It is an exciting time for China, from August 8-24th China will be hosting the 2008 Olympics in its capital Beijing. The country sees this honor as an oppurtunity for it to show its economic, political and cultural achievements to the rest of the world. However there is one matter that will not have the international community raving, and that is the amount of pollution which seems to shadow the capital city. Though China has taken significant steps to reduce the amount of pollutants in the air, the steps seem to have fallen short. China has forced one million cars off the road and has temporarily closed hundreds of factories and yet the city’s air quality is still short of national standards. Olympic organizers fear that these conditions will not improve before the games are scheduled to take place, even though China has stated that it will continue to take the appropriate steps to improve its air quality.
As the opening for the Olympics grows closer, both China and olympic organizers are preparing to take more drastic steps to improve the air quality. This year is especially important as the world moves toward becoming green, this year a “Green Olympics” has been promised. Thus, China may be forced to postpone certain olympic events, such as the marathon, triathlon and other ‘endurance’ events, until cleaner air is present.
Chinese news sources have stated that China is willing to temporarily close construction sites and even more factories if air quality does not improve. Also, China is willing to impose certain traffic restrictions in order to improve air quality. Already, Chinese are assigned a certain day on which they are allowed to drive, depending on if their license plate tag is odd or even. Meaning that odd license plates may drive on one day and even on the next, this alternating system though extreme has proved effective in mediating traffic and improving air quality.
This failure to bring air pollutants or particulate matter in the air down to the national benchmark of 100mg a cubic meter, which is half of the desired 50mg a cubic meter of the World Health Organization, does not mean that China has not made improvements in its air quality. According to statistics, China’s ability to even come close to its 100mg, is a drastic improvement from its past, however it still falls short of international standards.
Recent environmental goals made by China include:
-Millions of coal burning homes, replaced by gas
-Over 2,000 old vehicles replaced by newer more efficient models
-Over 5,000 taxis replaced by newer cleaner models
-5 new urban railways have been added to the public transportation system
If the situation continues China “will implement an emergency plan 48 hours” before the August 8-24 games, said We Li Xin of the Beijing environmental protection bureau. However, this may not be enough, according to the Greenpeace campaign director, Beijing’s air quality is still not that of an Olympic city. Especially because these athletes will be breathing 150 liters of air per minute, thus concerns over the health of the athletes are very legitimate.
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