2, NOx, CO,O3) are probably also at alarming levels, but just not as much in view as the PM10 because that is the worst problem. For example i wouldn’t know where to find daily figures of SO2 measurements; it seems they are not published, only the general API is available.

Another interesting observation from today’s list of major Chinese cities; about half of the cities are reporting SO2 as main pollutant (the other half reports PM10 as usual). This has most probably something to do with the cold weather and the need to burn more fossil fuels for heating, and their high sulphur content. 

This article of the China Daily reports the dramatic last days of the year at the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau when it looked like they would not reach the target of 245 blue sky days for 2007. They mention that the target for 2008 will be 11 more days (256 days out of 366 = 70%) and as reported before, and it seems that to help themselves a bit, the BJEPB has slightly changed their list of monitoring stations by removing 4 downtown stations and adding 4 stations in nature areas of Beijing province, as on the picture below.

And for the Green Olympics:

..Beijing will almost definitely remove more vehicles from the streets and suspend coal-burning plants in suburban areas and neighboring provinces for about two months [my emphasis, Tom] starting just prior to the opening ceremony of the Games. Beijing also adopted stricter fuel emissions from Tuesday [1 Jan, Tom] to ensure its cars now meet the EURO IV standard. Power plants in Beijing will replace nitrogen oxide-reduction systems and the city is retrofitting its 1,400 gas stations to curb petroleum vaporization.

Chinese media report that from 1 Jan 2008 Beijing has adopted the China IV fuel standard, which means all gasoline and diesel sold in the city should comply with EURO IV. This will further reduce SO2 emissions (and according to the graphs on our emissions page also the PM and Nox), and the article also mentions that vehicle emissions contribute 40-50% to Beijing’s air pollution. The article does not mention if the same EURO IV standard is also required for all new cars sold in Beijing, i have no new info about that, and i don’t know if there is much beneficial effect of driving a vehicle on EURO IV fuel if the engine is EURO III or less.

Let’s hope this measure will be implemented strictly; i heard rumours last year that cheaper, less clean fuels available in the surrounding provinces do find their way to Beijing..

According to Reuters, the cost of the new fuel is 0.4rmb higher per liter, but i guess that after the 10% price increase of fuel in Nov 2007, and the current worries about inflation, the fuel price will not further go up at petrol stations in Beijing. The city continues to drive on subsidised fuel.

Yesterday the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy awarded London and Paris an award for their efforts to increase the livability of their city. London’s congestion charge is a great success, inspiring many cities around the world (including perhaps Shenzhen?). Congestion has dropped 21% and bus ridership increased 45% as the buses can go faster now, and bicycle use is up 43%. Revenue of the fees ($200+ million per year) are used to improve public transport. Would this work in Beijing? Everybody who takes his/her car into the 3rd ringroad pays? The cameras are there already, it should not be so difficult to implement this, and i think it would be a fair deal as soon as the metro network covers this area.

Paris has created an ‘individualised’ public transport system with its famous Velib program; 15.000 bikes for rent at 1.200 stations across the city, another huge success and inspiration for cities around the world, including Beijing as i mentioned here. Bike use in Paris is also stimulated with new bike lanes, leading to a 48% increase over the past 5 years.

“Paris and London have demonstrated that effective leadership can result in real change,” said selection committee member Cornie Huizenga, executive director of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) Center. “Asian city authorities should carefully look at the experience of Paris and London and decide what can be replicated in their cities. We hope that this will help to bring back the award to Asia in the near future.”

Yesterday 13 January 2008 Miyun Reservoir reported an API of 13, lowest of the 27 stations in Beijing (the lowest value this year was 12, also in Miyun on 1 Jan). Not so surprising as you can see from the below picture of the reservoir i took yesterday; difficult to consider this nature area as a ‘neighbourhood’ of our city. People in the south of Beijing (Daxing) had to cope with an API of 68 yesterday.

What i reported below seems to be nothing new under the sun; the New York Times carried an article yesterday referring to a study that says:

..the city changed its method for measuring pollution in 2006. In particular, officials stopped including readings from two stations in polluted areas and began using readings in three other stations in less polluted locales. Without this switch, Beijing would have fallen far short of its goals in 2006 and 2007 for the number of days that met national air quality standards, according to the study.

Mr Steven Andrews, the author of the study (in his original Wall Street Journal op-ed) also mentions the serious flaws in the Blue Sky days claims as i reported six weeks ago here. It seems the NYT contacted the relevant Chinese authorities to comment on this, but the only response they got was that the situation is improving visibly.

Mr. Andrews also found that ratings began to change after officials set targets for every monitoring station in the city. He said this political imperative coincided with a rising number of days that rated just below the break point of 101 to qualify as a Blue Sky day.

But it seems that people at the top of the system start to see the value of reliable data; there will be a national pollution survey starting in February 2008, calling for ‘true, credible’ data, and no officials will be punished for bringing bad news(!). Unfortunately the results of the survey will only be publicly available in 2009, way after the Olympics…

Thanks to Deep Lung and Osmo for pointing out this change in the list of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau’s monitoring stations. I assume this is the agency that passes the daily API value to SEPA for its national listing, so it is important to understand how the value is calculated.

Pre-2008 there were 27 stations in the list (for example 25 Oct 2007) and from this year there are still 27 stations (for example 8 Jan 2008). Note that the first line in both lists is the average; it looks like this is the number that SEPA uses for Beijing- although it does not seem to be the normal average of (sum/number of stations), maybe they use the actual PM10 values to calculate the average and convert to API afterwards.

However, more interestingly, if we look at the above picture, we see that the number of stations in the central districts have decreased:

• Dongcheng: 2 to 1
• Chaoyang: 3 to 2
• Fengtai: 3 to 2

And extra stations in Miyun, Daxing, and Yangqing. So the sum remains 27 stations, but 3 rather central locations have been removed, and 3 created in the outlying districts where the API is usually lower, so the average will definitely be lower from day 1; seems like a rather cheap trick doesn’t it?