Shi Jiangtao in Beijing – SCMP – Updated on Aug 04, 2008
World athletes arriving in Beijing at the weekend were greeted by bright sunshine and blue skies, raising hopes of more clear air for the capital city in the last four days before the opening of the Olympics on Friday.
The Olympic host city, which has been embarrassed by persistent smog in the lead-up to the Games, basked under clear skies again yesterday, with air quality in the 24 hours to midday on Sunday pronounced “good” by national standards.
The sky was clear for three straight days from Friday after humid smog that had hung over the city for days was cleared by rainstorms and wind.
Beijing has removed almost half of its 3.3 million cars from the road, halted construction work and shut down polluting factories.
Fan Yuansheng, a top pollution-control official at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said additional traffic and production bans might not be needed to ensure good air quality for the Games.
“Air quality has been fairly good in the past few days after a flurry of contingency measures were adopted. I don’t think we are very likely to see extremely unfavourable conditions.”
Authorities announced a contingency plan last week under which 200,000 more cars would be taken off the road and more than 100 factories closed in Beijing if smog hit again.
About 700,000 cars in Tianjin and 900,000 vehicles in four cities in Hebei would also be banned from the road to ensure clear skies for the Olympics, according to Mr Fan, director of the ministry’s pollution control department.
“I am not saying the plan will not be activated at all, but I don’t expect it. But if we meet extremely bad weather conditions, which worsen air pollution, we will still have to kick in the plan after the approval of the State Council,” he said.
Meanwhile, Premier Wen Jiabao said China was a responsible country and would honour all of its international commitments, including one to host the “green Games”.
“Beijing will remain clean after the Olympics and the city will be clean for ever,” he said, in an apparent bid to ease concerns that smog would return after the temporary bans for the Games were lifted.
Echoing Mr Wen, Mr Fan said that although many contingency measures to cut pollution were deemed short-lived, authorities would learn from the Games experience to tackle pollution in the long term.
More than a dozen environmental groups in Beijing made a joint appeal yesterday, calling on Beijingers to leave their cars at home on Friday to ensure good air quality for the opening of the Games.
Meanwhile, top officials from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau predicted thunder and rain were likely on the day of the opening ceremony, and warned typhoons could disrupt events in host cities such as Qingdao, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah said Hongkong Electric and CLP Power had agreed to increase the use of natural gas during the events in an effort to boost air quality during the Olympics and Paralympics