China

Submitted by admin on Feb 7th 2013, 12:00am

Business

MONITOR

Tom Holland

Municipalities hoping to win prestigious model city status typically report a miraculous run of ‘blue sky days’ in the fourth quarter: study

With Beijing only now recovering after spending much of January blanketed under life-threatening levels of toxic smog, reports that officials may soon be graded according to their performance at improving air quality will no doubt be greeted as welcome news in the capital.

Alas, Beijingers shouldn’t get their hopes up.

At first, the notion that the performance of government officials should be assessed partly on environmental criteria sounds like an excellent idea.

Traditionally officials have been graded primarily on their success at driving local economic development. With officials typically rotated into new jobs every three or four years, that means their promotion prospects hinge on their ability to demonstrate tangible growth in their districts’ gross domestic product.

The easiest way to do that is to launch big showy projects, either to build new transport infrastructure or to construct large-scale property developments.

For the ambitious official, projects like these have dual merit. First, the construction spending adds directly to his local GDP, and the result – and hence the official’s achievement – is there for everyone to see.

Second, investing heavily in transport infrastructure and new property developments generates handsome revenues for the local government.

Imagine you seize some farmland on the outskirts of your city and build a glittering new government headquarters and business district on it, complete with an eight-lane highway and metro providing access.

In response the value of the adjacent land shoots up, allowing you to sell it at auction to fund yet more grand developments.

For unscrupulous officials, big projects also afford plenty of opportunities to collect kickbacks and dispense patronage, both enriching themselves and cementing their powerbases.

Compared with the attractions of prestige transport and property projects, investments in environmental improvement barely figure. They seldom look impressive, take too long to bear fruit, and don’t boost revenues from land sales. In short, they do little for officials’ promotion prospects.

Aware of the problem, the central authorities have previously tried to incorporate environmental standards into their assessment criteria for local officials. In 2003, Beijing decreed that to qualify for coveted “national environmental protection model city” status, a municipality had to boast at least 292 “blue sky days” a year. In 2007 this threshold was raised to 310 days.

A blue sky day, incidentally, is one when the average air pollution index, or API, doesn’t exceed 100. That contrasts with Hong Kong’s standards, which class API readings of between 50 and 100 as “high” pollution.

As the residents of Beijing can testify, however, this well-intentioned attempt to assess officials according to their environmental record hasn’t led to improvements in air quality.

The trouble is that making improvements is expensive, while API figures are easy to manipulate.

Considering it’s the local authorities themselves who submit their pollution data to the central government, the easiest way to score blue sky points is simply to understate the numbers.

There is some evidence this sort of crude falsification goes on. In one study in 2008, academics at Peking University found that official API figures for Beijing were consistently understated by 30 per cent.

There are more sophisticated ways of manipulating the data. Officials can cite monitoring stations in relatively unpolluted locations, or selectively omit readings from stations that report high pollution levels.

Whatever the preferred method, it appears clear local officials are indeed doctoring pollution figures to burnish their environmental credentials.

In a study published last month, Chen Yuyu from Peking University, Shi Guang from the Development Research Centre of the State Council and their co-authors found sharp discontinuities in the data reported by governments approaching the cut-off for model city status.

Municipalities hoping to win model city status typically report a miraculous run of blue sky days in the fourth quarter of the year, just in time to achieve the necessary 310-day threshold.

However, once model status has been awarded, and the local officials duly credited for their performance, the data tends to show pollution returning to its normal levels.

“These patterns suggest data manipulation,” conclude the study’s authors.

Clearly attempts to grade officials by their environmental performance won’t work as long as local governments themselves are responsible for collecting and reporting the data.

If Beijing really wants to combat pollution, it will have to create an independent agency with the power to monitor air quality across the country – and to publish its results.

Only then will officials deliver genuinely blue skies.

tom.holland@scmp.com [1]

Topics:

Beijing air pollution

Air pollution in China

Chinese Officials

Air Pollution Index

China Politics

Blue sky days

Links:
[1] mailto:tom.holland@scmp.com

Submitted by admin on Feb 6th 2013, 12:00am

Comment›Insight & Opinion

David Fullbrook

David Fullbrook urges action on black carbon, now seen as a major cause of global warming

The scale of air pollution in China is, well, breathtaking. It is not only the intensity, but the pace and scale of deterioration in air quality over the past decade. And the problem has global implications even though the immediate challenges are coughs and worse.

For thousands laid sick by the pollution, one of the causes is black carbon, or soot. Some particles are tiny enough – qualifying as PM2.5 – to enter the lungs. When not damaging lungs, black carbon is disrupting the climate. In a study published online by the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres last month, scientists concluded that black carbon is the leading cause of climate change after carbon dioxide.

Black carbon fuels global warming in two ways. One, black carbon heats up when exposed to sunlight. Two, like most dark substances, it absorbs rather than reflects light. When black carbon falls to the ground, usually after a few days, the Earth’s surface is left darker, reducing the reflectivity of the planet. Consequently, more solar energy is converted into heat.

The effect is pronounced where black carbon rains down on snow and ice. There, like tiny hot stones, black carbon concentrates heat which melts glaciers and ice caps.

The long-term climate consequences – higher temperatures, more extreme weather, and rising sea levels – for China and the world are another reason for the central government to implement and enforce a long-term strategy for cleaning up black carbon.

It is not technically challenging. In China, researchers from Peking University have found that two-thirds of black carbon comes from coke production, brick making, diesel fuel and household coal. Poor production methods and widespread use of coal make China the world’s No 1 source of black carbon. Much is a legacy of lax policing and soft standards.

Tightening up is going to cost money and hurt profits in the short term. It could, however, be incorporated into ongoing efforts to restructure the economy, shut down obsolete factories and industries, and push viable firms to cut pollution, develop eco-products and increase profits.

There is some prospect of a comprehensive response to air pollution, which might specifically tackle black carbon. Blanket press coverage suggests public outrage has the ear of the government.

The world should take Beijing as a lesson because climate change means more than sore throats. It is disrupting the planetary cycles and rhythms. If the lesson is not heeded and the Beijing precedent holds, then households and firms face the harsh economy of a carbon-busted planet.

David Fullbrook is a sustainability economist

Topics:

Air Pollution

Environment

Global Warming

Submitted by admin on Jan 24th 2013, 12:00am

Comment›Letters

Comments on Beijing’s bad air appalling

Your report (“‘Beijing cough’ an insult to capital, says professor”, January 22) that a senior health professional, Professor Pan Xiaochuan , has contrived a bizarre piece of misinformation denying the effects of air pollution on human health is disappointing and depressing.

The central government should reaffirm that it recognises that pollution harms everyone, regardless of race and culture.

The suggestion that Chinese citizens in Beijing have somehow accommodated to the catastrophic impact of pollutants on their immune and cardiopulmonary systems is ridiculous and should be strongly repudiated.

We certainly do not wish to hear this nonsense echoed by any quarter here in Hong Kong.

It is inconsistent with high- quality mainland medical and environmental health research, and the judgment of the veteran environmentalist, Professor Qu Geping , who acknowledges that economic plans have failed to protect environmental health (“Top adviser says weak rule of law fed pollution mess”, January 21).

Although their power to influence the situation quickly is limited, there is also clear recognition of the toxicity of China’s urban pollution by Beijing health authorities and education commission, and other academics and businesses, who realise that Chinese cities are being destroyed as desirable destinations by uncontrolled pollution.

The thousands of children forming queues at health stations are the most sensitive sentinels of the harm to population health. A majority will be from the lowest socio-economic groups.

Any Beijing residents who may appear to have tolerated the physiological insults of pollution will simply be survivors of the large-scale epidemic which has pushed many others into clinics, hospitals and early graves.

The same conclusion applies to Hong Kong.

Anthony Hedley, honorary professor, department of community medicine, University of Hong Kong

Submitted by amy.li on Jan 15th 2013, 10:26am

News›China

Amy Li

A furniture factory in China’s Zhejiang province became the latest victim to the heavy smog that has blanketed Beijing and several provinces and municipalities in northern and eastern China in the last few days.

The fire that engulfed the 1,000 sq m factory around midnight on Monday went unnoticed for three hours. It was hard for residents to tell the smoke from the smog, reported Xinhua state agency [1] on Monday.

When the residents finally reported the fire three hours later, it was already out of control.

It took firefighters 10 hours to put out the blaze, which had destroyed a large number of ready-made furniture, said Xinhua.

Beijing authorities on Tuesday have closed 100 chemical plants [2], construction sites and factories temporarily or cut back production to curb the worst air pollution in years.

While Beijing’s municipal government said it was the worst smog in many years, provinces including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Hebei have also reported worsening air quality in the past few days.

Topics:

Beijing smog

Air Pollution

More on this:

Chinese media call for action as smog hits record levels [3]

Smog threat remains; Beijing issues first ever orange alert [4]

Links:
[1] http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2013-01/14/c_114364016.htm
[2] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1128158/beijing-chemical-plants-and-factories-shut-try-curb-air-pollution
[3] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1127814/chinese-state-media-calls-transparency-smog-reaches-40-times-safe-limit
[4] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1127398/smog-threat-remains-beijing-issues-first-ever-orange-alert

Submitted by admin on Jan 15th 2013, 12:00am

Comment› Insight & Opinion

SCMP Editorial

Hazardous smog – that has for days blanketed north, central and east China – makes plain the scale of the environmental challenge Xi Jinping’s incoming government faces. Air quality readings have been pushed off the charts by the foul-smelling, metallic-tasting pall that has cut visibility to a few hundred metres and less. Airports, highways, schools, offices and factories have been closed and thousands of people taken to hospitals. There could be no better way for a new administration to show it means business than by bringing back blue skies and breathable air.

Those should be basic rights for all people, no matter where they live. Unfortunately, cities struggle to attain them, especially those in fast-developing countries like China. Xi’s pledge of economic sustainability offers hope. The nation has prospered under a growth-at-all-costs model, but the environment has suffered enormously as a result. Air pollution in Beijing that is the worst in at least a decade has to provide an impetus for tough action.

Pictures of the capital’s skyline – buildings mere shadows amid the ghostly grey smog – do not make us think of a nation that is confidently forging into the future. But clearing the air will not be as easy as during the Olympic Games in 2008, when normal life was all but brought to a halt. Ringed by mountains that trap pollution, its roads choked by traffic and, in winter, locked in a chill, it represents a significant challenge. If clean-up measures are to be resolutely taken on, though, there is no better place to be a showpiece.

Vital steps are already under way. There is a huge investment in switching to cleaner fuels; efforts are being made to limit purchases of new cars; and, since the start of the year, better information on air pollution has been made available. Winds later this week are predicted to start blowing the smog away. But nature alone will not make the air in China’s cities safer. That will require a new kind of thinking, a sustainable model of development and great resolve.

Topics:

Air Pollution

Smog

China

Beijing

Air quality