BeijingAirblog.com

UNEP released a major report on Beijing’s environmental efforts to ‘green’ the Olympics, during the World Conference on Sport and Environment in Beijing, 25-27 October 2007.  The report congratulates Beijing on its overall results, except for air quality. The executive summary reads (my emphasis):

Particularly worrying are the levels of small particulate matter (PM10) in the atmosphere, which is severely deleterious to public health. While the concentration of pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) dropped between 2000 and 2006, levels of PM10 remain well above World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines, sometimes by as much as 200 per cent or more. Compounding the problem is the high number of dust storms that plague the city, especially during the spring. For example, in the spring of 2006, the city endured 18 dust storms. It is commonly accepted that improving air quality cannot be accomplished in a short period, or even over a period of a few years. Thus, while UNEP applauds Beijing’s efforts, including initiatives to limit traffic volumes on specific days, it has to be recognized that only long-term planning, and the enforcement of measures over time will show significant results. On the basis of the data, especially PM10, and despite the relatively positive trends of recent years, air quality remains a legitimate concern for Olympic organizers, competitors and observers, as well as for the citizens of Beijing.

That’s not so good. And it’s a bit easy to blame it on the dust storms.

UNEP recommendations related to air quality:

• transport: improve public transport instead of building more roads (which stimulates more car traffic)
• transport: adopt higher emission standards outside Beijing also
• energy: further reduce coal use
• general: all the BOCOG guidelines are only voluntary, so UNEP fears the leave too much leeway for shortcuts.. UNEP also regrets that BOCOG did not include any carbon offset programs, which is now common for large international events 

The report also provides more details about the air pollution situation in Beijing, and it provides and excellent background to the issues we have been looking at in this blog- i would recommend it to all who are interested. Let me summarise some points:

• ozon is not monitored in the current Chinese standards, which is especially problematic in summer
• the report mentions the positive trend in ‘clear sky days’ as discussed on this blog
• annual averages of SO2, NO2, CO concentrations ‘have predominantly declined’, while PM10 has not decreased. ‘The reasons for this include dust generated by the huge number of construction sites, emissions from the coal burning boilers in Beijing and dust storms.’
• the Beijing Municipal government claims that dust storms are to blame for high PM10 in 2006; the UNEP believes emissions from coal burning are more likely the cause because PM10 correlates closely with SO2 (please note all values in the report are in microgram/m3, and can be converted to API as discussed here)

The report mentions the WHO air quality guidelines on PM10:

• annual mean: 20 micrograms/m3 (Beijing API annual average is around 100 = 150 micrograms/m3 - unfortunately the API/PM10 scale is not linear, but you get the idea)
• 24hr mean: 50 micrograms/m3 (Beijing ‘clear sky day’ upper limit API is 100 = 150 micrograms/m3 = red line in my API graphs - the WHO red line is actually at 50; we get a day like that from time to time, recently even 5 days in a row) - you can see in below graph taken from the report that in August 2006 we had 4 acceptable days according to WHO guidelines..

At the end we have to realise that without the Olympics looming, the situation would have probably been even worse today..

Last Thursday (25 Oct 2007) IOC chief Jacques Rogge once again said some Olympic events may have to be rescheduled because of bad air quality (AFP), especially for endurance disciplines. At the same time the IOC praised Beijing for its $12billion environmental clean-up operations since it won the bid in 2001, referring to a UNEP report saying that Beijing has met most of its environmental targets for a ‘green Olympics’, except air quality.

That Thursday the API was 143, and it got much worse on Friday, up to 184 and Saturday 179 (in fact these are average values; Qianmen - downtown- had 176 on Thursday, 299!! on Friday, and 216 on Saturday). Then a rain storm cleaned up the air to 27 on Sunday. The below graph of October shows its ups and downs; when we the weather conditions are bad (fog, no wind) the emissions build up; then we have to wait for rain to clean the air. To compare, we can look at Shijiazhuang, a city south of Beijing, which saw the same pattern over the last 2 weeks, but with less extreme peaks.

The Globe&Mail reports that during recent test events in Beijing, athletes were complaining about the air quality. The US team plans to train in South Korea until a few days before the events, and the UK team in Macau.

Of course ‘clean air’ is relative, but the 5 consecutive days with API less than 50 (5-9 Oct) were definitely much appreciated by Beijingers spending their October holidays in the city. The closest we got this this was 3 consecutive days in March this year. The daily rains certainly made the air cleaner, and possibly the reduced traffic during the week long holiday also avoided a buildup of bad air. In fact this may well be a record because as far as i can see in the SEPA data since 2000 this has never occurred.

Above graph shows that 3 cities near Beijing had an identical pattern over this period, with the note that while Beijing is usually worse that its neighbours (see local vs regional), this time the capital had a few relatively cleaner days. Just a stretch of good luck, or is it really getting better? Let’s keep watching.

It seems Shanghai is taking action against ‘black vehicle exhaust’, hopefully Beijing will follow. This article says vehicles are responsible for 80% of downtown air pollution.

Xinhuanet reported that September 2007 had a record 25 ‘blue sky days’ (API less than 100), and that the city is set to reach its target of 245 such days in 2007.  The article failed to mention that 10-12 Sep was a particular bad period with the API reaching 171 on 11 Sep.