Battle for Clean Air <p>Air pollution continues to be a daunting challenge across the world, but a new report points to China as an important beacon of progress. According to a latest report published by Chicago University, particulate pollution in China has declined by 40% since 2013 when the Chinese government declared a “war against pollution,” while it took several decades for the U.S. and Europe to achieve such reductions. The drop has also added two years onto the average life expectancy in China. What enabled China to make its air cleaner while also growing its economy? What still needs to be tackled?</p><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cgtn.com/tv/replay?id=cJdcEA__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!4xplt0SwF4yxafctatq9khWdaJ679ODGaWJzPSzrpLmaPcgxTloaErI07WrGvyhyJkGysx288ef2vJeLeyxwoo4_XHu4CWw$"> Watch via CGTN</a></p> <p>Air pollution continues to be a daunting challenge across the world, but a new report points to China as an important beacon of progress. According to a latest report published by Chicago University, particulate pollution in China has declined by 40% since 2013 when the Chinese government declared a “war against pollution,” while it took several decades for the U.S. and Europe to achieve such reductions. The drop has also added two years onto the average life expectancy in China. What enabled China to make its air cleaner while also growing its economy? What still needs to be tackled? </p> <p><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cgtn.com/tv/replay?id=cJdcEA__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!4xplt0SwF4yxafctatq9khWdaJ679ODGaWJzPSzrpLmaPcgxTloaErI07WrGvyhyJkGysx288ef2vJeLeyxwoo4_XHu4CWw$">Watch via CGTN</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/chinas-clean-air-campaign-is-bringing-down-global-pollution/"> China’s Clean Air Campaign Is Bringing Down Global Pollution </a> </h1> <p>China has reduced air pollution nearly as much in seven years as the US did in three decades, helping to bring down average global smog levels in the process.</p> <p>The amount of harmful particulates in the air in China fell 40% from 2013 to 2020, according to the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, which would add about two years to average life expectancy if sustained. While smog in large swathes of the country still significantly exceeds safe levels, its experience shows how quickly progress can be made, researchers including Professor Michael Greenstone said in a report published Tuesday.</p> <p>About 97% of the world’s population live in areas where air quality is usually worse than World Health Organization guidelines, according to the researchers. Smog reduces global life expectancy more than cigarette smoking, alcohol or poor sanitation, they said.</p> <p>“China’s success in reducing pollution is a strong indication of the opportunities that could lie ahead for other nations if they were to impose strong pollution policies, as some are beginning to do,” they said.</p> <p>Even in the US and Europe, which have been battling pollution for decades and account for just 4.1% of the global health burden from airborne particulates, more than 90% of people live in areas that don’t meet WHO guidelines, which were tightened last year.</p> <p>China’s success, led by restrictions on car use and coal burning in major cities, has been rapid, with its 40% decline in seven years nearly equaling a 44% drop in US pollution over 30 years from 1970, after the landmark Clean Air Act was passed, the researchers said by email. Still, Beijing remains three times more polluted than Los Angeles, the smoggiest city in the US, and the national average for air particulates is six times higher than the WHO recommends.</p> <p>Without China’s declines, the world would have seen average pollution levels increase since 2013 instead of drop, the researchers said. That’s because of worsening air quality in the industrializing countries of South and Southeast Asia and Central Africa. Cambodia and Thailand both saw pollution rise by more than 10% in 2020 even as nearby Singapore and Indonesia saw levels fall. Meanwhile the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi are among the most polluted in the world.</p> <p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/china-s-clean-air-campaign-is-bringing-down-global-pollution?sref=pD2ECzY4">Continue Reading at Bloomberg…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/chinas-war-against-pollution-extraordinarily-successful-university-of-chicago-researcher/"> China’s War Against Pollution Extraordinarily Successful: University of Chicago Researcher </a> </h1> <p>“China’s air pollution reductions account for more than three-quarters of the global decline in pollution since 2013,” a University of Chicago researcher said in a recent interview with People’ Daily Online.</p> <p><strong>War against pollution</strong></p> <p>In 2014, the Chinese government declared a “War Against Pollution” to tackle pollution with the same determination the country took in its battle against poverty. In 2021, Beijing’s average concentration of PM2.5 dropped by 63 percent from 2013 levels, an average annual reduction of about 8 percent. Professor Guojun He, Research Director of the China Center at the Energy Policy Institute of the University of Chicago (EPIC), told People’s Daily Online that China’s war against pollution has been extraordinarily successful.</p> <p>Compared with the pollution reduction process in the U.S., He said that “the United States started to focus on reducing pollution in the early 1970s, it took several decades and recessions to achieve the same pollution reductions that China has accomplished in eight years.”</p> <p>At the same time, He claimed that such air pollution reductions would add two more years to Chinese people’s average life expectancy if these reductions can be sustained, based on his team’s estimates. In addition to leading longer lives, there will also be significant reductions in medical expenditures on pollution-related illnesses and household spending on air purifiers and related equipment. “Overall, people can enjoy a higher-quality life with a better environment,” He added.</p> <p><strong>Ambitious and welcomed carbon pledge</strong></p> <p>In a bid to pursue green growth, China has announced that it would strive to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. He said that China’s carbon targets are very ambitious, and its pledge to achieve carbon neutrality is well-welcomed internationally.</p> <p>He suggested that, in comparison, the EU needs to reduce around 4 billion tons of carbon, while the U.S. meanwhile needs to eliminate about 6 billion tons in carbon in order to achieve carbon neutrality; with both of them having relatively more time to abate their carbon emissions than China has. During this transition process, he believes that the entirety of industrial production in China will be revolutionized, and its importance is comparable to China’s economic reforms over the past four decades.</p> <p>With the target of achieving carbon neutrality, China has taken active actions to promote renewable energy. Now, China has the greatest program for renewable energy in the world and is also the world’s largest producer of solar energy. In 2020, China built more wind power capacity than the rest of the whole world combined in the year prior.</p> <p>He concluded that China’s investments into renewable energy have been “tremendous” in the last two decades and spoke highly of China’s efforts, saying that “I do think this strategy is critical to balance the environment and economy.” Meanwhile, He pointed out that further expanding renewable energy will be critical for the country to achieve its carbon emission peaking and carbon neutrality targets.</p> <p><a href="http://en.people.cn/n3/2022/0325/c90000-9976159.html">Continue Reading at People’s Daily Online…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/%e8%bf%99%e6%98%af%e4%b8%80%e4%bb%bd%e6%80%8e%e6%a0%b7%e7%9a%84%e6%8a%a5%e5%91%8a%ef%bc%8c%e7%ab%9f%e7%84%b6%e8%ae%a9%e5%8f%82%e4%b8%8e%e5%86%99%e4%bd%9c%e7%9a%84%e7%be%8e%e5%9b%bd%e6%95%99%e6%8e%88/"> 这是一份怎样的报告，竟然让参与写作的美国教授自己都震惊了 </a> </h1> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1024" height="474" src="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun--1024x474.png" alt="" class="wp-image-34477" srcset="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun--1024x474.png 1024w, https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun--300x139.png 300w, https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun--768x356.png 768w, https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun--1536x711.png 1536w, https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Guojun-.png 1725w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption><a href="https://res.cenews.com.cn/h5/news.html?id=895807">https://res.cenews.com.cn/h5/news.html?id=895807</a></figcaption></figure> <p>这几天，何国俊打开邮箱，收到很多未读邮件提醒。作为芝加哥大学能源与环境政策研究所中国中心研究主任，他和同事们最近合著了一份名为《从2008年夏季奥运会到2022年冬季奥运会：中国的反污染之战》（简称“《中国反污染之战》”）的报告，一时间采访邀约便多了起来。</p> <p>3月，求职季临近。外籍人力中介Tony同往常一样打开电脑，查看当天有意愿来华求职的外籍人员的简历，竟收到了上万条求职中国的意向信息。</p> <p>素不相识、相隔千里的何国俊和Tony究竟有何交集？</p> <p>中国的大气治理无形中将两人联系起来。</p> <p>2008年夏季奥运会的成功举办，成为中国首都北京一张新的名片。在此后几年间，北京更是迎来了国际人才来华交流、求职的黄金时期。</p> <p>“那时候，来北京的英语外教时薪大概能达到300元-400元，我们有时候会在北京线下举办一些促进文化交流的沙龙，即便时薪只有100元，但对一些外籍老师来说，也愿意来，场场爆满。”2014年，Tony初入职场，对这段时光印象很深。</p> <p>对很多外国求职者来讲，北京历史文化底蕴深厚、包容热情，吸引力很大。</p> <p>然而，从事外籍中介工作几年后，Tony发现了这样一个问题：愿意来华务工的外籍人才求职意向开始在地域上有了排序，北京并不是外籍求职者的首选，排在上海、深圳之后。为什么会这样？身在北京的他想要找到这背后的原因。</p> <p>“后来，我通过与求职者沟通了解到，造成这样情况的因素很多。尽管有政策方面的原因，但空气质量也是求职者在意的一个因素。他们在网上搜了关于北京的报道，称这里空气质量不太好。”Tony这样说。</p> <p>对于这个时期的北京，早在2012年就随父母从釜山搬到北京的韩国90后小伙儿崔原赫（ChoiWonHyeok）深有感触。</p> <p>“印象最深的大概在2013年，那时候我在北京大学上大二，常和朋友们约着一起踢（足）球，有一天下雨了，我们也没不管不顾继续踢，后来下了场，我才发现身上的白T恤留下整块的污迹，才发现那场雨不是透明的。”崔原赫回忆道。</p> <p>也是从这一年开始，一场持续了近十年的“反污染之战”在中国拉开序幕。</p> <p>2014年，李克强总理在作政府工作报告时提出了“向雾霾宣战”一词。2014年、2015年、2017年三年，大气环境这一话题都出现在全国两会的总理记者会上，成为社会关注热点。在社会各界高度的关注下，中国一些地区大气治理的压力层层传导，空气质量改善明显，北京就在其中。</p> <p>从那时起，Tony电脑桌面的收藏夹里多了一个链接——一条查询北京AQI（AirQualityIndex，空气质量指数）的链接。</p> <p>也是从那时起，在接到求职者电话或者邮件咨询时，Tony的回答逐渐有了些底气。“2018年以来，北京经过相当长一段时间的大气治理，空气质量已经有明显好转了。但在交流中，感觉外籍求职者并不能感受到北京的改变。毕竟在国外媒体报道中，空气污染是新闻，蓝天白云反倒不会报道。于是，我就常常把北京AQI的截图发给他们，把蓝天拍给他们。”</p> <p><a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ALk5PIDaqn24nLb16TNyWw">Continue Reading at 中国环境APP…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/olympic-gains-study-highlights-chinas-progress-on-air-pollution-since-2008/"> Olympic Gains: Study Highlights China’s Progress on Air Pollution Since 2008 </a> </h1> <p>Over the 14 years between the 2008 Summer Olympics and the recent winter games, the biggest change in people’s impressions of Beijing might be its gradually bluer skies. In 2008, many Chinese people couldn’t tell fog from smog, or say what PM2.5 pollution was. But now in 2022, no weather forecast is complete without data on PM2.5 – harmful fine particles less than 2.5 micrometres wide – while blue skies and fluffy white clouds are no longer a strange sight.</p> <p>In 2013, information on PM2.5 was added to China’s annual reports on the state of its environment. A Ministry of Ecology and Environment report shows that average PM2.5 levels nationwide have since fallen from 72 micrograms (μg) per cubic metre in 2013 to 30 μg/m3 in 2021 – a 58% fall and a major improvement in air quality.</p> <p>“The air people in Beijing breathe today is dramatically cleaner than it was during the last Olympics, allowing residents to live longer, healthier lives,” said Michael Greenstone, professor at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). “The speed of these reductions is without historical precedent globally.”</p> <p>Recent research from EPIC says that China’s efforts on air pollution have accounted for three-quarters of the reduction in airborne pollutants worldwide, and, if sustained, will increase the life expectancy of its citizens.</p> <p><strong>From 2008 to 2022</strong></p> <p>There were notable changes in China’s approach to air pollution between the two Olympics. In 2008, targeted short-term measures were used to bring about a quick improvement in air quality. But in 2013, longer-term and more sustainable programmes were put in place, and air quality gradually improved – but at significant financial and social cost.</p> <p>To ensure the 2008 Games were a “Green Olympics”, China took rapid, radical measures. These included shutting some chemical and cement factories near Beijing, and, for several weeks before, during and after the games, taking half of the city’s cars off the roads on any given day. According to a paper from 2013, China spent US$10 billion on these measures, and managed to bring air pollution in Beijing down by 29.6% during the games, compared with the previous year. The researchers described the feat as “the largest natural experiment in air cleaning” in Olympic history.</p> <p>But such efforts could not last long. In the following years, air pollution continued to worsen, peaking at its highest ever in 2013. According to EPIC’s data, average PM2.5 levels in Beijing in 2013 were 85 μg/m3 – almost 2.4 times the applicable national standard, and 17 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline.</p> <p>Such severe air pollution has a huge impact on expected lifespans. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 2017 pointed out that long-term exposure to particulate pollution causes significantly shorter lifespans, and a much higher chance of suffering heart and respiratory diseases.</p> <p><a href="https://chinadialogue.net/en/pollution/chinas-air-pollution-progress-since-2008/">Continue Reading at China Dialogue…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/from-airpocalypse-to-olympic-blue%e2%80%afchinas-air-quality-transformation/"> From ‘Airpocalypse’ to Olympic Blue: China’s Air Quality Transformation </a> </h1> <p>When Eileen Gu launched off a giant ramp at the Beijing Winter Olympics, you may have noticed an odd backdrop: a series of giant cement cooling towers on the outskirts of China’s capital. The towers belong to the shuttered steel mill of corporate giant Shougang Group, or Capital Steel. It may have seemed a grim, industrial setting compared to the Alpine landscapes of other Winter Games, but those towers are actually symbols of an environmental success story: the remarkably steep drop in air pollution across China.</p> <p>The Shougang plant shut down in 2011 to help clear the capital’s notoriously foul air. Around that time, China’s smog reached a crisis point — its air pollution hit dangerous levels, with frequent episodes of what came to be known as an “airpocalypse” in 2013. The country’s largest cities were among the most polluted on Earth. Public outcry over the health effects reached a point at which the government felt it needed to act.</p> <p>What followed — a significant clearing of the skies in under a decade — represents a huge victory for the country’s environment and public health. Pollution levels dropped by more than half in the capital from 2013 to 2020; neighboring provinces recorded similar declines. “One of my friends said, ‘Previously, we counted the good [air] days, but now, we count the bad [air] days,’” Shen Xinyi, a researcher at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Grid.</p> <p>To put the improvements in perspective, China’s percentage drop in pollution took decades to achieve in the U.S., and China accounted for more than three-quarters of the global decline in air pollution between 2013 and 2020, according to a recently published report from the University of Chicago.</p> <p>…</p> <p>By 2020, Beijing’s PM 2.5 levels had plummeted to 38, a 55 percent drop, according to the University of Chicago study. And the progress didn’t end there. In 2021, pollution levels fell further, allowing Beijing to meet China’s national air quality standard for the first time. (China’s standard for air quality are not as strict as the WHO’s.)</p> <p>…</p> <p>Guojun He, an associate professor of economics at the University of Hong Kong and a co-author of the University of Chicago study, said one of the main reasons for the success of the campaign was “that the central government of China is really powerful, so it can have all those ‘iron fist’ policies or command and control policies.”</p> <p>The sweeping policy push hasn’t been without its stumbles. Most notably, in the fall of 2017, when the region around Beijing was running out of time to meet its targets, government officials took aggressive actions without considering their full impact. Among other measures, they banned coal-fired heaters before new natural gas lines were hooked up, leading to reports of children nearly freezing in schools and families left without heat in their frigid homes. And in some cases, when polluting firms were shut down abruptly, companies protested and lost revenue.</p> <p>“Those are unfortunate, I would say, local failures,” said He. “They pushed it too fast and didn’t really consider the basic needs, the basic demand for energy consumption.”</p> <p>…</p> <p>A 2017 study put the health effects of air pollution in China in stark terms. An international research team used the natural divide between the regions north of the Huai River in China — where the government provided free or heavily subsidized winter heating, mostly by burning coal — and south of the river, where centralized heat was not provided, to study the impact of pollution. They found that life expectancy in the coal-burning north was 3.1 years less than in the south.</p> <p>The recent improvements have already gone a long way toward closing that life expectancy gap. In the University of Chicago study, researchers found that Beijing residents can now expect to live 4.6 years longer than they would have with air pollution at the 2013 levels. The national life expectancy has also been boosted by two years.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The “war on pollution” isn’t over</h3> <p>There is still work to be done. Despite all its progress, China began waging its “war on pollution” when smog levels were very high, and the air remains unhealthy. Beijing’s air pollution is still seven times higher than the WHO standard for healthy air quality, and about three times the level in Los Angeles.</p> <p>The University of Chicago research team found that if China were to meet the WHO guideline, the country’s citizens would gain another 2.6 years of life expectancy. However, experts say that China has already plucked many of the low-hanging fruit in its campaign: using clean technology, including pollution scrubbers to make coal plants run with less harmful emissions and improving auto fuel standards. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, wrote recently that the next battles in China’s air pollution war will be more challenging and will intersect with its chief climate challenge: China will need to start reducing its use of fossil fuels altogether.</p> <p>That means many more coal and steel plants like Shougang’s will need to retire — or be transformed into ski jumps — before China’s “war” is won.</p> <p><a href="https://www.grid.news/story/climate/2022/02/22/china-pollution-air-clean-olympics/">Continue Reading at Grid…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/how-to-clear-the-air-in-the-most-polluted-cities-on-earth/"> How to Clear the Air in the Most Polluted Cities on Earth </a> </h1> <p>The atmosphere has changed in Beijing since the Chinese capital’s last Olympics in 2008. While the Summer Games 14 years ago were meant to be a forward-looking celebration of China taking its place on the world stage, the 2022 Winter Olympics have a markedly dourer tone, hamstrung by Covid-19 and political controversy.</p> <p>But one aspect of Beijing’s atmosphere has clearly improved: the air itself. While the 2008 Games were marked by some of the worst air quality in Olympic history, China’s “war against pollution” has advanced so much since that Olympians this month could glimpse the previously smog-enshrouded mountains surrounding the city. Air pollution in the capital has decreased by 50 percent since the 2008 Olympics, which if maintained will lead to four years of additional life for the average Beijing resident.</p> <p>…</p> <p>According to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), global air pollution has decreased since 2011, but that drop is mostly concentrated in China. Most countries across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa have experienced steady or increased air pollution in recent decades. The situation is especially bad throughout much of India: As of 2020, nine of the world’s 10 most polluted cities were in India, and people throughout the Indo-Gangetic plain could expect to live as much as nine years longer if pollution was reduced to the WHO guideline numbers.</p> <p>To some degree, the increase in air pollution is a byproduct of economic development: more cars, more energy, more growth. But severe air pollution isn’t an immutable law of nature. From 2013 to 2019, China reduced its particulate pollution by 29 percent by using a suite of policies, including implementing new and better-enforced emissions standards for coal plants, limiting the building of new coal plants, restricting vehicles on roads in large cities, and increasing renewable energy. “If these reductions are sustained,” states an EPIC report from 2021, “China’s people can expect to live 1.5 years longer.”</p> <p>…</p> <p>“Most of what we know about the impacts of air pollution on health are from short-term exposure studies, so these are studies that take advantage of daily or weekly or sometimes quarterly differences in air pollution concentrations,” says Michael Greenstone, director of EPIC, whose AQLI (Air Quality Life Index) tracks reduced life expectancy from air pollution. Yet, he adds, “the reason we regulate it is to change people’s long-run exposure to air pollution.”</p> <p>The AQLI estimates are based on a 2013 paper that used a home heating program in China to approximate years of life lost by air pollution. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Chinese government provided free coal for winter heating for households north of the Huai River, but not south of it. That policy created a natural experiment: Villages north and south of the river were mostly the same, save for increased indoor air pollution in the north because residents could afford to burn more coal there.</p> <p>Life expectancies in those households north of the Huai River fell by an estimated 5.5 years. The researchers used this data to isolate the effect of air pollution from other potential causes of reduced life expectancy, and created the AQLI index to calculate the impact that different levels of particulate concentration can have on lifespan. Policymakers and the general public can use the AQLI to track how air quality has been affecting life expectancy in different countries and regions over the last 20 years. They’ve discovered that while air pollution shortens lives around the world, its main effects are concentrated in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.</p> <p>While air pollution in Delhi has been bad for decades, the last 20 years have seen air pollution worsen in other areas of India and South and Southeast Asia, as economic growth has translated into increased vehicle and fossil fuel use. In the Central Indian states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, according to EPIC’s 2021 annual report, “the average person … is now losing an additional 2.5 to 2.9 years of life expectancy” relative to the early 2000s due to air pollution. “Eighty-three percent of the country, by one estimate,” says Santosh Harish, South Asian Air Quality program officer at Open Philanthropy, “breathes air that is worse than the national standards,” which are themselves more lenient than the WHO recommendations.</p> <p>In neighboring Bangladesh, the average person is losing 5.4 years of life expectancy due to air pollution, much more than 20 years ago. Urbanized regions of Indonesia, such as Jakarta, face similar burdens on life expectancy due to vehicle-related pollution and coal-fired power plants. Forest and peatland fires for agricultural clearance related to palm oil production in Kalimantan and Sumatra affect air quality across Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia.</p> <p>Air pollution is a severe health threat in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Nigeria, home to over 200 million people, air pollution has reduced life expectancy by 1.5 additional years compared to the early 2000s, caused by vehicles, industrial emissions, waste burning, port pollution, and the operation of diesel generators that are used because of the country’s unreliable electricity supply. As energy consumption in sub-Saharan Africa has grown, air quality has decreased throughout the region, according to the AQLI.</p> <p>…</p> <p>A complementary approach might be market-based policies. “A great way to soften those trade-offs,” Greenstone told me, “is to use market-based regulations, which really minimize the regulatory costs and minimize the impacts on economic growth, and while doing that allow for robust improvements in environmental quality and ultimately people’s health.” The state of Gujarat in India, for example, started an emissions trading program for air pollution in 2019 in which the government sets an emissions cap and companies could buy and sell permits to discharge pollutants, creating an incentive for them to reduce pollutants. This has cut air pollution by roughly 15-20 percent, according to Greenstone; with this success, the government is expanding the plan throughout Gujarat, and a similar program is being implemented by the Indian state of Punjab.</p> <p>End-of-pipe control measures — which mandate pollution reductions at the source — face some of the same challenges around incentives. These upgrades, which cut conventional pollutants like SO2, are effective at cleaning up the air — though they don’t reduce carbon pollution — without requiring an immediate transition away from coal. That’s important for countries like India where the energy supply is still dominated by coal, and will likely be so for years.</p> <p>Such policies have been highly effective at cleaning up the air in China and Europe, as well as the US, but Peng notes that regulators pushing for cleaner air need to grapple with “the organized interests from the power generation companies that don’t want to do additional things to increase their costs.” That means governments have to spend time and money on the process of negotiation, along with monitoring and enforcement.</p> <p>Cultivating public demand for clean air by warning people about its health risks can also drive action by governments and individuals across countries. Greenstone noted how large policy changes in other countries, like China’s “war on pollution,” were influenced by public demand. In a best-case scenario, this can create a virtuous cycle of policymakers, researchers, and other actors — such as what Kejriwal was trying to achieve with his daily tweets on Delhi’s air pollution levels this winter.</p> <p><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22937366/air-polluted-city-smog-india-china-beijing?mc_cid=a71cf32e61&mc_eid=UNIQID">Continue Reading at Vox…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/china-makes-olympian-effort-to-cut-pollution-but-remains-short-of-who-standards/"> China Makes Olympian Effort to Cut Pollution But Remains Short of WHO Standards </a> </h1> <p>Since Beijing hosted the 2008 summer Olympics 14 years ago, China has taken steps to improve the air quality in its cities, despite remaining the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.</p> <p>While the country has a long way to go and continues to build the coal-fired power plants that contribute to the deadly pollution that is the leading cause of global warming, it has made a quantifiable improvement in the past decade.</p> <p>Starting in 2014, when premier Li Keqiang declared a “war against pollution”, there has been a 40 per cent reduction in the country’s emissions, according to satellite data analysed by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.*</p> <p>This amounts to more than three-quarters of the total global decline during that period in air pollution, referred to as particulate matter, or suspended dirt and soot that can pass through the lungs into the bloodstream.</p> <p>Although there were improvements made to air quality in preparation for the 2008 Summer Games, as power plants and factories were closed temporarily, these radical measures were shortlived. Pollution returned to previous levels following the Games and peaked in 2013.</p> <p>However, the co-host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics, Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, has reported a 49 per cent decrease from the 2013 peak, based on data provided by China’s National Air Quality Monitoring Network.</p> <p>According to Michael Greenstone, the co-author of a report on China’s efforts, a former adviser to Barack Obama and the creator of the Air Quality Life Index, the advent of a national air quality monitoring system has been crucial for ensuring better reporting of emissions across the board.</p> <p>“Local governments often had opportunities to influence the reported pollution concentration; when a lot of those opportunities were removed by the central government, that raised the bar on the quality of readings while reducing opportunities to report concentrations lower than they actually were,” says Greenstone, who is also director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.</p> <p>“A great benefit for polluters is something I refer to as ‘the zone of confusion’. A very successful part of China’s war on pollution has been to try and remove that zone of confusion and replace it with reliable information so it’s clear which places to target and which polluters to target,” he added.</p> <p>While China has met its national air quality standard, its pollution levels still exceed World Health Organization guidelines, the Air Quality Life Index notes. When compared with Los Angeles, the most polluted city in the US, Beijing is still three times more polluted.</p> <p>“If China were to meet the WHO guideline, the average Chinese citizen could expect to gain an additional 2 years of life expectancy, on top of the recent gains. Residents of Beijing could gain an additional 3 years,” the group said.</p> <p>Nonetheless, Beijing residents are breathing air that is half as polluted as it was during its Summer Olympics.</p> <p>Other cities have seen changes also: Baoding, in central Hebei province, has reported a 54 per cent decrease in deadly fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5 air pollution, since 2013.</p> <p>But China faces an uphill battle to reaching its goal to become carbon neutral by 2060, Greenstone said.</p> <p>“In many respects, China has picked a lot of the low-hanging fruit here and what they now are facing are stark trade-offs between the continued and urgent need for rapid economic growth and continued improvements in environmental quality.”</p> <p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/afa10e7d-e575-4822-b50b-dcd0b3e74d78">Continue Reading at Financial Times…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/cleaner-air-means-longer-lives-for-beijingers/"> Cleaner Air Means Longer Lives for Beijingers </a> </h1> <p>Beijing was once notorious for its “airpocalypses,” with smog so severe schools shut down. But since 2013, pollution levels in China’s capital city have fallen by about half, according to a new report published by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.</p> <p><strong>Why it matters:</strong> The improved air quality will add about four years of life expectancy for Beijing residents, who have suffered from high rates of respiratory illness because of poor air quality.</p> <p><strong>Yes, but:</strong> Beijing’s air is still three times more polluted than Los Angeles’, one of America’s most polluted cities. There’s more work to do.</p> <p><a href="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-china-1b56fefd-ab4d-4274-94a3-11548af46abe.html">Continue Reading at Axios…</a></p> </article> <article> <h1> <a href="https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/explainer-how-china-got-blue-skies-in-time-for-olympics/"> EXPLAINER: How China Got Blue Skies in Time for Olympics </a> </h1> <p>The blue skies greeting Olympic athletes here this month are a stark change from just a decade ago when the city’s choking air pollution was dubbed an “Airpocalypse” and blamed for scaring off tourists.</p> <p>Beijing’s air still has a long way to go, but is measurably better than past years when smog often made it difficult to see nearby buildings and people wore masks to protect themselves from pollution, not COVID-19. The city’s notorious pollution also made news in 2016, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself jogging in the haze through Tiananmen Square with a smile on his face. Some mused on social media that he was trying to ingratiate himself with Chinese authorities.</p> <p>Yet at this month’s Beijing Games, the air is clear enough for athletes to see the mountains surrounding the city.</p> <p>A look at what’s behind the transformation.</p> <p>WHAT CHANGED?</p> <p>After pollution hit record levels in 2013 and became a source of international attention and widespread public discontent, China launched an ambitious plan to improve its air quality and said it would fight pollution “with an iron fist,” according to a recent report from the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago. That was also around the time the country bid on this month’s Winter Games.</p> <p>The ensuing efforts were similar to the measures China had previously taken to ensure clear skies for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, but on a larger scale, the report notes. Tougher emissions standards were imposed on coal-fired plants and the number of cars on the road was curbed to cut vehicle emissions. Local officials were given environmental targets, and coal-fired boilers in homes were replaced with gas or electric heaters.</p> <p>The government’s reporting of air quality data also improved.</p> <p>Jia Pei, a 30-year-old Beijing resident who enjoys exercising outside, said the improved air quality puts him in a better mood.</p> <p>“In the past when there was smog, I would feel that I was inhaling dust into my mouth,” he said.</p> <p>IS BEIJING’S AIR CLEAN NOW?</p> <p>Despite the progress, Beijing’s annual average air pollution last year was still more than six times the limit laid out by the World Health Organization’s guidelines.</p> <p>And the concentration of coal-burning industries that still surrounds the city means it remains susceptible to bad air days, said Lauri Myllyvirta at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki, Finland.</p> <p>When those happen can depend on factors like car traffic or how much wind there is to blow away smog.</p> <p>Still, Chinese officials hail the country’s achievements. Last year, they say there were 288 days of good air quality days in Beijing, compared to 176 days in 2013.</p> <p>HOW IS HEALTH AFFECTED?</p> <p>The effects of air pollution can be visceral and include irritated eyes and difficulty breathing.</p> <p>“You could hear people coughing all over because of it,” said Myllyvirta, who was living in Beijing until 2019.</p> <p>Children, older adults and people with health conditions including asthma are more likely to feel the effects. The very fine particles that make up air pollution can get deep into people’s lungs and have been linked to health problems including irregular heartbeats and decreased lung function.</p> <p>Poorer people might also be more vulnerable if they can’t afford air purifiers or need to work outdoors, said Guojun He, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong and co-author of the report from the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago.</p> <p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-explainer-beijing-blue-skies-4707798bac96bdb68ad7250d450e902f">Continue Reading at AP…</a></p> </article> </main> </div> <div class="map-newsletter"> <div class="map-newsletter__bg"></div> <div class="map-newsletter__inside"> <h3 class="heading">Stay updated on AQLI’s latest data & reports</h3> <!-- Begin MailChimp Signup Form --> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form action="//uchicago.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=655d81e60f4e0d2c3959628d6&id=8d54d6ad5d" method="post" id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" 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