Beijing's red smog alert: How other cities dealt with air quality disasters
The city, which is in the middle of its second-ever red alert for smog, is not alone in facing cripplingly high pollution levels. Can China learn from the lessons of London and Mexico City?
The city, which is in the middle of its second-ever red alert for smog, is not alone in facing cripplingly high pollution levels. Can China learn from the lessons of London and Mexico City?
Beijing is under another 鈥渞ed alert鈥� for smog, just two weeks after the government first sounded the top smog alarm in early December.
A red alert is issued when air pollution surpasses a level of 200 parts per million of fine particulates (referred to as PM2.5) for at least three days on a four-tier index that catalogs air pollutants. Beijing has struggled with dense smog for several years. The government adopted the colored alert system in October 2013 after photos of city residents wearing face masks and fighting their way through a dense blanket of smog made global headlines. Despite having passed the 200 mark numerous times, the Chinese government did not trigger the first red-alert warning until Dec. 7.
China's record on pollution has been under increased scrutiny in the months leading up to and during the United Nations' Climate Change Conference of the Parties. As the world's largest emissions producer,聽China has made considerable commitments to reducing it's carbon footprint, but many world leaders have remained skeptical that those pledges represent much more than empty promises. Some environmental experts see the red alerts as a signal that the country is ready to step up to address its pollution problem.
"That's聽a sign of a different attitude聽from the Beijing government," Dong Liansai, an energy and climate campaigner for Greenpeace, told Tech Times. "It shows they really want to initiate this alert system and deal with air pollution."
Beijing is not alone in facing cripplingly high pollution levels and attempting to address them. In London, the Great Smog of 1952, a thick, pollutant-laden fog that lasted for four days and killed approximately 4,000 people, prompted the passage of the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968 aimed at reducing pollution. London still struggles with pollution, but has not seen a smog event of that magnitude since.
And聽over the past two decades, Mexico City has proved to be a model of environmental protection since the low ebbs of the early 1990s, creating environmental laws that have expanded the city鈥檚 public transportation system, among other provisions, as 海角大神's contributor聽David Agren wrote in 2013:
So far, Beijing has been largely focusing on immediate measures in response to acute spikes of pollutants.
The most recent red alert, which will last until midnight on Tuesday, prompted Beijing to remove half of its vehicles from the road, using an odd-even license plate system that will also be enforced in New Delhi starting next year. Outdoor construction has been banned, and factories and schools within the Beijing city limits are temporarily ordered to close.
Some Beijing residents questioned the new alert and the ensuing regulations, perhaps a sign of how accustomed to smog the people of Beijing have become.
"The smog is not so bad. Why do they have driving restrictions?" a Beijing resident posted Saturday on Weibo, China鈥檚 equivalent to Twitter.
Monitor writer Peter Ford, like all residents of Beijing has learned to live and work through thick gray air. But the implementation of the red alert, has prompted him and others in the city to think differently, as he wrote during the first red alert: