Vijay Umashanker's List: Global Issues Project Vijay Umashanker

• The World Health Organization says air pollution figures for Beijing are still far higher than its recommended target level. 

  The Beijing authorities say pollution levels are coming down and they have introduced a series of measures, such as reducing traffic driving in to the city and stopping work at building sites, to bring down levels even further. 
• But he has also cautioned that the "fog" that can be seen hanging over Beijing can be caused by humidity, and may not be a direct indicator of pollution.
• Beijing was ranked as the 13th most polluted city in the world in 2004. The World Bank list included many cities in China and India, where rapidly expanding industrial sectors were contributing to the build-up of air pollution
• In normal conditions, oxygen makes up about 21% of the air. High levels of PM10 means less oxygen passing through the lungs into the blood and to the muscles which, in turn, could affect athletes' performance times.
• Athletes can take in up to 20 times more air than sedentary people and thus 20 times as much pollution. Once in the lungs PM10 particles can cause irritation and inflammation and exacerbate existing conditions such as asthma.
• High levels of air pollutants are known to cause respiratory diseases. A WHO report in 2006 said 32.8 million people in China had COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an umbrella term used to describe lung diseases such as bronchitis. Out of a total population of 1.3 billion, 39 million also had asthma.
• WHO figures for 2004 show 110 people out of every 100,000 die from chronic respiratory diseases in China, compared to a level of 72 per 100,000 in the UK.

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• All but two of the 87 cities monitored for TSP far exceeded WHO’s guideline. Some cities such as Taiyuan and Lanzhou had SO2 levels almost 10 times the WHO guideline [17].
• the deterioration of air quality seems inevitable.
•    

  China’s air pollution levels are among the world’s highest

  Ambient concentrations of air pollutants, 1995

  Source: The World Bank, Clear Water, Blue Skies: China’s Environment in the New Century (The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1997), Figure 1.1, p. 6.

        

  China’s growing consumption of coal

  Energy Demand in China, 1971-95

  Source: International Energy Agency, Energy Statistics and Balances: Non-OECD Countries, 1971-1995, on diskette (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Paris, 1997).
• The extent and type of air pollution in China vary dramatically by geographic region. SO2 and particulate emissions are highest in the northern half of China, where coal is used to heat homes and other buildings for several months of the year and where industrial centers also depend heavily on coal burning. Yet, air pollution in the North would be much worse if not for the higher quality, cleaner coal that is available there. By contrast, the coal mined in the South is high in sulfur and extremely polluting, contributing to serious problems with acid precipitation, especially in the southwest provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hunan [24][25].
• highly inefficient and emit through low smoke stacks, contributing to much of China’s ground-level air pollution, especially small particulates and SO2. Inefficient and dirty boilers are particularly problematic because many of the industries that use them are located in densely populated metropolitan areas, placing populations in these areas at high risk of exposure.

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• Gebrselassie is asthmatic, and he is concerned that Beijing's polluted air could damage his health over the 42-kilometer race. (He still plans to run the far shorter 10,000-meter event.) And the Ethiopian's concern has underscored the stakes in a showdown between city officials and an 26-year-old American environmental consultant who has raised serious questions about Beijing's official air pollution statistics.
• Gebrselassie is asthmatic, and he is concerned that Beijing's polluted air could damage his health over the 42-kilometer race. (He still plans to run the far shorter 10,000-meter event.) And the Ethiopian's concern has underscored the stakes in a showdown between city officials and an 26-year-old American environmental consultant who has raised serious questions about Beijing's official air pollution statistics.
• Gebrselassie is asthmatic, and he is concerned that Beijing's polluted air could damage his health over the 42-kilometer race. (He still plans to run the far shorter 10,000-meter event.) And the Ethiopian's concern has underscored the stakes in a showdown between city officials and an 26-year-old American environmental consultant who has raised serious questions about Beijing's official air pollution statistics.
• Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau of tweaking its method of calculating the city's air pollution index. That index is critical, because it is used to tabulate "blue sky days," which are the chief measure of Beijing's ability to control air pollution. When the blue-sky program was launched in 1998, there were just 100 days; last year the city recorded 246. But Andrews alleges that by changing the makeup of Beijing's air-pollution index, and dropping monitoring sites in areas with poor air quality, the city has been able to show improvements that don't match the reality of its smoggy skies.
• In 2000, the city stopped including measurements of nitrogen oxides in its tabulations of the air pollution index, and instead measured nitrogen dioxide. While switching the pollutant measured isn't necessarily a problem, Andrews claims, nitrogen dioxide was a smaller contributor to the overall air pollution index score.

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• The answer may lie in part in the use of so-called cleaner energies, such as solar, wind, hydraulic, tidal, biomass and geothermal power, as well as newly developed energies like nuclear and hydrogen power
• coal accounting for nearly 70 percent of total energy consumption. The heavy use of largely traditional energies has caused catastrophic damage to China's ecological environment, turning the country into a principal producer and user of ozone-depleting substances and the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter.
• According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's overall energy consumption last year dropped as compared with 2007, while the use of cleaner or renewable energies had grown to 9 percent, up from 7.5 percent in 2005.

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• Dense fog darkens the skyline yesterday afternoon in the Pudong  New Area's Lujiazui financial zone, causing drivers to turn on their headlights  for better visibility.

• peculiar dark quality  that reminded some residents of the disaster film "2012" -- disrupted air, road  and water traffic in Shanghai yesterday.

   

  At least nine flights were canceled and 104 delayed at the city's two  airports, 150 coaches were canceled or delayed at long-distance transportation  stations, and ferries to the islands in Chongming County were suspended  yesterday afternoon, authorities said.
• Yesterday's fog had a darker appearance than previous ones and rolled in  quickly in the afternoon. Vehicles in some areas of the city had to turn on  their headlights at 2pm, according to TV news reports, as visibility fell to 700  meters.

• The phenomenon worried many residents, who were reminded of scenes from  "2012," which was about a global catastrophe.

   

  "The weather was just fine in the morning, and I don't know what happened,"  said a resident surnamed Xu. "I mean it is not 2012 yet."

  • Primary Quote: basically describes that the scenes in the movie 2012 are very similar to the actual times in 2009 to China

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• Beijing's car population reached 3.96 million last week, putting out around 1 million tons of pollutants annually. It is predicted that it will have taken only 28 months for the number of cars to increase from 3 million to 4 million.
• The Beijing municipal commission of development and reform also announced new plans to add 500 electric taxis by the end of next year
• Though the number is less than 1 percent of the city's total taxi population, the city commission said the technology will be applied to 20,000 buses and cleaning vehicles in coming years.

  • More hope
• Air quality statistics from the US Embassy in Beijing, using a stricter air pollution index calculating, also gave a "very unhealthy" warning.  

  Environmentalists and local Beijingers yesterday voiced concerns over worsening pollution following the growing car population that shows no sign of stopping.

  • There is an index that measures how bad the air is in Chinese cities, and different colors of the smog indicate what chemicals are present in the air

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• coal and inefficient boilers,

• n the period of 1994 to 2004 the number of cars increased enormously, roughly a factor 10, see Figure 4 (ref. 7).

  This increased number of cars but also the increased use of fossil fuels, especially in the Eastern part of China, has caused high emissions of nitrogen oxides.
• So in the period after 1990, increasing ozone concentrations were observed in and around Chinese cities (see Figure 5, ref. 7). Recent observations seem to indicate that ozone concentrations are leveling off in Beijing.
• acid rain could be 2% or higher and can reach levels of 10 to 20% in some provinces (ref. 8). The ozone damage is quite uncertain but total losses of 5% or more can be expected.
• The consequences of climatic change due to the emissions of greenhouse gases could be quite severe for China. A number of climate models indicate that in the next 50 years rainfall in the North-East, already a dry region, would be less, while in the South, where flood control already is a problem, it would increase (ref. 10).

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• While China currently produces more CO2 than any other country in the world, it's also poised to be the next leader in green technology.
• China is taking steps through policy tools, investment and subsidies for clean tech. It could become the largest clean tech market in the world. There was a new study that just came out by a group of 80 leading technology companies and entrepreneurs from around the world, and it found that China's clean tech market could be worth as much as $500 billion to $1 trillion a year by 2013.
• I remember when I first went to Jiangsu province, which is California's sister province and one of the most advanced economically in China, nearly 15 years ago to talk about them about energy efficiency. And nobody there wanted to hear what we had to say. Instead, they said our goal is to electrify the country.

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• In a recent study of overcast versus cloud-free days in China, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that the amount of sunlight reaching the ground at 500 measurement stations in China fell dramatically between 1954 and 2001. This decline in solar radiation, which averaged 4.43 watts a square meter per decade, occurred despite an overall decrease in China’s cloud cover over the study period, according to the report. The authors surmise a link between the worsening haze and the country’s nine-fold increase in fossil fuel emissions since the 1950s.
• China’s smog, caused mainly by emissions from power plants, vehicles, and other human activities, is seriously affecting urban air quality. In a 2003 World Bank survey of air pollution in 100 cities worldwide, more than 80 percent of the Chinese cities listed had sulfur dioxide or nitrogen dioxide emissions above the World Health Organization (WHO) threshold, according to the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs 2005 report.
• the city is shrouded in smog and people can barely see across the famous Victoria Harbour.
• Globally, China is home to 16 of the 20 cities with the most polluted air. Roughly one-third of the nation’s land area is exposed to acid rain, just one of the many environmental side effects of the 2.1 billion tons of coal produced and burned there last year.
• 30 percent of China’s cropland, and the estimated damage to farms, forests, and human health is US $13 billion, according to the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2006 report.
• deteriorating air quality has been a rise in serious health problems and premature deaths.
• 400,000 premature deaths are caused every year in China by diseases linked to air pollution. And China's Ministry of Science and Technology reports that 50,000 newborn babies are killed by air pollution a year. Poor air quality can also exacerbate other life-threatening conditions: a 2003 study in Environmental Health found that SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), a virus that swept through China and other parts of the world in 2003, is twice as likely to kill patients in China’s severely polluted areas. The study showed that in regions with low air pollution, the death rate was 4.08 percent; in areas with moderate pollution, such as Beijing, it was 7.49; and in areas of high pollution, it soared to 8.9 percent.
• Scientists also worry that China’s pollution will accelerate the effects of global warming. China is already the world's second largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. With coal production set to exceed 2.2 billion tons this year, emissions are expected to increase
• danger is real: on February 13, 22 runners were taken to the hospital, two in critical condition, after taking part in the biggest annual marathon in Hong Kong, which is currently experiencing the worst air pollution in months.

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• U.S. Department of Energy research shows eastern China's air pollution

  

  during the past 50 years has reduced the amount of light rainfall by 23 percent.

• Reading recent journal articles with titles such as “16 Chinese cities named in the World Bank list of 20 most polluted cities”, "China is No 1 carbon dioxide emitter" or “As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes” must give the impression that total unprecedented situations regarding air pollution are encountered in China.
• In this list, two Chinese cities or areas are included: Linfen, in view of very serious air pollution caused by the use of coal, and water pollution, e.g., lead and arsenic in the Huai River basin, due mainly to industrial and agricultural waste.
• • 1985

  Of course the status as an underdeveloped nation and the reliance on cheap but often sulfur-rich coal were severe handicaps in the handling of air pollution in the period 1980-1990 and are still a problem in the less developed parts of China.
• Furthermore, the very large population of China, an estimated 1,340,000,000, compared to the US (300,000,000) or the EU (about 490,000,000 including recent extensions) means that the same emission per head in China will lead to respectively 4.5 or 3 times the emission from the US or Europe.
• Most of the fossil fuel used was coal (initially more than 80% of total energy supply, nowadays reduced to about 70%, see ref. 5). It should be noted that the maximum concentrations of sulfur dioxide in cities like Guiyang could be 3 to 4 times higher than the average given here.

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