China's Air Pollution Problems 9781138669956, 9781315617886, 1138669954

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China’s Air Pollution Problems

China’s rapid industrialisation has led to “an air pollution catastrophe”. Concerted efforts to achieve economic growth have led to veiled skies of toxic air and created health and morbidity problems, as well as tremendous environmental degradation. China’s Air Pollution Problems provides an overview of air pollution in China, describing how and why China has ended up in such a dire ­situation, what the government is doing to address the problem, and the difficulties it is encountering in attempting to reduce the pollution. The analysis is based on both grey literature (newspaper articles, NGO reports, Chinese government information) and academic studies. The grey literature gives a voice to those who suffer from the pollution, their advocates, and government officers, and allows the reader to better grasp the conditions on the ground and the impact of air pollution among people in different areas in China. The academic literature adds a theoretical perspective and brings these different case studies into a broader context. This book will be of great interest to students of environmental pollution and contemporary Chinese studies looking for an introduction to the topic and also for researchers looking for an extensive list of sources and analysis of China’s environmental problems. Claudio O. Delang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography of Hong Kong Baptist University.

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China’s Air Pollution Problems Claudio O. Delang

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Claudio O. Delang The right of Claudio O. Delang to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Delang, Claudio O., author. Title: China’s air pollution problems / Claudio O. Delang. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2016] Identifiers: LCCN 2016003277| ISBN 9781138669956 (hb) | ISBN 9781315617886 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Air—Pollution—China. | Environmental policy—China. | China—Environmental conditions. Classification: LCC TD883.7.C6 D45 2016 | DDC 363.739/20951—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003277 ISBN: 978-1-138-66995-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-61788-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman PS by diacriTech, Chennai

Table of contents

List of illustrations

vii

1 Introduction

1

2 The amount of air pollution

3

3 The sources of air pollution

13

4 The impact of air pollution

38

5 The reaction to high levels of air pollution

56

6 Solutions

66

7 Conclusions Further reading Index

100 102 104

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List of illustrations

Figures 2.1 Beijing pollution levels: days in 2013 at Air Quality Index ratings 4 2.2 Beijing air pollution compared to a smoking lounge 5 2.3 Proportion of the population exposed to a PM2.5 ­concentration of 10 μg/m3 or above 6 2.4 Air quality assessment based on PM2.5 concentrations (μg/m3)9 2.5 The ten Chinese cities with the best air quality 10 2.6 Annual-average population-weighted fine particulate matter concentrations (PM2.5) for Chinese provinces, ­including Taiwan, in 2007 10 2.7 The ten Chinese cities with the worst air pollution 11 3.1 China’s vs. world’s coal consumption 15 3.2 Car ownership in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing 21 3.3 Carbon dioxide emissions per household in 74 Chinese cities 30 3.4 Impact of winter heating on air pollution in China. Spatial ­distribution of average AOD* annual, 2004–2012 31 4.1 Distribution of cancer villages and major rivers in China 45 4.2 Jaw-long (tallest) stands with his friends in front of his house in Nuguang village on the outskirts of Xingtai 47 4.3 Historical evolution of SO2 emissions 50 4.4 Acid rain in 2012 51 6.1 China’s coal control measures 70 6.2 China’s projected coal consumption with coal control measures 70 6.3 China’s coal consumption growth rate (percentage), 2003–201571 6.4 Two control zones in China with case study locations 76

viii  List of illustrations

6.5 Energy mix in China, 2010–2050 6.6 Renewable energy investment by country and sector, 2013 6.7 Renewable energy expansion in China, 2007–2013 6.8 Map of pollution levels across China 6.9 Chinese environmental standards for light duty vehicles 6.10 Fuel quality standards for gasoline in China (in parts per ­million [ppm] sulphur in the fuel)

83 84 85 87 89 90

Tables 2.1 Average annual percentage change in industrial SO2 and COD (2004–2010) 8 3.1 Ten Chinese port terminals in the top 20 ports of the world and their throughput for 2013 23 6.1 Ambient air quality standards, comparison of NAAQS-1996 and NAAQS-2012 67 6.2 Designation of two control zones in China 77 6.3 Air pollutant emission standards for coal-fired power plants in China, the European Union and the United States (mg/m3)79

1 Introduction

“Airpocalypse is here!” People unfamiliar with the expression’s background might find it more reminiscent of an epic Hollywood sci-fi movie about the end of the world. In reality, the phrase originates from a journalist who coined the term in an attempt to convey the air pollution catastrophe that transpired in China as a result of its rapid industrialization. The country’s concerted efforts to achieve economic growth have led to veiled skies of toxic air and created health and morbidity problems, in addition to tremendous environmental degradation. Huang et al. (2014) wrote that in January 2013 “a hazardous dense haze covered 1.4 million square kilometres of China and affected more than 800 million people. That winter, a heavy haze shrouded Northern and Eastern China, reducing visibility to less than 50 meters in some regions” (p. 176). As an example of how bad the contaminated air in China’s skies was, Kelly and Jacobs (2014) wrote, “a fire ablaze in an abandoned furniture store in a city southeast of Shanghai roared for hours before anyone realized it” (p. 238). Over the years, indoor and outdoor pollution have led to m ­ illions of premature deaths in both the rural and urban Chinese communities. In 2013, a state of emergency in Beijing resulting from the dangerously high levels of pollution led to chaos in the transportation systems, forcing airlines to cancel flights due to low visibility. Schools and businesses were closed, and the Beijing city government warned people to stay inside their homes, keep their air purifiers running, reduce indoor activities, and remain as inactive as possible. Millions of people suffering from watery and stinging eyes, pounding headaches, sinus issues, and itchy throats, sought refuge from the debilitating air by scouring stores for air filters and face masks. The outrage among Chinese residents and the global media scrutiny impelled the government to address the country’s air pollution problem. This book describes how and why China ended up in such a dire situation, and what the government has been doing to address the problem. Chapter 2 describes how air quality is measured and what the main pollutants are.

2 Introduction It then presents information about the regional distribution of pollution in China. Chapter 3 turns to the sources of air pollution with special attention being paid to coal, since it is the main culprit of China’s air pollution problems. However, I also look at other sources, including vehicle emissions, container ship emissions, and the burning of agricultural residue, all of which play important roles in different parts of the country. In Chapter 4, I look at the impact of air pollution, including the economic costs, the impact on people’s health, and the environmental impact. In Chapter 5, I discuss the reaction – from the government and the people – to the high levels of air pollution. These range from the government’s assertion that the level of air pollution is actually not that bad, to people’s protests, demonstrations, and legal challenges. In Chapter 6, I look at the solutions proposed or already undertaken by the government. These are various, and have had different degrees of success. The government has introduced or tightened a number of air quality standards, whether related to air pollution in general, or to the emissions of power plants, cars, or container ships. However, in many cases, these standards are either ignored or phased in very slowly. Other measures undertaken include the closure of smaller coal mines and coal power plants in Beijing, and increasing investments to try to diversify energy production from coal to renewables. One problem is that the government faces considerable pressure to continue delivering high economic growth, and it is sometimes difficult to reconcile economic growth with higher environmental standards. In Chapter 7, I conclude.

References Huang, Y., Song, F., Liu, Q., Li, W., Zhang, W., & Chen, K. (2014). A bird’s eye view of the air pollution-cancer link in China. Chinese Journal of Cancer, 33(4), 176–188. doi:10.5732/cjc.014.10030. Kelly, W. J., & Jacobs, C. (2014). The People’s Republic of Chemicals. Los Angeles: A Vireo Book/Rare Bird Books.

2 The amount of air pollution

Measuring air quality levels The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) is responsible for ­measuring the level of air pollution in China. The Air Quality Index (AQI) is based on the level of six major pollutants: sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), suspended particulates smaller than 10 μm in diameter (PM10), and suspended particulates smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5). It is determined by taking the lowest value among them, so it is safe to assume in China that PM2.5 usually determines the general AQI (Saikawa, 2014). PM2.5 is particularly injurious to human health. As the EPA (2015) states, “the size of particles is directly linked to their potential for causing health problems”. The smaller particles can become deeply embedded within an individual’s respiratory system, and can impact the heart and lungs, leading to serious health problems. “These ­particles can be directly emitted from sources such as forest fires, or they can form when gases emitted from power plants, industries, and a­ utomobiles react in the air” (EPA, 2015). The World Health Organization guidelines recommend that PM2.5 should not exceed an annual mean of 10 μg/m3, or a 24-hour mean of 25 μg/m3 (WHO, 2005). From January to February 2013, Hebei Province’s capital, Shijiazhuang, had an average reading of 393. Subsequently, for one week, the PM2.5 index meter remained at 500 (Bhatnagar, 2014). In November 2010, the United States Embassy in Beijing, which monitors the air q­ uality in the region, announced that the level of pollution was so horrific that the embassy labelled it “Crazy Bad” in a Twitter post (Wong, 2013a). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refers to levels between 300 and 500 as “Hazardous”. The poisonous fumes in the air were considered “Beyond Index”, which is the terminology utilized for levels above 500. In January 2013, the index climbed to 755.

4  The amount of air pollution In January 2013, Beijing, one of the most densely populated cities in the world with 21 million people, was shrouded in billowy copper-grey clouds of toxic smog crippling the city and its surrounding regions for weeks. Fuquiang Yang, senior advisor for Beijing’s branch of the Natural Resources Defense Council, was quoted by Kelly and Jacobs (2014) as stating, “One-third of China’s territory was heavily polluted. […] Nobody was happy” (p. 233). Due to the blanket of smog, parents were forced to keep children indoors, citizens donned their face masks along with a surge in purchasing air purifiers, and the social media networks were inundated with complaints. During the whole of 2013, the air was only “Good” on 11.2 per cent of the days, and “Hazardous”, “Unhealthy”, or “Very Unhealthy” on 28.8 per cent of the days, with an additional 23 per cent of the days “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” (Figure 2.1). Bloomberg (2013) likened the filthy air pollution in Beijing to that in an airport smoking lounge (Figure 2.2). Every day of 2013, the toxic air exceeded the World Health Organization’s healthy limit, setting a historic record.

Figure 2.1 Beijing pollution levels: days in 2013 at Air Quality Index ratings Source: Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014).

The amount of air pollution  5

Figure 2.2 Beijing air pollution compared to a smoking lounge Source: Bloomberg (2013).

According to West (2015), the U.S. and China Air Quality Indexes have identical scales to measure and rate particulate matter above 200, but the Chinese AQI only goes up to 500. The Beijing municipal ­government ­maintains its own index, which is always considerably lower than the ­readings at the U.S. Embassy. In 2015, the AQI in the city was measured at 430 – still considered hazardous. On the other hand, the U.S. Embassy announced that the concentration of PM2.5 had risen above 500. On the other hand, Wong (2013b) indicates that the AQI in Beijing skyrocketed to “­unimaginable levels” as high as 993, far exceeding the levels health officials deem as extremely dangerous. Comparatively, on that same ­ day in New York, the AQI was 19. Dattaro (2015) reports that air quality in Beijing was subpar on 60 per cent of the days during June 2015, ­indicating an 11 per cent rise over the prior year. From Beijing to Guiyang, 1,400 miles s­ outhwest, Chinese authorities, sometimes hovering overhead with ­helicopters fitted with microphones, begged the citizenry to stay indoors and ­protect t­hemselves from the chemical drizzle infecting their health. Buildings in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were barely ­discernible due to the hazy air pollution. However, second-tier cities did not fare b­ etter either. According to the World Health Organization, in 2010, 99.2 per cent of the Chinese population was exposed to ambient

6  The amount of air pollution concentrations of PM2.5, which exceed the WHO guideline value of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) (WHO, 2015) (Figure 2.3). Bhatnagar (2014) reported that the city of Harbin, the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province, is ­heavily reliant on coal-fired heat, and the pollution emitted by these large coal boilers was so awful that “people could not see 10 meters in front of them”. Confirming this, Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014) wrote that “a dense wave of smog began on October 20, 2013, the day when the coal-powered district heating system started, and visibility was reduced to below 50 meters in parts of Harbin and below 500 meters in most of the neighbouring Jilin Province” (p. 5,324). The researchers add that the daily particulate levels in areas of the Harbin Municipality were over 40 times the recommended maximum level by the World Health Organization. In the surrounding Heilongjiang Province, all highways, primary and middle schools, and the airport were closed for three days. The area hospital reported a 23 per cent increase in admissions for respiratory problems. PM2.5 in China has been so consistently high throughout the years that it has entered people’s lives and became a part of the lexicon. Wong (2013b) discloses that the term PM2.5 went from 200 mentions in a social media site in January 2011 to three million in January 2013. Wong (2013b) comments that some of China’s residents have been resourceful in many ways, and responded to the noxious air through various imaginative means – ranging from creating air filtration bikes to giving out cans of air as an a­ nti-pollution stunt, to offering anti-haze martial arts exercises to help strengthen the

Figure 2.3 Proportion of the population exposed to a PM2.5 concentration of 10 μg/m3 or above Source: Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014).

The amount of air pollution  7 lungs of schoolchildren. McKirdy (2014) wrote that at a cost of USD 5 million, the International School of Beijing constructed two domes ­enclosing the entirety of their athletic field to ensure their students breathe healthily ­year-round while playing and exercising. Nan (2013) reports that hundreds of thousands of face masks were sold, the majority of which were designed to protect against PM2.5. As the ­pollution worsened, ironically, the face mask transformed into a ­fashionable ­wardrobe accessory, with people sharing photos of each other on social media sites wearing a variety of stylish masks. Children wore masks with teddy bear designs and other characters, young people tended to prefer bright colours, and men preferred blue or black masks. UV-proof masks were popular as were cutting-edge technology masks, such as ones with activated ­carbon. Sportier masks have also been designed for outdoor ­activities such as ­biking, golf, running, etc. Fashion designers tackled China’s ongoing ­pollution woes by incorporating chic masks into their collections. According to LeTrent (2014), China’s fashion week models paraded down the catwalk wearing a variety of chic “respiratory face masks”.

Regional distribution of pollution The choking pollution is not unique to Beijing and Harbin; many cities in Northern China are some of the world’s most polluted cities (Zhang, Liu, and Li, 2014). Indeed, although Beijing’s blackened skies catapulted the term “airpocalypse” into the world’s vernacular, its polluted air was not viewed as China’s worst in 2013. Lallanilla (2013) cited Ürümqi in the country’s far west, joined by Lanzhou and Linfen, as being the primary cities ­featured on the lists of the world’s most polluted places. Wang et al. (2014) look at the condition of a severe haze episode that occurred over Eastern China between January 6 and January 16, 2013. The researchers cite that the most polluted region was Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (the national capital region, also known as Jingjinji, home to over 110 million ­people) and the n­ eighbouring region, including west Shandong and north Henan provinces. However, the air p­ ollutants spread to the offshore area of Eastern China as “­particulate matter can remain airborne for days to weeks and travel ­thousands of ­kilometres” (Rohde and Muller, 2015, p. 5). During the smothering haze that transpired in January 2013, 33 of the 74 cities ­monitored by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (CMEP) reached severe air ­ pollution levels. The study ­ evidenced “a regional ­linkage trend among the cities, s­ uggesting the possible transportation and a­ssociated causal relationship of particulate pollutants among them” (Wang et al., 2014, p. 809).

8  The amount of air pollution Zheng et al. (2014) point out the geographical and temporal ­development of industrialization and the associated change of air pollution in China. The authors argue that the initial reform stage saw a ­concentration of factories and economic development in the coastal area, which resulted in serious air pollution problems. From mid-2002, the rising cost of labour and land in the coastal provinces led to a geographic shift of industrial production towards inland cities. This also led to a geographic shift of emissions. Zheng et al. (2014) calculate the changes in the spatial redistribution of air ­pollution from 2004 to 2010, and found that industrial SO2 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions were reduced in the coastal regions while the central and western regions recorded an increase (Table 2.1). According to Wong (2014), the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that only three cities in 2013 – Haikou on the island province of Hainan, Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the coastal resort city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province – had good air quality and met the national standards. These were the only cities that had an average air quality index (AQI) value of less than 100. According to Saikawa (2014), The Chinese AQI value of 100 translates into annual average PM2.5 ­concentrations of less than 75 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3). Taking into consideration that the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline for the annual average is 10μg/m3, and the U.S. and EU standards are 12 and 10μg/m3, respectively, AQI of less than 100 is not ­necessarily considered “fine air quality” in other parts of the developed world. Even then, the northern region including Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei had only 135 days in year 2013 that met this criterion. Figure 2.4 compares China’s standards to those of the U.S. and Europe. Table 2.1 Average annual percentage change in industrial SO2 and COD (2004–2010) Industrial SO2

Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)

The Eastern Region

−1.69%

−1.87%

The Central and Western Regions

+1.74%

+0.33%

Source: Adapted from Zheng et al. (2014). Note: The concentration of COD reflects the amount of organic compounds in water.

The amount of air pollution  9

Figure 2.4 Air quality assessment based on PM2.5 concentrations (μg/m3) Source: Andrew (2014) in Saikawa (2014).

In 2014, despite China’s “War on Pollution”, almost 90 per cent of its l­argest cities still failed to meet air quality standards, as reported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). The MEP stated that only eight of the 74 c­ ities officially monitored managed to meet the national standards on a series of ­pollution measures, including PM2.5 (Figure 2.5). In general, thanks to the higher precipitation rate, the southern coastal areas enjoyed better air quality compared to Central and Eastern China (Figure 2.6). Nevertheless, the southern coastal areas with better air quality are also ­subjected to regional transport of air pollution, where the combustion of fossil fuels in urban and industrial hotspots influence air quality at the regional level. In a study of the Xiamen region, Chen et al. (2011) pointed out that carbonaceous aerosols emissions in urban and industrial clusters, which contribute about 30 per cent to PM2.5, and around 10 per cent to PM10-2.5, were spreading to the suburb and remote areas. The MEP further concluded that of the ten most polluted cities, seven were located in the heavy industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing. The cities of Baoding, Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Handan, and Hengshui filled the first six places for the worst air quality in China (Figure 2.7). It is no surprise that the government has targeted Hebei Province as its top priority for cutting smog, and its plans are to slash coal consumption and shut down polluting industrial operations, but conversely, the province is struggling to find alternative sources of energy.

10  The amount of air pollution

Figure 2.5 The ten Chinese cities with the best air quality Source: Hunt (2015).

Figure 2.6 Annual-average population-weighted fine particulate matter concentrations (PM2.5) for Chinese provinces, including Taiwan, in 2007 Source: Hsu (2012).

The amount of air pollution  11

Figure 2.7 The ten Chinese cities with the worst air pollution Source: Hunt (2015).

References Bhatnagar, V. (2014). The Chinese pollution problem and the politics of “Airpocalypse”. Student Pulse, 6(1). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.­ studentpulse.com/a?id=859. Bloomberg (2013, January 31). Beijing air akin to living in s­moking lounge. Bloomberg News. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2013-01-30/beijing-air-akin-to-living-in-smoking-lounge-chart-of-the-day. Chen, B., Chen, J., Zhao, J., & Zhang, F. (2011). Particulate air pollution from ­combustion and construction in coastal and urban areas of China. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 61, 1,160–1,165. Dattaro, L. (2015, July 20). Despite waging a “War on Pollution”, China’s air is still really filthy. Vice News (Environment). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from https://news. vice.com/article/despite-waging-a-war-on-pollution-chinas-air-is-still-really-filthy. EPA (2015). The United States Environmental Protection Agency. Particulate matter (PM). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://www.epa.gov/pm/. Hsu, A. (2012, February 2). Seeing China’s pollution from space. Chinadialogue. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ en/4775-Seeing-China-s-pollution-from-space. Hunt, K. (2015, February 3). Cities that meet air standards in China: 8. CNN. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/asia/chinapollution-rankings/. Kelly, W. J., & Jacobs, C. (2014). The People’s Republic of Chemicals. Los Angeles: A Vireo Book/Rare Bird Books.

12  The amount of air pollution Lallanilla (2013, March 15). China’s top six environmental concerns. Lives­ cience. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.livescience.com/27862-chinaenvironmental-problems.html. LeTrent, S. (2014, November 2). Unmasking a new trend: stylish smog masks. CNN Style. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.cnn.com/2014/10/31/living/ smog-mask-china-fashion-week/. McKirdy, E. (2014, February 25). China looks for blue-sky solutions as smog worsens. CNN. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.cnn.com/2014/02/24/ world/asia/beijing-smog-solutions/. Nan, W. (2013, June 6). Fashion-forward face masks a big hit in China amid ­soaring air ­pollution. Health. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.scmp .com/lifestyle/health/­a rticle/1254691/fashion-forward-face-masks-big-hitchina-amid-soaring-air-pollution. Rohde, R. A., & Muller, R. A. (2015). Air pollution in China: mapping of concentrations and sources. PloS One, 10(8), e0135749. Saikawa, E. (2014). China’s war on air pollution. China Research Center, 13(2). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.chinacenter.net/2014/china_currents/13-2/ chinas-war-on-air-pollution/. Wang, Z., Li, J., Wang, Z., Yang, W., Tang, X., Ge B., Yan, P., Zhu, L., Chen, X., Chen, H., Wand, W., Li, J., Liu, B., Wang X., Zhao, Y., Lu N., & Su, D. (2014). Modeling study of regional severe hazes over mid-eastern China in January 2013 and its implications on pollution prevention and control. Science China Earth Sciences, 57(1), 3–31. West, J. (2015, January 15). Airpocalypse now: Beijing’s toxic smog measures “Beyond Index” levels. Mother Jones. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www .motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/beijing-airpocolypse-beyond-indexhazardous-smog. WHO (2005). WHO air quality guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, ­nitrogen, dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Geneva: World Health Organization. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/69477/1/WHO_ SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf. WHO (2015) PM2.5 pollution, population exposed to levels exceeding WHO guideline value (% of total). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/EN.ATM.PM25.MC.ZS. Wong, E. (2013a, Jan 12). On scale of 0 to 500, Beijing’s air quality tops “Crazy Bad” at 755. The New York Times, p. A16. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.nytimes .com/2013/01/13/science/earth/beijing-air-pollution-off-the-charts.html?_r=0. Wong, E. (2014, March 27) Most Chinese cities fail minimum air quality standards, study says. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.nytimes .com/2014/03/28/world/asia/most-chinese-cities-fail-pollution-standard-chinasays.html. Wong H. (2013b, December 19) China: the year in smog. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/12/china-the-year-in-smog/282535/. Zhang, D., Liu, J., & Li, B. (2014) Tackling air pollution in China – what do we learn from the Great Smog of 1950s in London. Sustainability, 6(8), 5,322–5,338. doi: 10.3390/su6085322. Zheng, S., Sun, C., Qi, Y., & Kahn, M.E. (2014). The evolving geography of China’s industrial production: implications for pollution dynamics and urban quality of life. Journal of Economic Surveys, 28(4), 709–724f. doi: 10.1111/joes.12063fff.

3 The sources of air pollution

Meeting the demands of rapid industrialization Beijing sits on a plain flanked by hills and escarpments that can trap ­pollution in the city if there is little wind. Liu (2013) reports that authorities blamed vehicle exhaust, dust from construction sites, and more coal burning under the unusually cold weather conditions in early January 2013 as the villains that created the “killer smog” in Beijing. Some experts blamed the factories operating in the neighbouring Hebei Province that ring the city. Huang Wei, a spokesperson for Greenpeace East Asia, stated that the air pollution in Beijing is primarily transmitted from surrounding industrial cities (Armstrong and Ke, 2013): What Beijing can do is very limited. What the authority should do is to build a linkage mechanism, combining preventative measures with emergency control. For instance, factories in surrounding areas like Inner Mongolia and Shandong Province could close […] before the potential transmission of serious pollutants. It should be collaborative work between cities, and only Beijing is not enough. The Asian Development Bank noted that the increased demand for energy, vehicular fleet, and the surge of industrial expansion ushered in the deterioration of air quality, and adversely affected human health and ecosystems (Zhang and Crooks, 2012). It was claimed that less than one per cent of China’s 500 largest cities meet the World Health Organization’s air quality standards; seven of those cities are ranked among the ten most polluted ones in the world (p. 55). The report identifies the industry and energy production sectors, followed by the swift growth of personal vehicles, as the primary sources of anthropogenic air pollution emissions in China (pp. 60–61). China’s industrialization occurred at a breath-taking pace and has been a boon for the country, rescuing hundreds of millions of people from poverty,

14  The sources of air pollution and creating a prospering middle class. Over more than a decade, China has experienced a 10 per cent annual growth in GDP (Xu, 2014). Starting from the reform in 1978, the government emphasizes the importance on largescale, capital-intensive heavy industries (Lin, 2012). From 1980 to 2009, the share of the industrial sector in the economy grew from 27 to 42 per cent of the GDP (Gallagher, 2014). Unfortunately, this came at the cost of large amounts of air pollution, as the environment was disregarded in the process of growing the economy at any cost. Despite all economic sectors experiencing an improvement in energy efficiency, the industrial sector is still the most polluting (Gallagher, 2014). Zhang, Mo, and Weschler (2013) elaborate on this by pointing out that one of the results of the expeditious economic development in China over the past 30 years has been the mass migration from rural to the urban areas, accompanied by a huge increase in urban air pollution. The area of residential buildings grew from 4 billion to 21 billion m2 during the years from 1990 to 2010, while the number of motor vehicles grew from 5 million to 78 ­million (Zhang, Mo, and Weschler, 2013). Nationwide, urban residential development, from construction to operation, contributed to 5.4 per cent of total energy consumption, 5.6 per cent of total water consumption, 3.0 per cent of total chemical oxygen demand (COD), 3.5 per cent of total ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), 3.9 per cent of total sulphur dioxide (SO2), and 4.0 per cent of total nitrogen oxides (NOX) emissions in 2010 (He et al., 2013). The three most industrialized and urbanized regions, the BeijingTianjin-Hebei area, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta, occupy 8 per cent of China’s land, but use 42 per cent of coal, 52 per cent of gasoline and ­diesel, and emit 30 per cent of the overall SO2, NOX, and dust (Fang, 2013). The movement of people from the rural to the urban areas is expected to continue, with “the government planning to move 70 to 75 ­percent of China’s population to cities between 2000 and 2030” (Xu, 2014).

The coal problem There are many adverse factors contributing to China’s enormous problems with combating air pollution. This includes, as mentioned above, its manufacturing industries, and over 264 million motor vehicles on the road (MPS, 2014). However, the primary blame for China’s air pollution is centred on its coal-burning electricity plants fuelling the country’s supercharged economic growth. Energy consumption, especially coal consumption, is the main source of anthropogenic air pollution in China. Most sulphur dioxide emissions come from burning coal, as do all soot emissions, which account for most particulate emissions. According to the figures released by the

The sources of air pollution  15 U.S. Energy Information Administration (2013), in 2011, China’s coal use grew by 325 million tons, which accounted for 87 per cent of the 374 million tons of increase in coal use worldwide. As of 2013, China burnt 47 per cent of global coal consumption – in other words, almost half of all coal burnt by all countries in the world was burnt in China (Figure 3.1). China overtook the United States in 2007 as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is accountable for a third of the planet’s output. It is projected that by 2017, China will emit double the amount that the U.S. emits. Coal is regarded as the main villain in the degradation of air quality and global climate change. Larson (2014) discloses that China “burns more than 4 billion tons of coal each year in power plants, homes, and factories”. He cites the following statistics: • • • •

•

Coal, the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels, is responsible for 70 per cent of the energy used in China. In just five years, from 2005 to 2009, China added the entire U.S. fleet of coal-fired power plants, or 510 new 600-megawatt coal plants. At the peak, from 2005 through 2011, China added roughly two 600-megawatt coal plants a week, for seven years straight. China will add yet another U.S. worth of coal plants over the next 10 years, or the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for 10 years. Economists predict that by 2040, China’s coal power fleet will be 50 per cent larger than it is today. Once built, the plants run for about 40 years.

Figure 3.1 China’s vs. world’s coal consumption Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (2013).

16  The sources of air pollution Martin (2015) explains the difficulties that China faces when attempting to diversify its energy sources: Unlike the United States, which even at the peak of the coal era had a relatively diverse energy base, China’s economy is heavily coaldependent: the country gets more than three-quarters of its electricity, and nearly 70 percent of its overall energy from coal. China’s economic miracle was unachievable without coal. You can’t talk about the future of energy without talking about coal, and you can’t talk about coal without talking about China. (p. 154) Greenpeace (2010) revealed that “China’s coal-fired plants dump enough toxic coal ash to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two and a half minutes”. In addition to the health problems, coal also contributes to the degradation of China’s scarce land and water resources. Testing of 14 power plants conducted by Greenpeace showed that coal ash contained more than 20 kinds of heavy metals and chemical compounds. Yang Ailun, head ­climate campaigner for Greenpeace, remarks, “Many of the coal ash disposal sites we visited had poor safeguards to prevent coal ash contamination via wind dispersal or leakage into water … This affects nearby villages most directly, but it also poses huge threats to all of China, as contaminants enter the food chain, or are scattered by the winds far and wide” (Greenpeace, 2010). Kelly and Jacobs (2014, p. 23) were not kind in their critique of China’s coal dependence: China’s coal-burning gluttony is of such magnitude that it devours nearly as much as the rest of the globe. By banking so heavily on the “black gold” to leapfrog out of its locked history, the country is by far the single biggest emitter of the mainstay greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Whether global warming sails past the disastrous precipice that gives scientists insomnia could well pivot on the nation’s willingness to wean itself quickly from coal – and whether others with economic stakes in the eternal fuel allow it. In the next 40 years, China’s emissions will escalate unless the coal industry’s production is curtailed. If China is unable to cease its dependency on coal within the next 20 years, it won’t matter what the rest of the world does to handle carbon pollution; there will be no chance of limiting global climate change.

The sources of air pollution  17

How did the dependence on coal begin? Martin (2015) cites evidence that Chinese people were digging and burning coal for household use as early as the fourth millennium BC – centuries prior to Western society discovering coal as a source of fuel. He writes, “By 2000 BC, in present-day Inner Mongolia and Shanxi Province, coal was being mined and used to heat dwellings and to smelt copper” (p. 156). With the advent of Imperial China, the mining and use of coal, a cheap energy source, became systematic and played an integral role in China’s developing culture. It’s also one of many reasons China is heralded as one of the first countries to achieve a multitude of artistic and technological milestones. Kelly and Jacobs (2014, p. 47) report that prior to the arrival of the Europeans, China was digging deep into the earth, “converting rock to energy”, as far down as 130 yards, and despite the dangers and constant obstacles they endured (e.g. the heavy rains that might inundate the area, or inhaling methane, a potentially lethal gas, which could asphyxiate workers in the confined space underground, or ignite an explosion if a pick axe caused a large enough spark), workers excavated millions of tons of coal from mines (then called pits) each year. The bountiful amount of energy from coal accelerated industrial development and kicked the doors open for China’s revolutionary urbanization. However, even in the country’s earliest history of industrialization, sulphurous fumes and soot hung thickly in the air. The particles from dust clouds penetrated the most tightly sealed houses coating the furniture and fabric with fine, yellow silt: Peiping – later known as Peking before its name changed to Beijing – was enveloped by them. The silt-laden clouds, which could sweep long distances like a tidal wave, would even strike Shanghai 800 miles to the south periodically. Once the high-pressure winds that propelled the dust died down, more punishment was in store. The air could become almost unnaturally still to such an extent that coal fumes and soot sometimes mixed with fog to tent towns in gray overcast. Between rampant coal use and routine dust attacks, old-fashioned smog was long a fixture of early life. (Kelly and Jacobs, 2014, p. 48) With the massive use of coal, resource disaster was precariously on the edge. China’s oversized populace exploited the land and would eventually pay a steep price. China’s innovations and productivity margins no longer mattered as China pummelled the land to modernize without much forethought about the consequences. Kelly and Jacobs (2014) likened China’s

18  The sources of air pollution north to America’s Great Plains in the 1930s, stating it was vulnerable to the Dust Bowl syndrome of implantable fields and wind-borne grit flying every which way: The Loess Plateau, a mammoth area roughly 4,000 feet in elevation, once was a fertile grain-growing enclave. But centuries of excessive hoeing and harvesting eroded it something awful. An agricultural breadbasket no longer, the plateau’s degradation carried far. It punished Beijing and other cities with gritty, choking dust clouds. The butterfly effect, where one distant action has a multiplying impact elsewhere, was already flapping. (Kelly and Jacobs, 2014, p. 49) Following World War II and Chairman Mao’s era along with his disastrous Great Leap Forward, economic reforms took from 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. He believed China’s economic growth depended on abundant supplies of coal and catered to the country’s insatiable appetite to produce steel, concrete, and electricity. Deng was known as “The Architect” for his prodigious amount of manufacturing and was named the “Man of the Year” by TIME in 1986 (Kelly and Jacobs, 2014, pp. 75–76). The magazine trumpeted Deng’s accomplishments as “the second revolution … an attempt on a monumental scale to blend seemingly irreconcilable elements: state ownership and private property, central planning and competitive markets, political dictatorship and limited economic and cultural freedom”. Basically, Deng had the ingenuity to combine communism and capitalism in a productive way for society’s benefit. Kelly and Jacobs (2014) agree that Deng’s reform has improved Chinese people’s lifestyle considerably, but the rupture he created in the environment outweighs some of that success: Deng raised the standard of living, doubling average household income. That drove the market for more housing furnished with refrigerators, televisions, and other modern conveniences. However, along with the rising standard of living and increasing opportunity came the exploitation of labourers and increasing strains on resources that brought water and land shortages. There was a great outpouring of air and water pollution, as the nation’s environment sharply declined. Deng, in effect, had concentrated all of the nation’s energy and talent on economic growth, ignoring the environmental consequences. (p. 80) Deng’s success in raising the standard of living for the Chinese people was greatly appreciated. Yet, he was also oblivious to his infamous contributions to the mounting smog that ravaged the health of millions of Chinese.

The sources of air pollution  19 Deng was blind to the murky skies looming overhead as he encouraged his fellow Chinese to “Be brave … walk with faster steps” (Kelly and Jacobs, 2014, p. 77). Environmental degradation and public health concerns were not going to block his efforts to build a wealthy and super powered nation. The leader of China’s Communist Party adopted a policy of unrestrained mine development, from small to large, to accomplish these goals. “If you had a pickaxe, a mule, and a cart to load, you could become a coal miner. Millions did” (Martin, 2015, p. 158). Martin (2015) states that for the first time coal production surpassed one billion tons in 1987, and went from 683 million tons to more than 1.4 billion from 1980 to 1996. The coal-producing regions spread from Inner Mongolia to Xinjiang in the far west, encompassing the whole of Shanxi Province in the north. These mines popped up with barely any safety measures, available water, transport capability, or environmental consequences: Mechanization had come to the big mines, but in most mines the work was done by hand, performed by men willing to crawl into dark underground chambers and hack away at the rock face because they had few other options for making a living. (Martin, 2015, pp. 158–159) Nevertheless, there were hardly any profits, and coal industry losses before the reforms of the 1990s totalled hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Plus, the Five-Year Plan (FYP) of 1991–1995 demanded the elimination of 400,000 coal-mining jobs, representing about 6 per cent of the seven million workers in the industry. It was time for the coal industry to ­modernize, but meanwhile, “the State Power Corporation – the state-controlled monopoly that generated and transmitted electricity in China up through the reforms of the mid-1990s – launched an astonishing binge of power plant ­construction” (Martin, 2015, p. 159). Coal production in China grew by 40 million tons a year from 1991 to 1995, and China added 206 gigawatts of power generation capacity, or 500 megawatts – equal to a medium sized coal-fired power plant – every week between 1997 and 2005. Martin (2015, p. 159) claims that these were only the official figures, and that the actual total is more likely higher due to the proliferation of illicit mines, and numerous companies setting up their own private coal boilers, off the national grid, to run factories, steel mills, and cement plants. During the period between 2001 and 2004, coal production doubled and reached two billion tons; and by 2009 it was three billion and still growing. Consequently, imports climbed as well, and in 2007, China became a net importer of coal to assuage its demands (p. 160). Coal use is blamed as the primary cause for China’s exceedingly poor air quality, but there are also other factors that have contributed to the smog

20  The sources of air pollution conditions. Zhang and Crooks (2012) refer to the manufacturing industry and the power sectors as being the “backbone” of the People’s Republic of China’s tremendous growth over the decades, but they also excoriate their role in ruining air quality. The authors assert that the major sources of air pollution are the electric power industry, the non-metallic mineral products industry, the ferrous smelting industry, the chemical manufacturing industry, and the nonferrous smelting industry (p. 60). They present: “Collectively, these sub-sectors contribute over 85 percent of total industrial SO2 emissions, and their contribution is disproportionately greater than their contribution to the economic output of the industry sector”. The electric power industry has the most significant impact, and accounts for 60 per cent of the total industrial SO2 emissions (p. 61). In accordance with these findings, Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014) cite a research study conducted by the Chinese Academy of Science, which concludes that industrial pollution is the largest source of the PM2.5 problems causing Beijing’s smog. The study lists secondary inorganic aerosols, sulphates, and nitrates as accounting for 26 per cent of Beijing’s PM2.5; industrial production and coal burning accounting for 25 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively; soil dust for 15 per cent; and the 5.5 million cars for 4 per cent of the smog. The remaining pollution was generated by the “heavily industrialized neighbouring provinces and burning of trash” (Zhang, Liu, and Li, 2014, p. 5,328).

Vehicle emissions Another major source of air pollution in China is vehicle emissions. Urbanization and economic development have created a huge demand for more vehicles. According to Zhou (2013, p. 25), “since China became a large consumer of automobiles, about 14,000 new cars hit the streets daily”. This datum may have been true for the late 2000s or for 2010–2011; however, it would soon be surpassed. According to the China Daily (2015), in 2014, more than 46,000 cars were added to the road every day, or 17 million for the whole year. According to MPS (2014), there were 264 million vehicles on the roads in 2014, of which 154 million were cars. Cars have replaced motorcycles as the major means of transportation in China, becoming the most common vehicles: from 43.9 per cent in 2009 to 58.6 per cent in 2014. Figure 3.2 presents the increase in motor vehicles in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou from 1993 to 2011. The three major Chinese cities have witnessed extreme growth in vehicle ownership over the past decades, with Beijing’s number of cars increasing about tenfold from 1993 to 2011. The national car penetration rate is of 69 cars per 1,000 Chinese, still very low compared to a developed country like the U.S., where the vehicle

The sources of air pollution  21

Figure 3.2 Car ownership in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing Source: Feng and Li (2013).

penetration rate was 786 per 1,000 people in 2011 (Bloomberg, 2015). Beijing has the highest rate of private car ownership with 63 private cars per 100 households, while the national average is 25 private cars per 100 households (China Daily, 2015). The low penetration and continued economic growth means that the number of vehicles on the roads can be expected to continue growing. From 2013 to the end of 2014, there were 29.7 million new drivers added to the roads, with an increase in the number of driving licenses issued from 219 million to 247 million (China Daily, 2015). To accommodate these motor vehicles, China has engaged in a massive build-up of highways. By the beginning of 2011 China had completed 74,000 kilometers of expressways. By 2020, it is hoping to have about 85,000 kilometers of national expressways – a target that it will likely reach before the date, since it had already built 90 per cent of the total by 2011 (Yan, 2011). The massive increases in motor vehicles and the enormous amounts of new highways compound to create environmental problems, not only related to air, but also to biodiversity and soil degradation. The carbon emissions of these cars have “doubled the amount of pollution in the air” (Zhou, 2013, p. 25), and weak government regulations only made air quality worse. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (2013), vehicle emissions account for about 25 to 33 per cent of particulate matter (PM) and 25 per cent of nitrogen oxide (NOX) pollution of the country. Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014) found that the causes of air pollution in China’s megacities have shifted from coal-burning only to a mixture of coal-burning and vehicle emissions. Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014) claim that pollutants from

22  The sources of air pollution vehicles contribute to more than 22.5 per cent of PM2.5 in Beijing, although there are some controversies as to the exact level. Liu et al. (2014) state that emissions from traffic was found to account for 47.9 per cent of particulate concentration. The Chinese Academy of Science argues that motor vehicle emissions are responsible for less than 4 per cent of Beijing’s PM2.5, while the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau determined that the contribution of vehicle emissions to PM2.5 is between 20 per cent and 30 per cent (see Chapter 6 for elaboration). Finally, according to figures published by Xinhua, 31.1 per cent of air pollution in Beijing comes from vehicle exhaust emissions (Duggan, 2014). In spite of these discrepancies, it is clear the emissions are set to increase, as economic growth makes car ownership available to more people. Ribeiro et al. (2007) estimated that China’s energy consumption from the transport sector would increase fourfold between 2002 and 2025. The underlying problem is that “the emission factor (the amount of pollution emitted by one car) in China is much higher than in developed countries because China has much lower emission standards for automobiles” (Tang, 2005, p. 47). In spite of the lower emission standards, the Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed that 7.8 per cent of cars on the roads do not meet even the current minimum national emission standards (Duggan, 2014). The national emission standards are several years behind those of Europe (Fung et al., 2010, see Chapter 6).

Container ships emission One major source of air pollution that is rarely discussed is emissions from container ships. As the “factory of the world”, China has many of world’s busiest ports (Khalid, 2006). Fung et al. (2014) estimated that ten out of the 20 busiest container ports in the world are situated in China, accounting for 26 per cent of the global container volume, or 168 million TEU (20-foot container equivalent unit), in 2013 (Table 3.1). The increasing significance of container shipping is reflected by the fact that the most renowned and well-developed ports in China, like Shanghai, not only serve as importexport centres for the country’s growing international trade, but also back the import-export business for Northeast Asia. The growth of the container shipping industry came with serious problems of air pollution. Ocean going vessels (OGVs) use low quality fuels with high sulphur contents while navigating. However, in most countries OGVs have to convert to higher quality fuel, with sulphur content no greater than 0.5 per cent when berthing. Unfortunately, most Chinese ports still do not have to comply with such requirements. The result is that OGVs approaching or docked at Chinese ports release substantial amounts of

The sources of air pollution  23 Table 3.1 Ten Chinese port terminals in the top 20 ports of the world and their throughput for 2013 Rank

Port Name

Volume, million TEU

Share of container volume (%)

 1

Shanghai

33.6

5

 3

Shenzhen

23.3

4

 4

Hong Kong

22.3

3

 6

Ningbo-Zhoushan

17.4

3

 7

Qingdao

15.5

2

 8

Guangzhou

15.3

2

10

Tianjin

13.0

2

13

Dalian

10.0

2

14

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

9.9

2

17

Xiamen

8.0

1

Total

168.3

26%

Adopted from Fung et al. (2014, p. 9).

particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), and heavy ­metals, including cadmium, vanadium, and lead (Buckley, 2014). The Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN, 2015) revealed that ship emissions are now the third largest source of air pollution in China, behind vehicle exhaust and factory emissions. Xiong Yuehui, an official with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, estimated that the shipping sector accounted for 8.4 per cent of China’s sulphur dioxide emissions, and 11.3 per cent of nitrogen oxide emissions in 2013 (Reuters, 2015). The report states that according to the Economic Information Daily, “the emission of a ship that uses fuel with 3.5 percent sulphur discharge is tantamount to that of 210 thousand trucks per day. The pollutants contain dozens of toxic chemicals that pose critical damage to people’s health”. The pollution and associated health and environmental risks are intensified by the fact that Chinese port cities are those with the highest population density and contain other sources of pollutants as well, which means that a large number of residents are affected by a heightened health risk. According to Fung et al. (2014), the emissions from shipping and land-based

24  The sources of air pollution port equipment were contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010. Fung et al. (2014) also highlighted the potential impacts of container shipping on ecosystems, arguing that acidification, eutrophication, and nutrient enrichment may occur as a result of the decomposition of NOx and Sox, and that ozone emission from vessels also endangered native vegetation and reduced crop produce. As for global climate, the effect is still uncertain due to the complex nature of emissions. Fuglestvedt et al. (2009) revealed that emissions from international shipping lead to both a warming and cooling effect on the globe. While CO2 gives rise to global warming, “ship emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) cause cooling through effects on atmospheric particles and clouds, while nitrogen oxides (NOx) increase the levels of the greenhouse gas ozone (O3) and reduce the GHG methane (CH4), causing warming and cooling, respectively” (Kontovas and Psaraftis, 2011, p. 1,590).

Burning agricultural residue Another lesser-known contributor to the air pollution hazard is the burning of crop stubble practiced by farmers. The other methods of removing agricultural residue involve expensive transportation and fuel costs, thus many farmers turn to burning. Ma (2009), quoted in Shi et al. (2014), calculated the net benefits of straw as a source of cattle feed at about USD 40,000/km2, those from burning straw at USD 12,500/km2, and those from producing biogas at USD-6,000/km2. Clearly, if a farmer does not have cattle, the most economically efficient way to dispose of the straw is to burn it. As for efficiency, burning straw can be done in a short period of time, after which farmland can be used for planting the next season’s agricultural product. This is an important consideration for farmers as the burning time (one to two weeks) can allow them to farm another crop quickly. For example, if rice is harvested in late July, farmers can still plant a late-season rice before early August (Shi et al., 2014). Burning thus became the most widely used method for removing crop residues during harvest seasons, particularly in Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Hebei, and Heilongjiang. Each of these provinces burns 10 billion kg of straw every year (Cao et al., 2007). In less developed regions, where straw may be used as an input for low-value industrial product, straw burning is also becoming more common, due to urbanization and industrialization (He et al., 2007). Burning straw results in heavy air pollution, especially during the period from May to June when winter wheat and rapeseed are cropped, and summer rice is harvested in Southern China (Pan et al., 2011). According to Shi et al. (2014), each year more than 600 billion kg of straw are produced in China, with rice, wheat, and corn accounting for about 110, 130, and

The sources of air pollution  25 230 billion kg, respectively. The authors found that the burning of residues releases a considerable amount of pollutants to the atmosphere, including 140 to 240 billion kg of CO2, 1.6 to 2.2 billion kg of PM2.5, and 0.5 to 0.14 billion kg of black carbon. In the worst affected regions, up to half of the PM10 released in the air during the harvesting season comes from burning straw. The burning also contributes to greenhouse gas emission in China. In 2004, the first national Communication on Climate Change of the People’s Republic of China revealed that emissions from agricultural sources accounted for 17 per cent of China’s total emission, while agriculture contributed 14 per cent of the world’s emission in total (Pan et al., 2011). The emission figures could be even higher if there were more reliable sources for the calculation. The air pollution level is highest in the cities of the regions where agricultural residues are burnt, since black carbon particulates create ­ remains airborne in the atmosphere and are transported across the region. The environmental consequences of air pollution were particularly serious in 2011, when the catastrophic “100-year” drought affected South China, which led to the cancellation of scheduled flights and caused respiratory problems in some cities, such as Chengdu City (Sichuan Province, the largest agricultural province of Southwest China) (Pan et al., 2011). The trend of burning residue is also growing in other regions of China. It is difficult to estimate the exact amount of agricultural residue burnt, but it is clear that it is large and growing. From the mid-1990s to the 2000s, the amount of straw burnt doubled from 21 per cent to 48 per cent in Jiangsu Province (Pan et al., 2011). Pan et al. (2011) also report that in Henan Province (in the central plain of North China) about a quarter of the straw residues are burnt in fields to fertilize farmland to grow next year’s crops. On the other hand, Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014, p. 5,328) write that “about 40 percent of […] crop residues are used as biomass fuels in Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia, 55 percent in Heilongjiang Province and Liaoning Province, 70 percent in Tianjin City and Beijing City”. According to Qu et al. (2012), during the peak period of straw burning, local governments were advising residents to wear masks and prevent outdoor activities.

Fireworks Setting off fireworks is a custom for Chinese people to celebrate the Lunar Chinese New Year. However, lighting fireworks can increase PM2.5 concentration to levels that exceeded 30 times the World Health Organization standard in 2014 (SCMP, 2015). According to Li (2014), during the Chinese New Year in 2012 fireworks increased the level of PM2.5 by 80 times. In 2013, a total of 260,000 cases of fireworks were used during the annual

26  The sources of air pollution celebration (Wang and Liu, 2014). Zhao et al. (2014) found that the concentration of particulate matter of less than 1,000 nm increased by 74.6 per cent during the Chinese New Year period in Lanzhou (Gansu Province) in 2013. The hourly concentration of particle size 200–500 nm was six times higher while that of PM1.0 was two times higher during the peak hour of celebration compared to the levels before the festival.

Small and medium enterprises in rural areas Over the past three decades of phenomenal growth, a large number of small and medium enterprises (SME) have been opened in rural areas, attracted by the natural resources, the pool of cheap labour looking for work, and lower environmental standards. These SMEs served as the engines of China’s rapid economic transitions. He et al. (2014) report that “in 2009, China registered 43 million SMEs, together responsible for 58.5 percent of the national GDP, half of China’s tax revenues, 68 percent of China’s exports, and nearly 80 percent of the job opportunities in cities and towns” (p. 158). Yet, they have also contributed to the environmental degradation in rural areas, which, in some places, is now as bad as that in cities. He et al. (2014) claim that these rural industries have notoriously polluted the air and water, inefficiently used and wasted natural resources, destroyed the ecological environment, and damaged human health. The researchers state, many studies ascribe the poor environmental performance of SMEs to the sheer number and dispersement, the substandard production technology, their poor operation and management systems and routines, the shortage of finances, the lack of environmental awareness, and last, but not the least, the strong local government-SME alliance. (p. 158) Despite the pressure on chemical companies to improve their environmental performances, He et al. (2014) found that they still managed to largely operate below the “sustainability radar”, because: 1) Unlike larger companies, they are hardly visible in the national and international media; 2) they are less internationally integrated; 3) they are less subject to stringent governmental regulation and enforcement, also because local governments have key interests (financial, e­ conomic, political) in maintaining these companies in operation within their jurisdiction; 4) they are less confronted with the well-informed, environmentally aware, and well-resourced Chinese middle class, as rural neighbouring residents lack (access to) information, knowledge, legal aid, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). (p. 159)

The sources of air pollution  27 The chemical and petro-chemical SMEs in particular were responsible for a high and increasing number of chemical pollution accidents in rural communities, and have been frequently blamed for causing cancer villages, a topic which will be explored in more detail below. The case study provides evidence that the “economic interests of and intricate ties and collaboration between the local government and local industry management enabled the companies to continue business as usual” (p. 166). Tilt (2013) reviewed the large and wide-ranging body of knowledge from natural and social scientists about the environmental problems in the rural industrial sector, which includes millions of loosely regulated factories employing hundreds of millions of workers. Tilt ascertains, “for China’s 800 million villagers, the rural industrial sector represents some of the most far-reaching social, economic and environmental changes in human history” (Tilt, 2013, pp. 1,147–1,148). Air and water pollution, soil contamination, and the deleterious effect on their health have become a daily part of the lifestyles of most villagers. In addition, villagers receive little information about the environmental contamination and ill health they are experi­ encing. Tilt (2013) comments that oftentimes the villager’s perception of the problems is marked by uncertainty, ambiguity, or viewed as “the inevitable consequence of modernization”. Tilt (2013) expounds that, “millions of rural factories have remained an important part of the Chinese economy, but their rise has also caused environmental degradation on an unprecedented scale” (p. 1,149). Utilizing information from a variety of studies, Tilt pronounces: Current estimates suggest that rural factories are responsible for as much as two-thirds of the nation’s total air and water pollution burden, and that pollution-related economic losses drag down the country’s overall gross domestic product. In fact, pollution-related damages – in the form of health-care costs, lost worker productivity, infrastructural damage, threats to food safety, and lost agricultural productivity – may well be one of the most intractable limits to growth currently faced by China. (p. 1,149)

Indoor air pollution China’s Ministry of Health has documented a significant increase in morbidity over the past 20 years, as the population’s exposure to air pollutants has led to an increase in lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, cardiopulmonary disease, breast cancer, and birth defects. Outdoor air in cities tends to be more polluted than the air in rural areas because of power plants, industrial facilities, and motor vehicles; however, outdoor pollutants are transported

28  The sources of air pollution indoors via ventilation and infiltration. What this means for many urban dwellers in China is that “the major fraction of their exposure to outdoors pollutants occurs indoors” (Zhang, Mo, and Weschler, 2013, p. 752). The result is that morbidity rates in urban areas are significantly higher than morbidity rates in rural areas. Between 2005 and 2009, urban death rates from pneumonia increased from 6.0 to 12.6 per 100,000 persons, while the rural death rate increased from 7.1 to 9.8 per 100,000. Cooking, smoking, and unvented combustion indoors have contributed pollutants associated with pneumonia (Zhang, Mo, and Weschler, 2013). Beyond outdoor air pollution transported indoors, indoor air pollution is also a serious problem in China. To accommodate the very large number of people who migrated from the rural to the urban areas, a large number of buildings have been constructed over the last 30 years. These buildings were built with plastic furnishings, synthetic paints and wall coverings, and polymeric floors. They also contain a great deal of electronic appliances, and are cleaned with synthetic cleaning products. Since most inhabitants of China’s cities spend the majority of their time indoors, the negative effects of outdoor pollution are compounded by exposure to indoor air pollution (Zhang, Mo, and Weschler, 2013, p. 752). Of particular importance is household heating, which is found to be the major source of air pollution in rural China, where 60 per cent of the total population lives (Mainali et al., 2012). In 2007, Zhang and Smith wrote that, “Nearly all China’s rural residents and a shrinking fraction of urban residents use solid fuels (biomass and coal) for household cooking and/or heating” and that this “is responsible for approximately 420,000 premature deaths annually, more than the approximately 300,000 attributed to urban outdoor air pollution in the country” (p. 848). Jiang et al. (2015) found that a ­family using coal or biomass as cooking fuel in Lanzhou would be subjected to twofold risk of lower birth weight than those using gas for cooking, particularly among preterm births. Zhang and Smith (2007) found that the indoor combustion of solid fuels, including biomass and coal, incurred adverse health effects such as respiratory illness, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and weakening of the immune system. Some households using “poisonous” coal were even subjected to arsenic poisoning and fluorosis. The health impacts were a result of products of incomplete combustion (PICs) of the solid fuels. As simple combustion devices in rural households, such as heating stoves, are incapable of burning solid fuels well, the air is filled with PICs, compounds, and pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and particulate matter (PM), which are released to the environment and create pollution levels that exceed China’s indoor air quality (IAQ) standards. It was estimated that coal and biomass burning

The sources of air pollution  29 from home cook stoves convert 10 to 38 per cent of fuel carbon of their fuel into PICs, inducing serious problems of air pollutions. Since 2007, the situation has improved considerably, in part as a result of government efforts to replace wood as a cooking fuel in rural areas. However, the problem has not completely disappeared. Duan et al. (2014) surveyed 91,121 households located in 9,108 villages, and reported that in rural areas the favourite fuel for cooking was biomass (47.6 per cent), while the favourite fuels for heating were coal (21.4 per cent) and biomass (19.0 per cent). In urban areas, the situation was slightly better. The favourite fuel for cooking was gas (65.8 per cent), and those for heating were electricity (23.6 per cent) and coal (10.5 per cent). Mainali et al. (2012) revealed that despite the booming economic growth and urbanization, the consumption of solid fuels will still be a common practice. Assuming a positive linear progression of modern cooking fuels and an increase in household income, the researchers predicted that 24 per cent of the rural population and 17 per cent of the urban population will still rely on solid fuels in 2030, under the scenario where no new substantial policies on solid fuel consumption will be in place. With no support for switching to modern fuel (electricity, biogas, and liquefied petroleum gas) given by the state, there will also be an estimated 98,000 deaths attributed to the consumption of solid fuels.

The north-south divide During the period of central planning (from the 1950s to the 1980s), the people living north of the Huai River and the Qinling Mountain Range were given free coal for winter heating of homes and offices, as a basic right. Due to budgetary constraints, this right was not extended to people living in the south (Almond et al., 2009). Even today, indoor heating is much more common in the north than in the south. As mentioned in the previous section, the combustion of coal in boilers is associated with the release of air pollutants, and in particular the emission of particulate matter that can be extremely harmful to human health. Chen et al. (2013) compared the annual daily average concentrations of total suspended particulates (TSPs) in 90 Chinese cities during the period from 1981 to 2000, to the mortality data (500,000 deaths) from 145 locations from 1991 to 2000. The paper concluded that despite the Huai River policy’s good intentions, the provision of indoor ­heating due to the Huai River Policy culminated in disastrous consequences on the health of the residents in the north, because an insufficient number of pollution abatement systems were installed: “the 500 million residents of Northern China during the 1990s experienced a loss of more than 2.5 ­billion life years owing to the Huai River policy” (p. 12,937). Almond et al. (2009)

30  The sources of air pollution point out that life expectancy in the north is 5.5 years shorter than in the south. This research also adds another chapter to the body of literature on why Northern China continues to be home for some of the world’s most polluted cities (Figure 3.3). Chen et al. (2013) look at air pollution generated from the governmentsupported central heating system, driven by large-capacity boilers and power plants widely used in Northern China, but not in the southern region. On the other hand, using satellite-retrieved aerosol optical depth (AOD, a measure of the extinction of the solar beam by dust and haze) as an indicator of ground-level PM2.5 emissions, Xiao et al. (2015) compare the impact of centralized and non-centralized winter heating on air pollution throughout Central and Eastern China. The study, which included 294 municipalities, indicated that winter heating has a major impact on increasing air pollution levels over almost the entire regions of Central and Eastern China (Figure 3.4). The authors concluded that “the average AOD* during the heating season (0.32) is more than five times higher than during the nonheating seasons (0.06), and the increase of AOD* in the heating areas is

Figure 3.3 Carbon dioxide emissions per household in 74 Chinese cities Source: Zheng et al. (2010). Note: Bold line: North-South China division for domestic heating policy.

The sources of air pollution  31

Figure 3.4 Impact of winter heating on air pollution in China. Spatial distribution of average AOD* annual, 2004–2012 Source: Xiao et al. (2015). Note: The bold line along the Qin Mountains and Huai River is the traditional ­dividing line between North and South China.

almost twice as high in the non-heating areas” (Xiao et al., 2015, p. 9). The study also concludes that central heating releases fewer pollutants than other household heating methods, and that an increase in central heating will lead to a decrease in PM pollution during the heating season. This is because the centralized heating system proposed is installed with more efficient emission control technologies, contributing to a lower level of PM2.5 emissions. This could be seen from the fact that power plants supply about half of the heat produced by the central heating system, and 96 per cent of coal-fired power plants are able to retain about 90 per cent of PM2.5 with installed electrostatic precipitators (ESP) (You and Xu, 2010). In addition, the law requires flue gas desulphurization facilities to be built into coalfired plants with capacities over 300 MWe. These are capable of mitigating up to 80 per cent of SO2 emission. The researchers suggest that “adopting ­pollution control facilities in power plants and heating stations are needed to improve winter air quality in China” (Xiao et al., 2015, p. 9). Xingqin et al. (2015) looked at the seasonal variation of hospital admissions due to air pollutants in Lanzhou, and found that the highest daily

32  The sources of air pollution counts of respiratory hospital admissions occurred during winter (18 ­persons per day). This was attributed to domestic heating, which in many places is done with coal, from November to March. During summer and autumn, hospital admissions due to respiratory ailments dropped to 13.9 persons per day. Similar results were found by Zhou et al. (2014), who conducted a large-scale study that investigates the association between air pollution and respiratory mortality in the 32 largest cities dispersed over 26 provinces and totalling more than 200 million people. The researchers examined the association separately for northern and southern Chinese cities, and for winter and summer periods. The study not only found evidence linking air pollution and respiratory mortality, but also determined that the health effects of air pollution are strongest in northern Chinese cities during the cold months, suggesting that air pollution caused by coal burning for household heating is the main source of respiratory ailments.

Unfavourable topographic conditions: the case of Lanzhou (Gansu Province) A study that focused on the city of Lanzhou, the largest city and capital of Gansu Province in Northern China, emphasized the importance of topography in the level of ambient air pollution (Zhang et al., 2014). With an approximate population of 3.5 million, the city contains numerous polluting industries including an oil refinery, petrochemical, machinery and metallurgical industries, textile mills, food processing centres, cement manufacturing, rubber processing, electrical power generation, coal mining, lead and zinc mining, and smelting. The major local emissions are particulate loading and industrial gas pollutants, such as SO2 and NOX. In addition to the air pollution produced in the city, the air quality worsens considerably when dust storms blow from the Hexi corridor. This is partly due to the topography of Lanzhou city, which is located in a troughshaped valley surrounded by mountains that rise to 200–600 m, forcing a stable atmosphere, weak winds, and strong inversion layers (Liu et al., 2013). The city centre is 1,530 m above sea level and it extends about 35 km east to west and 2–8 km north to south (Xiao et al., 2013). Owing to its meteorological and topographic conditions, pollutants from the Hexi corridor are readily trapped at the ground level for a long period, as the dif­ fusion of air pollutants is limited. Wei et al. (1991) found that inversion in Lanzhou could last for about 310 days a year, giving rise to a long period of low air quality, in particular in what concerns the concentration of PM1.0 and PM2.5. Though precipitation events are found to be able to mitigate the air pollution problem by the wet scavenging effect, such effects are limited in their temporal scale, as the annual rainfall is as low as 315 mm, with

The sources of air pollution  33 high concentration of precipitation events only from May to October (Feng and Wang, 2012; Zhang et al., 2014). Within the valley, there is a t­ ransport of pollutants from urban areas to the rural area of Yuzhong County, because the former is situated in the upwind position of the latter (Zhang and Li, 2011). As such, the rural area has to suffer from the pollution generated by the city. In January 2013, the pollution was so severe that civil workers were asked to walk to work instead of using their vehicles. The Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China proclaims that Lanzhou is similar to most Chinese cities suffering from poor air quality. These cities share major air pollution sources, including industrial emissions, coal combustion, fugitive dusts, and traffic emissions. Lanzhou has consistently ranked as one of the ten worst cities for air pollution since the Chinese government began releasing the air pollution index for major cities in 2003. (Zhang et al., 2014, p. 11) Indeed, Zhang et al. (2014) found that the levels of pollution in Lanzhou were more than six times greater than the WHO’s annual average guideline of 20 μg/m3 during the four years from April 2009 to December 2012.

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4 The impact of air pollution

Air pollution has important consequences for the Chinese population and the Chinese economy. I start by describing the economic impact before ­turning to health impact and the environmental impact.

The economic costs of air pollution China’s meteoric rise has been accompanied by a general disregard for the environment and public health, coupled with an attitude of “don’t let ­anything detract from economic growth because any problem encountered can be fixed later”. China’s ethos of developing its economy by exploiting its natural resources has come with enormous costs. The Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning (part of the Ministry of Environmental Planning) estimated the cost arising from pollution and damage to the ecosystem at USD 230 billion in 2010, or 3.5 per cent of the gross domestic product – three times larger than in 2004 (Wong, 2013). On the other hand, the World Bank (2012, p. 149) revealed that environmental degradation and resource degradation led to about 9 per cent loss of its gross national income, which is over ten times higher than that of its East Asian counterparts (Japan and South Korea). In terms of its heath impact, air pollution contributed to an 80 per cent increase in public health spending from 1996 to 2001, or an annual increase of 13 per cent (Liu and Diamond, 2005). It is estimated that the costs of r­ ising air pollution levels increased from USD 22 billion in 1975 to USD 112 ­billion in 2005 in terms of lost labour and leisure time (Matus et al., 2011). The increased economic cost of air pollution is also due to the cost of air p­ ollution being estimated using lost labour output due to mortality or ­morbidity, which increase over time as do labour productivity and the value of the products ­produced by labour. Furthermore, as Matus et al. (2011, p. 4) argue, “if an individual dies five years before they would have left the workforce, the economy loses not only those five years of labour, but also extra labour that would

The impact of air pollution  39 have been available due to productivity increases”. The impact of air pollution on health and health spending will be discussed below. Air pollution also causes costs to the agricultural sector. Wei et al. (2014) suggested that the SO2 emissions of 2,069 state-monitored h­ eavily air ­polluting enterprises situated in 899 counties reduced the value of the agricultural output in these counties by USD 1.43 billion, a­ ccounting of 0.66 of the total agricultural output. The cost could be even higher, only the ­ hina-based researchers didn’t have the full set of data. Alistair Thornton, a C economist, stated “this cuts to the heart of China’s economic challenge: how to transform from the explosive growth of the past 30 years to the ­sustainable growth of the next 30 years…digging a hole and filling it back in again gives you GDP growth. It doesn’t give you economic value” (quoted in Wong, 2013). To better assess the costs of economic development, China has been experimenting with the Green GDP. In China, research on the Green ­ GDP began in 2004 when the former State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) worked together on Green GDP accounting. A year later, ten provinces and municipalities ­ ­ including Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, Liaoning, Hebei, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Guangdong initiated pilot projects on Green GDP, with the focus on the economic costs of environmental pollution (Rauch and Chi, 2010). In 2006, the State Environmental Protection Administration and the National Bureau of Statistics estimated the nationwide Green GDP. According to their c­ alculations, in 2004 the costs of pollution were USD 64 billion, or 3.05 per cent of the GDP. Yet, Green GDP calculation was said to underestimate the real economic loss of environmental degradation (Economy, 2010). The World Bank even suggested that pollution alone costs China 5.78 per cent of GDP annually (Economy, 2010). According to Ryan (2015), the costs were even higher: “analysts, economists and the World Bank all put the cost to the economy of pollution at around 8–12 percent of GDP annually”, while a study by the Chinese Academy of Science found that the costs were as high as 13.5 per cent of GDP in 2005. SEPA and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) made clear that they could include only half of their intended factors in the calculation. Factors such as groundwater and soil contamination were not taken into consideration. In addition, the bad results given by the Green GDP faced the opposition of cadres: during the previous years, cadres’ performance had only been linked to GDP growth, and suddenly they faced criticism for disregarding something they were never asked to consider – the environment. SEPA’s original plan of evaluating the performance of local officials not only through economic indicators, but also through environmental ones, was deemed a threat by local leaders. Under political pressures, the director of Beijing

40  The impact of air pollution Bureau of Statistics, Yu Xiuqin, made it clear that Green GDP should not be linked with the performance evaluations of local leaders, as the practice would promote the cheating of statistics (Economy, 2010). Because of the methodological ­difficulties in estimating the costs of pollution, provincial governments’ stonewalling, and the central government’s inability to base its economic accounting on environmental information from other sources, the Green GDP was said to not fulfil the requirements of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) for accurate and detailed accounting of environmental costs of economic growth (Economy, 2010). The experiment was abandoned. Green GDP is no longer on the agenda. However, President Xi Jinping has been promoting alternative indicators of development to assess cadres’ performance beyond purely economic growth. Those who want to move up the career ladder have to look beyond economic growth, and also take into consideration environmental and social indicators. Environmental performance evaluation is now included in the promotion criteria for local cadres in the hope of pursuing sustainable development and retaining political legitimacy. This is against the previous “tournament competition”, in which local GDP was the first priority for deciding promotion and demotion of local leaders, resulting in the development of highly polluted industries with high external costs (Zheng et al., 2013). The 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP) stipulates that the local government must “accept responsibility for the environmental quality in their administrative areas and implement strict environmental performance assessment, the environmental enforcement responsibility system, and accountability system” (Brettell, 2013, p. 46). The assessment and evaluation of performance through a target responsibility system (TRS) is a quantitative exercise, which takes into account energy intensity (40 per cent) and other factors, including energy consumption reports, green infrastructure investments, and the implementation of environmental regulations (Ma, 2012; Zheng et al., 2013). The measures were set up to evaluate the performance of local cadres and leaders, but they were also designed to ensure that social stability is not threatened by surging criticism in smog-choked cities. The move to environmental protection and a green economy might be a way for the country to increase its competitiveness and turn to a more sustainable path, or it might just be a public relation exercise to gain people’s support for officials. Pragmatic considerations include improving energy security through better energy efficiency, expanding the market of green energy (which has a huge export potential), and reducing economic losses from heavy pollution (Zheng et al., 2013). On the other hand, according to Li Xiaoyang, professor of finance and economics at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, “to get promoted you need to assure no big things happen. You don’t want people to go the streets to protect the environment. That will create publicity and prevent you from

The impact of air pollution  41 getting promoted easily” (quoted in Sanderson, 2014). Yet, the establishment of an accounting exercise for the TRS does not imply a good monitoring system, which means that there are uncertainties about proper spending on green investment. It is possible that local governments and factories cheat by reporting inaccurate data. For example, factories may make adjustments to monitoring devices, and local leaders may shut down power plants for a period of time to meet the environmental performance standards (Zheng et al., 2013).

The impact of pollution on people’s health Lung cancer and premature deaths Hazardous air can lead to the “serious aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly” (Bruno, 2013, p. 1). Chen et al. (2013b) refer to a report by the World Bank (2007) which states that “between 350,000 and 500,000 people die prematurely in China each year as a result of outdoor air pollution” (Chen et al., 2013b, p. 1,959). Zhou (2013) reports a similar number of premature deaths from air pollution and estimates that the number of premature deaths due to pollution will most likely reach 550,000 in 2020. Kelly and Jacobs (2014) report that the number of Chinese that succumb to preventable smog deaths match the number of people killed in the United States on 9/11 “every day of the year, not including the masses that perish from indoor air pollution or drinking water loaded with heavy metals” (p. 21). Other researchers reported even worse data. Bhatnagar (2014) cited a staggering statistic presented by the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study in conjunction with the Health Effects Institute. In a 2013 forum in Beijing, the group reported that air pollution in China was linked to 1.2 million ­premature deaths. Specifically, the researchers posited that outdoor air pollution, primarily caused by particulate matter pollution, led to the loss of 25 million healthy years of life for the population. The 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study and the Health Effects Institute maintain that if China continues at this pace, by 2050 there could be 3.6 million premature deaths from air pollution each year (Bhatnagar, 2014). The situation is particularly bad for Beijingers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data imparting that the average 18-year-old Beijinger will most likely spend as much as 40 per cent of their remaining years in ill health, and will potentially suffer from cancer, cardiovascular, or respiratory disease (Wainwright, 2014). Chen et al. (2013a) carried out the first multi-city study on the acute effects of air pollution on stroke mortality in China. The study was undertaken in eight Chinese cities (Beijing, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shaghai, Sheyang, Suzhou, and Tangshan) to analyse the relationship

42  The impact of air pollution between daily stroke mortality and outdoor air pollution. In summary, the researchers ­confirmed that even short-term exposure to outdoor air pollution in China was associated with an increased risk of death from stroke. The authors added that air pollution is regarded as the fourth biggest threat to the health of Chinese people (after heart disease, dietary risk, and smoking), and that the leading cause of death from malignant tumours is lung cancer. Air pollution problems reached critical stages in Beijing and the Jingjinji region in winter 2012–2013. This led to a Greenpeace study in which they commissioned U.S. air pollution modelling expert Dr. Andrew Gray to assess the health impact of the large number of coal power plants on the population (Greenpeace 2013a, 2013b). The project covered over 2,000 power plants, including the 200 located in Jingjinji. The results showed that PM2.5 pollution from the 192 coal-fired power plants within Jingjinji led to an estimated 9,900 preliminary deaths, including 850 deaths from lung cancer within the region in 2011, 2,000 deaths in Beijing, 1,200 in Tianjin, and 6,700 in Hebei. It was approximated that 75 per cent of these impacts were caused by Hebei’s coal power plants. The health impact included 11,110 asthma cases, 12,100 chronic bronchitis cases, 1,010 hospital admissions, and 59,500 outpatient visits. The impact that befell children was 40 infant deaths, 1,900 children suffering from asthma, and 14,000 doctor and hospital visits. In November 2013, Pinghui (2013) reported that “an 8-year-old girl admitted to the Jiangsu Cancer Hospital became the mainland’s youngest lung cancer patient, a condition blamed directly on pollution”. The girl lived near a very busy road where she inhaled dust and particles. The hazy air blanketing the sky and causing the disturbing number of premature deaths is not without precedent. Zhang, Liu, and Li (2014) liken the air pollution problems in China to the “heavy motionless layer of smoky, dusty fumes from the region’s millions of coal stoves and local factories” (p. 5,324) of December 1952: This smog brought traffic and people to a standstill. Hospital ­admissions, pneumonia reports, applications for emergency bed service, and mortality followed the peak of air pollution. The mortality stayed high in the following two months, and it was suggested that 12,000 unexplained deaths during this period were owing to the smog. This smog became known as the “Great Smog” because of its lethality and the unprecedented public reactions to it. (Zhang, Liu, and Li, 2014, p. 5,324) The frequent haze, known as “Wu Mai” in Chinese, has been p­ rominent in much of Northern China. Huang et al. (2014) state that in the most recent “assessment of global disease burden, 3.2 million people died from air ­pollution in 2010, of which 2.1 million were from Asia” (p. 176).

The impact of air pollution  43 Fertility problems According to Gardner (2013), the health dangers from severe pollution in China’s most populated city, Shanghai, include a fertility crisis, as the incidence of low sperm counts among its men reached record levels. Doctors claim that air and water pollution are the “major culprits” for the city’s ­problems, and warn that action needs to be taken expediently. Dr. Li Zheng, a sperm expert at Shanghai’s Renji Hospital insisted in an interview with the Shanghai Morning Post that “If we don’t protect the environment now, mankind will face a worsening infertility predicament”. Dr. Li cautions that only a third of the semen at Shanghai’s main sperm bank currently meets the World Health Organization standards, and smog levels continue to rise. A 2012 study led by Dr. Li concluded that over the past ten years, worsening environmental conditions kept pace with the falling quality of sperm and an increase in aspermia, a condition that causes men to produce no semen at all. Gardner (2013) writes that in 2012, China’s state news agency Xinhua announced that the nation’s infertility rate was at 12.5 per cent among people of childbearing age – 20 years earlier it was just three per cent. Birth weight During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the government closed down factories, raised vehicle emissions standards, halted construction, and introduced a license plate rotation in an effort to slash the number of vehicles on the road. As a result of this massive intervention, air pollution levels dropped by between 18 per cent and 59 per cent during the summer of 2008. Rich et al. (2015) compared the weight of 83,672 babies born in Beijing around the time of the Olympics to that of babies born in 2007 and 2009. They found that birth weights were an average 23 g higher for babies who were in the eighth month of pregnancy during the summer of the games than during the same period in 2007 and 2009. Health scientist and associate professor David Rich (quoted in Mathiesen, 2015) clarifies: These findings not only illustrate one of the many significant health consequences of pollution, but also demonstrate that this phenomenon can be reversed. Even a short-term reduction in pollution in a community has a very large public health impact. Some of these babies will have fewer complications or disease later in life. Jonathan Griggs, a paediatric professor, commented that 23 g was a small amount on an individual child, but that the impact for some vulnerable children would be larger and could push thousands of children in Beijing into the

44  The impact of air pollution clinically significant low birth weight category of below 2.5 kg. Griggs affirms, “It absolutely does matter because this is showing that dirty air breathed in by mothers can have adverse effects on the developing foetus” (Mathiesen, 2015). Studies (e.g. Rich et al., 2015) have demonstrated that children born with clinically low weight are at a greater risk of dying in infancy and have proven to be more susceptible to disease. Studies have also linked low birth weight to asthma and decreased lung functions in adulthood. These findings are consistent with those of Wang et al. (1997), who reported a 10 per cent increase in the risk of low birth weight associated with a 100 μg/m3 increase in total suspended particulate, and a 11 per cent increase in the risk of low birth weight associated with a 100 μg/m3 increase in SO2 concentrations, across the entire pregnancy period, among women living in Beijing.

Cancer villages and rural communities The first Chinese report linking cancers to environmental pollution was released in 1987, and revolved around an investigation in Liaoning Province (McBeath, McBeath, and Tian, 2014). It was reported that “mortality rates for all cancer, stomach cancer, and lung cancer in 1970 to 1978 were higher in villages with hexavalent chromium-contaminated drinking water than in the general population” (p. 2). More information appeared highlighting abnormally high rates of cancer attributed to the environmental pollution of land, water, and air – most focusing on water pollution. The government publicly used the term “cancer villages” in 2013 to elucidate the link between China’s rapid economic development and the health problems in some rural areas (Figure 4.1). According to Rowe (2014), Dr. Anna Lora-Wainwright from the University of Oxford calls it an emotive term that particularly works well for media headlines, but regards it as one manifestation of the ruralhealth and social problems resulting from China’s “economic juggernaut”. Cox (2015) reports that villages have become sickened by expeditious economic and environmental ruination and that experts approximate that there could be anywhere from 450 to 490 cancer villages throughout the country. The morbid term refers to small communities located near chemical, pharmaceutical, or power plants, and factories where the exposure to pollution results in cancer rates that are many times higher than the national average. Zhao, Zhang, and Fan (2014) state that “cancer villages are referred to villages where cancer rates are 100 times or more than the national average of 0.07 percent”. They add that cancer villages “harm the weakest people at the bottom of society” (p. 178). McBeath, McBeath, and Tian (2014) report that the cancer rate among the residents of Linfen in Shanxi Province ranks among China’s highest. For individuals aged 55 years and older, this rate is of 61 per 1,000. The

The impact of air pollution  45

Figure 4.1 Distribution of cancer villages and major rivers in China Source: Lu et al. (2015).

authors state that in many cases both air and water pollution are involved in i­ncreasing health risks: The village of Zhangzhuang in Yongqiao Township (Northern Anhui Province) suffers from both forms of pollution. Noxious fumes from a pesticide factory make villagers’ eyes smart. Ground wells near the Kui River is invested with family and municipal waste and factory chemical effluents. Since 1974 lung cancer rates in the village have increased eight-fold, and other forms of cancer have increased as well. (p. 4) Zhao, Zhang, and Fan (2014) proclaim that the relocation of industries from urban to rural areas led to the increased emergence of cancer villages. Thus, the major victims of “China’s environmental inequality are the villagers (or rural migrants) in impoverished areas, who lack the ability to protect themselves from fatal environmental pollution” (p. 178). An example of a province with a number of severely polluting enterprises in its rural areas is that of Zhejiang: in 2012, 109 of its 113 leather tanning enterprises were sited in rural regions, 27 times more than in cities, while there were six times more electroplating enterprises and heavy metal mining and processing enterprises in rural areas than in cities. Another example cited is that of Hebei Province: by the end of 2007, “there were 59,876 under-scaled

46  The impact of air pollution enterprises (non-state-owned enterprises with an annual sales income below CNY 5 million), most of which were located in rural areas” (Zhao, Zhang, & Fan, 2014, p. 178). To save costs, small rural enterprises rarely have or use pollution control equipment. According to Watts (2010), pioneering Chinese journalists first ­identified these villages along the Huai River basin sometime around the mid-1990s. Reliable information about the affected communities was d­ ifficult to obtain, and villagers were frequently intimidated by authority figures. Many NGO (non-governmental organization) officials and reporters were reluctant to talk on record. Watts remembers how before taking his trip to the Huai River basin, a Chinese journalist advised him not to visit the v­ illages fearing that it might place people in jeopardy. He told Watts: “After I published my story, my sources were constantly harassed by local public security officers. I wish I had never written the piece” (Watts, 2010, p. 156). Watts details that after the launch of economic reforms, cancer rates rose rapidly; in 1997, for the first time, the disease became the leading cause of death in China. Cancer bore responsibility for one in five deaths and has risen to 80 per cent over the past 30 years. The biggest killer identified was lung cancer, caused by smoking and air pollution. The sudden rise in diseases of the digestive system was also mentioned connected with water pollution and food contamination. The 700 million people living in the countryside were far more prone to being affected than their counterparts in the urban areas due to being poorer and unable to access piped and treated water. Farmers were four times as likely to die of liver cancer, and twice as likely to die of stomach cancer. Watts observed that residents living in the poor district of Xiangcheng City, between a coal-fired power plant and the Lianhua factory, were not sure whether to be worried more about the polluted air or the contaminated water they had been enduring for a large part of their lives. He writes: For much of the previous twenty years another Huai tributary, the Yun, that ran near to their homes had been choked with chemicals, while the air above, they said, had been tinted green on the ­smoggiest days. At the local industrial primary school, everything from ­windowsills to the leaves on the trees was coated in fine black dust. A cleanup was finally under way, but for many it was too late. (p. 157) Eiferman (2014) reported on photographer Souvid Datta’s four-week exploration of some of the country’s cancer villages. Datta’s journey took him through Tianjin, Heibei, Jiangsu, and Zheijan provinces, in some of the settlements with the highest pollution rates, such as Xingtai and Ningbo, as well as the mega-cities of Beijing and Shanghai, to feature the type of development that

The impact of air pollution  47 fuels pollution. He discovered that children born in the villages of Xingtai, one of China’s most polluted cities, were “13 times more likely to contract lung cancer due to air pollution from local coal-fired power plants”. One of the reasons Datta started the project was personal. At the age of 17, a close Chinese friend of his died of lung cancer and the doctors said it was exacerbated by the poor air quality in Beijing. Datta was hit hard by his friend’s death and it compelled him to report on the effects of pollution, in an effort to help people understand the cost of dirty air and water to humans. During his travels, Datta witnessed the results of pollution from fast modernization and the type of damage it inflicted on the people, environment, and economy. The chemical and textile factories in Ningbo often dumped untreated waste water into the rivers, contaminating local farming soils. In Xingtai, Datta observed how steel smelting, coal-fired power plants, and cars pumped pollutants into the air, causing internal poisoning and r­espiratory problems. One of his photos depicts three boys standing in front of ­portraits of their father and uncle (Figure 4.2). The two men worked in the nearby steel ­factory and died due to undiagnosed r­ espiratory problems. Liu Lican visited 20 cancer villages in 20 provinces in 2008 (Yingying, 2011) to see the villages plagued by China’s unconscionable ­industrialization.

Figure 4.2 Jaw-long (tallest) stands with his friends in front of his house in Nuguang village on the outskirts of Xingtai Source: Datta (2015).

48  The impact of air pollution Lican’s explanations for the reasons cancer villages emerged are ­industrialization, government failures, and poor systems to protect rural people. Although both urban and rural residents struggle with receiving assistance, assistance is even more difficult to get in rural areas because healthcare and other valuable resources are more concentrated in the cities. Another important issue Lican brings to light is “when villages are polluted, in particular by factories owned by outside investors or by the treatment of urban waste in the countryside, the villagers receive no compensation for the harm incurred. And in recent years, we have seen industry shift from the coast inland and from cities to villages, and so the harm done to rural areas has been worsened” (p. 3). Kaiman (2013) echoes the claim, quoting experts who maintain that “as China’s affluent provinces become more environmentally progressive, officials often shunt polluting factories to poorer western regions where their environmental impact may go unchecked”. Or as Liu (2010) says, “Polluting industries will keep moving inland as inland regions continue to follow the ‘grow first’ approach to development”. Moreover, Lican contends, it is usually the party with powerful ­connections and resources that benefits from pollution, and commonly the villagers are the victims. Polluters usually deny they are creating pollution and claim that there is no direct link between pollution and cancer. If they are confronted with incontrovertible evidence, they are prepared to pay compensation for the damage to the land, but not for people’s health. Chances of punishment are slim, and local governments will usually protect the tax-paying businesses, failing to actively pursue the villagers’ demands. McBeath, McBeath, and Tian (2014) conclude that “for villages with extraordinarily high rates of carcinogens to continue without plans for sufficient relief by governments at all levels is an obvious i­ ndictment of the state’s failure to provide for the general health of its population” (p. 4).

The environmental impact of air pollution Although this chapter has concentrated on the health effects of air pollution, it must be emphasized that air pollution has also had broader environmental impacts. In this section, I will be looking at two: first, the impact of pollution on the weather, and second, acid rain. Air pollution and weather Soot and air pollution have been blamed for causing China’s worst flood in 50 years in the northwest of the Sichuan Basin (Fan et al., 2015; Kuo, 2015): in July 2013, a mountainous region in the Sichuan Province was pounded by 94 cm of rain over a five-day period. The subsequent floods resulted

The impact of air pollution  49 in 200 deaths and 300,000 people displaced. Fan et al. (2015) conducted a ­simulated experiment of the atmosphere over the heavily industrialized Sichuan basin, and concluded that if it wasn’t for the amount of smoke, greenhouse gases, and aerosols spewing from factories in the area, the storm rainfall would have been 60 per cent weaker. The Sichuan basin has a population of over 100 million and is the base for numerous heavy industries such as iron, steel, and energy production. It is surrounded by mountains that trap aerosols and allow for moisture to build up. The conclusion reached from Fan’s simulation was that “as the weather system reached the mountains, it unleashed all that pent-up precipitation, resulting in a day’s worth of rain falling in a few hours on one area” (Kuo, 2015). Other researchers pointed to similar correlations between air pollution and the weather, and some believe that air pollution may be the reason why recent monsoons have been hitting the South and East Asian areas earlier and harder. Nationwide, Menon et al. (2002) blamed the increase in aerosols and air pollution for the worsening floods in southern China and droughts in northern China over the last decades. The haze and smog that formed with industrial emissions and burning fossil fuels are found to be altering the atmospheric conditions and creating frequent hazardous events. Similarly, Xu (2001) argued that the southward move of the summer monsoon rainy belt, which increases droughts in the north and floods in the south, worsened with the reform period of the late 1970s to early 1980s, which led to the intensified pollution from industrialization in Eastern China. The emissions of more than 20 Tg of SO2 annually from 1992 to 1998, particularly due to the expansion of rural factories in the central and eastern regions, reduced the sunlight and changed the heat equilibrium of surface levels, which increased the impact of greenhouse gas warming. This had the effect on moving the very sensitive summer monsoon of east China southward, causing the differences between the north and the south, in terms of amount of rainfall during summer, to increase. Acid rain Acid rain is rain with a pH level of less than 5.6 (neutral is 7). Acid rain is a by-product of burning coal and fossil fuels, whose combustion releases sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which bond with water (H2O) and oxygen (O) molecules and then fall as sulphuric acid (H2SO4) and nitric acid (HNO3) (Delang, 2016). Butnariu and Samfira (2013) have documented a number of environmental impacts of acid rain ranging from the corrosion of buildings to the disruption of soil chemistry. Butnariu and Samfira (2013) point out that that acid rain reacts with soil ­minerals, such as mercury and aluminium, creating harmful compounds that plants can absorb. Similarly, Wei et al. (2014) argue that acid rain damages

50  The impact of air pollution vegetation. As a consequence, crop yield may also be reduced. However, acid rain has an even greater impact on aquatic ecosystems. Most lakes and streams have a pH between 6 and 8. As acid rain flows through soils in a watershed, aluminium is released from soils into streams and lakes. So, as pH in a stream or lake decreases because of acid rain, at the same time aluminium levels indirectly increase. Both low pH and increased aluminium levels are toxic to fish, or lead to lower body weight and smaller size, making fish less able to compete for food and habitat (Charles, 2013). The amount of SO2 decreased in the mid-1990s, but then increased again in the early 2000s (Figure 4.3). In 2011, among the 468 cities that were being monitored, 227 cities (48.5 per cent) had acid rain. In 2011, 19.2 per cent of the cities had precipitation with annual average pH values of less than 5.0 (relatively heavy acid rain), and 6.4 per cent of the cities had precipitation with annual average pH values of less than 4.5 (heavy acid rain) (MEP, 2013). However, official data show that there was an improvement between 2010 and 2011. Compared to 2010, in 2011 the proportion of cities with acid rain, relatively heavy acid rain, and heavy acid rain dropped by 3.8 per cent, 2.4 per cent, and 2.1 per cent, ­respectively (MEP, 2013). In 2011, about 12.9 per cent of the national territory experienced acid rain (MEP, 2013). In 2012, the total area with acid rain increased compared to 2011, but the area with heavy acid rain decreased.

Figure 4.3 Historical evolution of SO2 emissions Source: Larssen et al. (2006).

The impact of air pollution  51 Up to the 1980s, acid rain only fell in a few areas of Southwest China, such as Chongqing, Guiyang, and Liuzhou (Li, 2002). By the mid-1990s, acid rain extended into larger areas south of the Yangtze River and east of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, including the whole Sichuan Basin, the municipalities of Shanghai and Chongqing, and more than ten provinces (Li, 2002). By 2002, approximately 30 per cent of China’s land was polluted by acid rain. In terms of regional distribution, Du et al. (2015) coined the concept of “acid islands” to capture the fact that acid rain tends to fall in delimited, relatively small areas, often in or close to large cities. The spatial correlation is due to the high concentration of economic activities and transportation in the largest cities. In the case of Southern China, the variation of acid decomposition within the region occurred around highly developed urban areas, comprising the Yangtze River delta, the ChangshaZhuzhou-Xiangtan city cluster, Wuhan City, the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster, and the Pearl River delta (Figure 4.4). Their findings suggest that acid islands in cities make up an area of about 700,000 km2 or 29 per cent of the land of Southern China.

Figure 4.4 Acid rain in 2012 Source: Tang and Wu (2012).

52  The impact of air pollution

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The impact of air pollution  53 Greenpeace (2013a). The health impact from coal power plants in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/ publications/reports/climate-energy/2013/health-impacts-coal-power/. Greenpeace (2013b). Pollution from coal power plants in the Beijing-TianjinHebei region causes nearly 10,000 premature deaths. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/climate-energy/2013/healthimpacts-china-coal/. Huang, Y., Song, F., Liu, Q., Li, W., Zhang, W., & Chen, K. (2014). A bird’s eye view of the air pollution-cancer link in China. Chinese Journal of Cancer, 33(4), 176–188. DOI: 10.5732/cjc.014.10030. Kaiman, J. (2013, June 4). Inside China’s “cancer villages”. The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/04/chinavillages-cancer-deaths. Kelly, W. J., & Jacobs, C. (2014). The People’s Republic of Chemicals. Los Angeles: A Vireo Book/Rare Bird Books. Kuo, L. (2015, July 12). China’s terrible air pollution may be ­causing deadly floods, too. Quartz. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://qz.com/451554/ chinas-terrible-air-pollution-may-be-causing-deadly-floods-too/. Larssen, T., Lydersen, E., Tang, D., He, Y., Gao, J., Liu, H., Duan, L., Seip, H. M., Vogt, R. D., Mulder, J., Shao, M., Wang, Y., Shang, H., Zhang, X., Solberg, S., Aas, W., Økland, T., Eilertson, O., Angell, V., Liu, Q., Zhao, D., Xiang, R., Xiao, R., & Luo, J. (2006). Acid rain in China. Environmental Science and Technology, 40(2), 418–425. Li, W. W. (2002). Acid deposition and integrated zoning control in China. Environmental Management (New York), 30(2), 169–182. DOI: 10.1007/ s00267-002-2606-x. Liu, J., & Diamond, J. (2005). China’s environment in a globalizing world. Nature, 435, 1,179–1,186. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://archive.csis.msu.edu/ Publications/JLiu_2005_Nature.pdf. Liu, L. (2010). Made in China: cancer villages. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, March/April 2010. Lu, Y., Song, S., Wang, R., Liu, Z., Meng, J., Sweetman, A. J., Jenkins, A., Ferrier, R. C., Li, H., Luo, W., & Wang, T. (2015). Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in China. Environment International, 77, 5–15. Ma, L. (2012). Public Service Performance and Political Elite Career Advancement: Evidence from China. London: Lambert Academic Publishing. Mathiesen, K. (2015, April 28). Air pollution causes low birth weight, Beijing study shows. The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theguardian.com/ environment/2015/apr/28/air-pollution-causes-low-birth-weight-beijing-studyshows. Matus, K., Nam, K. -M., Selin N. E., Lamsal, L. N., Reilly, J. M., & Paltsev, S. (2011). Health damage from air Pollution in China. Report No. 196. Global Environment Change. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://globalchange.mit. edu/files/­document/MITJPSPGC_Rpt196.pdf. McBeath, J. H., McBeath, J., & Tian, Q. (2014, October 10–12). Environmental pollution, cancer villages and the state’s response. Presented to the annual meeting

54  The impact of air pollution of the American Association for Chinese Studies, meeting in Arlington, VA. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://aacs.ccny.cuny.edu/2014conference/Papers/ Jenifer%20McBeath.pdf. Menon, S., Hansen, J., Nazarenko, L., & Luo, Y. (2002). Climate effects of black carbon aerosols in China and India. Science, 297(5,590), 2,250–2,253. MEP (2013). Atmospheric environment. Ministry of Environmental Protection. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://english.mep.gov.cn/standards_reports/soe/ soe2011/201307/t20130712_255427.htm. Pinghui, Z. (2013, November 5). Smog blamed as girl, 8, becomes youngest lung ­cancer  patient. South China Morning Post. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1347830/smog-blamed-girl-8-becomesyoungest-lung-cancer-patient. Rauch, J. N., & Chi, Y. F. (2010). The plight of green GDP in China. Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development, 3(1), 102–116. Rich, D. Q., Liu, K., Zhang, J., Thurston, S. W., Stevens, T. P., Pan, Y., Kane, C., Weinberger, B., Ohman-Strickland, P., Woodruff, T. J., Duan, X., AssibeyMensah, V., & Zhang, J. (2015). Differences in birth weight associated with the 2008 Beijing Olympic air pollution reduction: results from a natural experiment. Environmental Health Perspectives. Rowe, M. (June 2014). The green dragon awakens. Geographical, 86(6). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://geographical.co.uk/nature/climate/item/ 381-the-green-dragon-awakens. Ryan, F. (2015, April 9). China’s “Green GDP” dream could become a reality. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/4/9/ china/chinas-green-gdp-dream-could-become-reality. Sanderson, H. (2014, March 13). Chinese cadres told going green rivals GDP to rise in party. Reuters. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www .bloomberg.com/news/­articles/2014-03-12/chinese-cadres-told-going-greenrivals-gdp-to-get-ahead-in-party. Tang, J., and Wu, K., (2012). Trend of acid rain over China since the 1990s. 2013 NOAA ESRL Global monitoring annual conference. David Skaggs Research Center, Boulder, Colorado, Tuesday, May 21, 2013. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annual_meetings/2013/abstracts/30130408-C.pdf. Wainwright (2014, December 16). Inside Beijing’s airpocalypse – a city made almost uninhabitable by pollution. The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from  www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/16/beijing-airpocalypse-city-almostuninhabitable-pollution-china. Wang, X., Ding, H., Ryan, L., & Xu, X. (1997). Association between air pollution and low birth weight: a community-based study. Environmental Health Perspectives, 105, 514–520. Watts, J. (2010). When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind or Destroy It. New York: Scribner. Wei, J., Guo, X., Marionova, D., & Fan, J. (2014). Industrial SO2 pollution and agricultural losses in China: evidence from heavy air polluters. Journal of Cleaner Production, 64, 404–413. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.10.027.

The impact of air pollution  55 Wong, E. (2013, March 29). Cost of environmental damage in China growing r­ apidly amid industrialization. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/world/asia/cost-of-environmental-degradationin-china-is-growing.html. World Bank (2007). Cost of pollution in China: economic estimates of physical damages. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank (2012). China 2030: building a modern, harmonious, and creative highincome society. The World Bank. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.nytimes .com/interactive/2012/02/27/world/asia/28yuan-worldbank-report-docviewer.html. Xu, Q. (2001). Abrupt change of the mid-summer climate in central East China by the influence of atmospheric pollution. Atmospheric Environment, 35(30), 5,029–5,040. DOI: 10.1016/S1352-2310(01)00315-6. Yingying, Zhang. (2011, October 2). The shadow over rural China. Chinadialogue. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.chinadialogue.net/article/ 4098-The-shadow-over-rural-China. Zhang, D., Liu, J., & Li, B. (2014). Tackling air pollution in China – what do we learn from the Great Smog of 1950s in London. Sustainability, 6(8), 5,322–5,338. DOI: 10.3390/su6085322. Zhao, X., Zhang, S., Fan, C. (2014). Environmental externality and inequality in China: current status and future choices. Environmental Pollution, 190, 176–179. DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2014.02.027. Zheng, S., Kahn, M. E., Sun, W., & Luo, D. (2013). Incentives for China’s urban mayors to mitigate pollution externalities: the role of the central government and public environmentalism. Regional Science 47, 66–71. Zhou, J. (2013). China’s rise and environmental degradation: the way out. International Journal of China Studies, 4(1), 17–39.

5 The reaction to high levels of air pollution

The high levels of pollution have been met with a variety of reactions both by the government and the people. From the government’s point of view, these range from official denial to new laws guaranteeing (in theory) better standards. From the point of view of the people, they range from protests to legal challenges. In this chapter, I look at these different responses.

Government propaganda China’s move to reform its environmental crisis has been as slow as its industrialization has been rapid. While people were gasping for breath and the AQI reached record highs, according to Kelly and Jacobs (2014), the headline in a People’s Daily story in January 2013 was “Beautiful China Begins to Breathe Healthily”. Televisions that usually promoted tourism in Tiananmen Square now showed the pink luminescence of a smog-less sunrise. State-owned CCTV listed smog’s benefits by declaring, “they pummelled rich and poor indiscriminately, inspired humour and sobriety, and encouraged the citizenry to learn atmospheric science”. One seriously asked: “Without this haze, would you know what PM2.5 was?” (Kelly and Jacobs, 2014, p. 234) Attempting to put a positive spin on the blighted air and how it might give the Chinese Army a defensive advantage in military operation, Wee (2014) announced that Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong told a current affairs TV program that China’s thick smog was the best defence against U.S. laser weaponry. He explained: “under conditions where there is no smog, a laser weapon can fire [at a range of] 10 kilometre. When there’s smog, it’s only one kilometre. What’s the point of making this kind of weapon?” he asked (quoted in Wee, 2014). He also stated that smog was made up of tiny metallic particulates, and the higher their PM number, the harder it would be for lasers to penetrate. His comments heated criticisms on social media sites. Zhaozhong later defended his position and remarked that his comments

Reaction to high levels of air pollution  57 were taken out of context. He argued he did not support smog, and would not comment any further because the current air pollution conditions were not his expertise. In conjunction with Zhaozhong’s initial declaration about smog, Luo (2015) cites the Global Times, a state-run newspaper, in its report that air pollution gives the country a military advantage by blurring the line of sight from space and limiting the penetration of foreign spy satellites.

Official denial and legal challenges The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) is officially responsible for monitoring emission levels, implementing environmental policies, and enforcing environmental laws and regulations. It was formerly known as the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), and became a cabinet-level ministry within the Chinese government in March 2008. The elevation of the SEPA to a cabinet-level ministry underlines the increasing importance that the Chinese government gives to the environment. However, its powers are actually rather limited. Even though it is staffed by individuals committed to a cleaner environment, the director himself declared it one of the “four major embarrassing departments in the world” (Phillips, 2013). As an example of its limited power, in February 2013, the MEP declared that chemicals and heavy metals banned in other countries were found throughout China and that there are “some serious cases of health and social problems like the emergence of cancer villages in individual regions” (Lallanilla, 2013). It was the first public acknowledgment of the problem that had existed for decades, and was hailed by activists and various organizations. Nevertheless, according to Kaiman (2013): Interviews in three cancer villages across two provinces revealed that many central and local authorities continue to treat the issue as they long have: with denial, intimidation, and silence. Even the environmental ministry’s acknowledgement was a mistake, said Chen Wanqing, deputy head of China’s national cancer registry. The ministry has been reprimanded. Health and environmental officials organized a joint meeting during the National People’s Congress, a political gathering in March to renounce the report’s wording. They sent missives to provincial officials urging them to restrict usage of the term in local media. “This is a medical issue – it can’t be acknowledged from outside the Ministry of Health”, Chen said. “The statement was not correct, or not appropriate”. However, things are slowly improving thanks to, besides the limited actions of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, a penal code and national laws,

58  Reaction to high levels of air pollution which people are gradually able to turn to. A year after the declarations of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the ministry was vindicated in Qingpuling village. In 2000, the Fujian Solid Waste Disposal Company, designed to incinerate medical waste from the provincial capital Fuzhou, located its operation nearly 30 kilometres from Qingpuling village. As the company set up shop in the region, and the plant pumped toxic emissions into the air, the consequences of their improper disposal techniques gradually became obvious. Eight villagers died of cancer between May 2009 and January 2010. Tired of seeing their community destroyed, in 2009 the locals launched a legal challenge against the plant’s owners (Phillips, 2014). Liu Jinmei, a Beijing-based environmental advocate, one of the attorneys who took up the villagers’ cause, said that although they were unable to prove a direct correlation between their illnesses (including cancer) and the pollution, the risk to public health was undeniable. Ms. Jinmei elaborated: “The farmland is near the plant, so the dust and ash coming from the incineration falls there, as well as contaminating the nearby streams used for irrigation…villagers would get red rashes on their skin when it came into contact with water from the streams” (Phillips, 2014). Jinmei also remarked that the plant was built upstream and on the hill cove. The villagers were living around the plant and drinking the foul water, as well as using the water for irrigation. Trees around the plant failed to produce fruit, and some died. The thick smoke, generated from burning waste, blackened the ravine stream. It was also believed that the plant dumped toxic waste on multiple occasions (Qian, 2014). In August 2014, the polluting company was ordered to pay CNY 6 million in compensation. It turned out to be a moral victory because the villagers were not satisfied with the amount of compensation. The 394 plaintiffs represented a total of almost 600 villagers – which works out to around CNY 10,000 per person. The villagers moved out of the polluted area, and the local government had to seek state funds to help them relocate. According to the judicial report, investigators found excessive levels of dioxins, “multi-thousand times higher than the limit, in the village” (Qian, 2014). Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical that has been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other disabilities. The plant rectified its errors and continues to operate (Qian, 2014).

People’s ignorance McBeath, McBeath, and Tian (2014) report that local government officials ignored and denied that environmental degradation had led to the adverse health effects found in cancer villages, and that the government worked at all levels to censor information about these villages. As such, local authorities

Reaction to high levels of air pollution  59 banned reporters from visiting the villages, and pressured doctors to remain silent about the ongoing health issues. At the same time, the courts refused to hear submissions regarding suing factories for pollution, and the local residents who complained were often subjected to harassment, to the extent of being beaten. However, beyond spreading propaganda or denying the problem, the government relies on people’s lack of knowledge about the impact of air pollution on their environment and health, particularly within the rural communities. McBeath, McBeath, and Tian (2014) contend that regardless of the evidence associated with environmental contamination in villages by heavymetal, human waste, and agricultural pesticide runoff, one of the factors that contribute to the existence of cancer villages is people’s lack of awareness as to why they are being affected by various illnesses. The authors denote how “anthropologists maintain that people in afflicted villages develop congenial ways of understanding the development of cancer; they try to explain in their own terms how it spreads and why it affects particular individuals” (p. 5). The paper offers the example of Lora Wainwright’s study of rural Sichuan villages, in which farmers tended to identify repressed anger (or enduring hardships) as causes of cancer, “along with smoking, drinking and eating preserved vegetables and use of farm chemicals” (p. 5). The relationship between education and environmental awareness has also been the subject of studies. Yu (2014) compared the environmental attitudes of urban and rural areas in four provinces (Ningxoia, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Heilongjiang) in 2011, and found that rural Chinese were less concerned about environmental protection than their urban counterparts. The author remarked that “I have no idea” was a common answer to his open-ended question on environmental degradation. Yu (2014) argues that the differences are partly due to limited education and a lack of access to environmental information in rural areas. In addition, in rural areas fewer people attained tertiary education, and primary and secondary schools lack courses related to environmental protection (such as geography, biology, and environmental studies) (Yu, 2014). Within primate cities, such as Shanghai, a similar correlation exists between education and environmental awareness, whereby well-educated residents earning higher income are more aware of the potential impact of air pollution on children’s health (Wang et al., 2015). Zhang et al. (2014) and Wang et al. (2015) have estimated willingness to pay for the amelioration of environmental conditions. Wang et al. (2015) found that education positively correlated with the willingness to pay for reducing air pollution in Shanghai, with the goal of improving children’s health. This suggests that Shanghai citizens with higher education levels are more aware of the level and consequences of air pollution. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2014) concluded that more well-educated and wealthy citizens were

60  Reaction to high levels of air pollution more willing to pay additional costs for better air quality in Nanchang City (Jiangxi Province) in 2013. Given the importance of education, particularly green education, for changing people’s attitude and behaviour towards environmental protection, we should look at how well the educational institutions in China are doing in this regard. Xiong et al. (2013) looked at environmental education in 267 out of the 810 higher education institutions (including public universities and colleges), and concluded that environmental education in China has to improve. Their findings showed that about one-fifth of the sampled institutions provided no comprehensive environmental education framework. Most of the schools that lacked a comprehensive environmental education were found in less developed areas. The difference also existed between local or provincial government-funded institutes and those provided by the Ministry of Education. The former had less green curricula than the latter. The ranking of the university and the provision of green curricula also showed a positive correlation, which means that the best universities provided the best environmental education.

Protests and demonstrations Zhou (2013) claims that about 10 per cent of China’s social protests are related to pollution, and that the situation has been worsening during the last decades: Official Chinese data demonstrates that unrest began rising rapidly between 1993 and 1995. The government admits to a nationwide increase of 268 percent in mass incidents from 8,700 in 1993 to 32,000 in 1999, from 58,000 incidents in 2003 to 87,000 in 2005. In 2010, the number of protests in China was alarmingly high, reaching a total of about 180,000. Consequently, the budget for the government to maintain social stability (wei wen) is increasing and has exceeded its military budget. […] Although China has become unprecedentedly prosperous, social unrest could continue to contribute to internal strife, economic downturn, and uneven growth. (p. 22) Examples abound: Xu (2014) notes that in 2012 there were demonstrations against an USD 8.9 billion petrochemical plant expansion in the eastern city of Ningbo, which forced the project to be suspended. In Shanxi Province, anger erupted when a factory spilled 39 tons of toxic chemicals into the local water sources. During the spring of 2013, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the city of Kumming to protest against the construction of a nearby chemical plant, expected to produce half a million tons

Reaction to high levels of air pollution  61 of carcinogenic chemicals annually. More demonstrations proliferated throughout the year. K (2015) reported that thousands of residents of Heyuan, a city of three million in northeastern Guangdong, spilled into the streets in April 2015 to protest against the development of a new coal-fired power plant. The incidence of smog had been on the rise since the power plant began operating in 2008. Reports that the plant would be expanded and a new plant would be established elicited angry residents to collect more than 10,000 signatures in March 2015 for a petition opposing it. The protest initially started out as a peaceful sit-in outside government offices. This was dispersed by the police which led to a march through the streets, which in turn escalated with scuffles between protestors and riot police (Hewitt, 2015). Demonstrators chanting slogans such as: “Give me back my blue sky. Go away power plant! Stop feeding people with smog!” wore surgical masks and stickers denouncing the new plant to be set up by Shenzhen Energy. The government purported that there were only about 200 people protesting, but this was discredited by the Xinhua news agency, which reported that there were thousands of demonstrators. One female protestor said, “This is not just a small fraction of people with an ulterior motive, but a concrete outpouring of public opinion from the entire Heyuan public. From babies to the elderly, everyone is appealing to our government to stop polluting our sky” (K, 2015). In a press conference, the police later called the protest illegal and said they were planning to take legal action against people stirring up the protest and spreading and fabricating rumours online. The police claimed the demonstration “severely damaged public order” and resulted in a “negative social impact”. Nevertheless, China’s official news agency and state media were sympathetic to the protestors and stated that their concerns about the plant’s environmental impact was valid. Channel NewsAsia (2015) reported that large and sometimes violent protests waged against factories causing widespread air, water, and soil pollution have become more commonplace. Also, in April 2015, Jing and Fan (2015) reported that primary school children boycotted classes for days in Langtang township near Guangdong’s Yunfu city, joining thousands of residents protesting against plans to build a waste incinerator plant near their homes. Tensions ran high, with minor clashes and an increased presence of an additional 1,000 police, as protestors were forced away from the site of the Huarun Cement Factory. The project was shelved, but not cancelled. Elsewhere, in Zhangzhou (Inner Mongolia), dozens were arrested in April when about 2,000 police broke up demonstrations utilizing shields, dogs, and tear gas canisters in the rural region of Naiman Banner. The media highlighted one protest banner that read: “Push out the chemicals, give us back clean water and blue skies”. Residents stated that the “local ‘chemical

62  Reaction to high levels of air pollution refinery zone’ had discharged waste directly onto grazing land used by members of the local Mongol minority” in the area. They also claimed that police used their batons to beat locals who were already kneeling on the ground. Government authorities vowed to shut down some of the plants after the violence that ensued (Taipei Times, 2015). According to Yuqing and Shan (2015), thousands of Shanghai residents hit the streets in late June 2015 protesting plans to relocate a paraxylene (PX) plant to the city’s Jinshan district. Kelly and Jacobs (2014, p. 159) explain, “PX is not to be trifled with; it’s a harsh irritant that, if ingested or inhaled, can damage the liver and kidneys and poison the blood. It also can enflame the nose, eyes, and throat”. Jinshan residents complain that the district is already full of factories, and they fear the impact it will have on the environment. One resident, Wang Zaiming, stresses, “All of the chemical plants in Shanghai are being relocated over here. […] People didn’t realize this before, but now they do, and that’s why they’ve come out in protest” (Yuqing and Shan, 2015, p. 2). Following several days of protests, the government authorities in Shanghai denied there were plans to relocate a PX project to a chemical industrial park in Jinshan; however, the statement came after a government official had already admitted the project was in the works. The protests mentioned are only a few examples of the multitude of demonstrations revolving around air pollution that have taken place recently in China. As affirmed by Hoffman and Sullivan (2015), mass environmental protests have gained more and more strength as thousands of people in different areas of the country have peacefully, and in some cases violently, “railed against polluting chemical plants, waste incinerator projects and coal-fired power plant expansions”. Xu (2014) cites a People’s Daily poll in February 2014 that named the environment as one of the top issues citizens wanted addressed by the central government. New incidents are reported every week through Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter. Hoffman and Sullivan (2015) contend that these waves of protests are uniting China’s working and middle class in a common grievance against pollution. They also maintain that the Chinese government is failing to address public dissatisfaction and an “entrenched public distrust of officialdom”, and is “risking the possible joining up of environmental protests into a widespread movement”. Through the numerous public demonstrations people succeeded in gaining a minor victory in March 2013 when China’s premier, Li Keqiang, pledged that his government would show a greater resolve in tackling China’s pollution crisis. Xu (2014) cites Elizabeth Economy, author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future, who states that such remarks from the central government “reflect a changing

Reaction to high levels of air pollution  63 understanding within China about the relationship between economic development and societal well-being”. The environmental movement has become more influential, and China’s pollution woes have become a key political issue, as proven also by the powerful documentary film Under the Dome, made by a former investigative TV reporter for China Central Television, Chai Jing. The documentary is a searing condemnation of China’s air pollution and its impact on public health. Released on 28 February 2015, the documentary became a video phenomenon watched by hundreds of millions of people. According to Wong (2015), China’s new environment minister, Chen Jining, likened the video to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which was the vanguard for the environmental movement in the U.S. in 1962. But it also received public denouncements from officials, including powerful private and state-owned industries. The film blamed oil and gas companies, automakers, and other heavy industries for creating the problem, and showed government regulators admitting that they were powerless to stop the pollution crisis. Yet, major Chinese news outlets removed articles published about the video, and by March 6, the video was also removed from websites. The reaction to the video appears to reflect the internal struggle between pro-environmental and conservative Communist Party officials for control over the county’s anti-pollution regulations. Discussing how the high profile documentary Under the Dome created a national storm, Li (2015) argues that it raised more awareness of the scale of the problem, and led to hopes that the government would address the problem more seriously. The government has indeed increased the expenditure on “environmental amelioration” during the twelfth FiveYear Plan (2011–2015), pledging more than USD 1 trillion. However, the results as experienced by the people, have been rather limited so far. Nevertheless, environmental amelioration does appear to be at the forefront of government plans, and the likelihood of further efforts to improve air quality is high, as is also shown by the fact that “the share prices of many domestic environmental companies shot up in a knee-jerk reaction to the broadcast”.

References Channel NewsAsia (2015, April 7). Chemical plant blast, anti-pollution protest in China. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.channelnewsasia .com/news/asiapacific/explosion-at-china/1770292.html. Hewitt, D. (2015, June 30). China arrested over 8,000 people for environmental crimes last year, in intensifying battle against severe pollution. International Business Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.ibtimes.com/

64  Reaction to high levels of air pollution china-arrested-over-8000-people-environmental-crimes-last-year-intensifyingbattle-1989399. Hoffman, S., & Sullivan, J. (2015, June 22). Environmental protests expose weakness in China’s leadership. Forbes Asia. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.forbes. com/sites/forbesasia/2015/06/22/environmental-protests-expose-weakness-inchinas-leadership/ Jing, L., & Fan, Y. (2015, April 8). Chinese Children ditch school amid Guangdong incinerator protest. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.rfa.org/ english/news/china/school-04082015105046.html. K, J. (2015, April 13). China: thousands protest against coal-fired power plant in Heyuan. International Business Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-thousands-protest-against-coal-fired-power-plantheyuan-1496056. Kaiman, J. (2013, June 4). Inside China’s “cancer villages”. The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/04/ china-villages-cancer-deaths. Kelly, W. J., & Jacobs, C. (2014). The People’s Republic of Chemicals. Los Angeles: A Vireo Book/Rare Bird Books. Lallanilla, M. (2013, March 15). China’s top six environmental concerns. Livescience. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.livescience.com/27862-chinaenvironmental-problems.html. Li, D. (2015, June 22). China unveils steps to control air quality: China, India and Japan are addressing resource efficiency. FT Advisor. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.ftadviser.com/2015/06/22/investments/asia-pacific/china-unveils-stepsto-control-air-quality-Y2XhEMWgxyf7iNTzpzNc7O/article.html. Luo, I. (2015, July 19). Benefits of smog and 10 other absurd claims by China’s propaganda machine. Epoch Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.­ theepochtimes.com/n3/1465249-benefits-of-smog-and-10-other-absurd-claimsby-chinas-­propaganda-machine/. McBeath, J. H., McBeath, J., & Tian, Q. (2014, October 10–12). Environmental pollution, cancer villages and the state’s response. Presented to the annual meeting of the American Association for Chinese Studies, Arlington, VA. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://aacs.ccny.cuny.edu/2014conference/Papers/Jenifer %20McBeath.pdf. Phillips, T. (2013, July 9). China’s environment ministry “one of four worst departments in world”. The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10168806/Chinas-environment-ministry-oneof-four-worst-departments-in-world.html. Phillips, T. (2014, August 28). Chinese cancer village scores rare victory over polluters. The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/asia/china/11061201/Chinese-cancer-village-scores-rare-victoryover-polluters.html. Qian, L. (2014, August 28). Villagers unhappy with toxic plant compensation. Shanghai Daily. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.shanghaidaily.com/ national/Villagers-unhappy-with-toxic-plant-compensation/shdaily.shtml.

Reaction to high levels of air pollution  65 Taipei Times (2015, April 8). Chinese authorities vow plant closures in wake of ­protests. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/arch ives/2015/04/08/2003615451. Wang, K., Wu, J., Wang, R., Yang, Y., Chen, R., Maddock, J. E., & Lu, Y. (2015). Analysis of residents’ willingness to pay to reduce air pollution to improve children’s health in community and hospital settings in Shanghai, China. Science of the Total Environment, 533, 283–289. doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.06.140. Wee, D. (2014, February 25). Smog is China’s top defense against US laser weapons, says PLA Navy admiral. South China Morning Post. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1434040/smog-chinas-top-defence-againstus-laser-weapons-says-pla-navy-admiral?page=all. Wong, E. (2015, March 6). China blocks web access to “Under the Dome” documentary on pollution. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www. nytimes.com/2015/03/07/world/asia/china-blocks-web-access-to-documentaryon-nations-air-pollution.html?_r=0. Xiong, H. B., Fu, D. G., Duan, C. Q., Liu, C. E., Yang, X. Q., & Wang, R. Q. (2013). Current status of green curriculum in higher education of ­mainland China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 61, 100–105. DOI: 10.1016/j. jclepro.2013.06.033. Xu, B. (2014, April 25). China’s environmental crisis. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental-crisis/ p12608. Yu, X. (2014). Is environment “a city thing” in China? Rural-urban differences in environmental attitudes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 39–48. DOI: 10.1007/s10653-013-9557-4. Yuqing, W., & Shan, G., (2015, June 23). Shanghai denies PX plans as thousands protest over pollution fears. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.rfa.org/­e nglish/news/china/shanghai-denies-px-plans-as-thousandsprotest-over-­pollution-fears-06232015112408.html. Zhang, X., Karplus, V. J., Qi, T., Zhang, D., & He, J. (2014). Carbon emissions in China: How far can new efforts bend the curve? MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Beijing: Tsinghua University and Cambridge: MIT: China Energy & Climate Project Report No. 267. October 2014. Zhou, J. (2013). China’s rise and environmental degradation: the way out. International Journal of China Studies, 4(1), 17–39.

6 Solutions

Ambient air quality standards Ambient air quality has been regulated in China since 1982. Initially, limits were only set for TSP (Total Suspended Particulates), SO2, NO2, lead, and BaP (Benzo(a)pyrene). New, stricter, air quality standards were introduced in 1996, and again in 2012. The 2012 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS-2012) set further restrictions for other pollutants, in particular nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). However, the biggest change is that for the first time it set limits for PM2.5 (Table 6.1) (the NAAQS-1996 didn’t have standards for PM2.5). China’s air quality standards include two classes. Class I standards apply to special regions such as national parks, while Class II standards apply to all other regions, including urban and industrial areas. These figures are broadly in line with the WHO’s guidelines (WHO, 2005). These standards are slowly phased-in nationwide. In 2012, only Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, and provincial capitals were supposed to adopt the new standards, but by 2016 all cities nationwide are supposed to adopt them. China’s Statistical Yearbook of 2014 shows that in 2013, compliance with the new ambient air quality standards varied (although one should remember that nationwide adoption only starts in 2016): Beijing had 167 days with air quality equal to or better than Class II, Tianjin had 145, and Shanghai had 246. The worst performer was Shijiazhuang (Hebei Province), with only 49 days, and the best Fuzhou (Fujian Province), with 343 days (NBSC, 2014). Chen et al. (2015) reported that when the national ambient air quality standard was updated to NAAQS-2012, the annual attainment rate in Beijing decreased significantly, from 75.5 per cent to 50.7 per cent of days. This change is mainly due to the introduction of PM2.5 in NAAQS-2012. This change reflects people’s feelings about air pollution: the reports published daily by Beijing since the year 2000 concluded that air ­quality improved greatly. Yet, this is not what people perceived, because PM2.5 ­

Solutions  67 Table 6.1  Ambient air quality standards, comparison of NAAQS-1996 and NAAQS-2012

Pollutant

Limit (NAAQS-1996) Averaging time Class I Class II Class III

SO2

Annual

 20

 60

100

20

 60

24 hours

 50

150

250

50

150

Hourly

150

500

700

150

500

Annual

 40

 80

 80

40

 40

24 hours

 80

120

120

80

 80

Hourly

120

240

240

200

200

4

4

6

4

4

10

20

NO2

CO

24 hours Hourly

O3

PM10 PM2.5

10

Daily, 8-hour maximum

N.A.

Limit (NAAQS-2012) Class I

Class II

10

10

100

160

Hourly

160

200

200

160

200

Annual

 40

100

150

40

70

24 hours

 50

150

250

50

150

Annual

N.A.

15

35

24 hours

N.A.

35

75

Total Suspended Particles (TSP)

Annual

 80

200

300

80

200

24 hours

120

300

500

120

300

NOx

Annual

N.A.

50

50

24 hours

N.A.

100

100

Hourly

N.A.

250

250

Annual

1

Lead (Pb)

Seasonal

1.5

Benzopyrene Annual (BaP) 24 hours

N.A. 0.01

0.5

0.5

Unit μg/m3

μg/m3

mg/m3 μg/m3

μg/m3 μg/m3 μg/m3

μg/m3

μg/m3

1

1

0.001

0.001 μg/m3

0.0025

0.0025

Source: MEP (2012).

levels were consistently very high, and are the most visible indicators of air quality to the people. If PM2.5 was included, the figures would reveal that the air quality in Beijing (and many other places) had dropped considerably since 2000.

68 Solutions

Higher air quality standards for specific regions China started including emissions reduction targets in the 10th FYP (2000– 2005). The first target included a 10 per cent emissions reduction for SO2 from the 2000 level by 2005. This goal failed miserably, with SO2 emissions actually increasing by 28 per cent in 2005 compared to the 2000 levels. In the 11th FYP (2006–2010) there was another SO2 emissions reduction goal of 10 per cent. This time, the target was met successfully (Schreifels et al., 2012). In the 12th FYP (2011–2015), China, for the first time, included politically binding targets not only for SO2 (8 per cent below 2010 l­evels), but also for NOx (10 per cent below 2010 levels) and CO2 intensity (17 per cent reduction in emissions per unit of GDP relative to 2010 levels) (Saikawa, 2014). As air pollution continued to worsen, the government introduced more stringent standards. On 29 February 2012, China’s State Council approved its first national environmental standard for PM2.5 at 35μg/m3 annual average (Zhang, Liu, and Li, 2014). Furthermore, on 5 December 2012, the government issued a comprehensive air pollution prevention and control plan named “12th FYP on Air Pollution Prevention and Control in Key Regions”, which for the first time provided a comprehensive plan for three key regions (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta) and ten city clusters, involving 19 provincial level jurisdictions and 117 cities. The plan has a long list of specific projects that are estimated to require a USD 55.6 billion (CNY350 billion) investment (Tao, 2014, p. 356). There are three reasons why this plan was important. First, this plan included ambient concentration targets for the first time for SO2 (with a reduction of 10 per cent below the 2010 level required by 2015), PM10 (–10 per cent), NO2 (–7 per cent), and PM2.5 (–6 per cent for the three regions, –5 per cent for the other areas). Second, for the key regions “it set higher emissions reduction targets than the national target. For example, SO2 reduction and NO2 emissions reduction targets are four and three percent higher than the national target”. Third, “it also required non-attainment cities to develop air quality attainment plans, which needed to be publicly available” (Saikawa, 2014). According to Saikawa (2014), this was not the end of regulations ­introduced in 2013: On September 12, the government further implemented the Action Plan on Air Pollution Prevention and Control, which included much stricter standards, higher goals, and more concrete measures. Its target for PM10 concentrations is now to reduce by at least 10 percent by 2017 compared to the 2012 level. A much larger emphasis was put on

Solutions  69 the three key regions (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta) and PM2.5 concentrations are to be reduced by 25 percent, 20 percent, and 15 percent in each of the regions, respectively, within the same period. For the first time, there was a specific target for annual PM2.5 concentrations to be kept at 60μg/m3. Here again, there was a mention of reducing emissions in the transport sector such as eliminating old, high-emitting “yellow label” vehicles, promoting public transportation and alternative energy vehicles, and upgrading fuel quality.

Provincial targets for coal consumption reduction With the exceptionally high levels of air pollution in Beijing and other major cities, and the airpocalypse episodes described above, public outcries heaped tremendous pressure on public officials to change the country’s excessive dependency on coal. In September 2013, China’s State Council released the “Airborne Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan”, in which it recognized the importance of tackling air pollution, and the role that coal was playing in it (Clean Air Asia, 2013). The plan is very ambitious, and includes specific coal consumption targets at the provincial level. Six Chinese provinces plan to reduce the absolute consumption of coal by the end of 2017 compared to the 2012 levels: Beijing by 50 per cent, Chongqing by 21 per cent, Tianjin by 19 per cent, Shaanxi and Hebei by 13 per cent, and Shandong by 5 per cent. These plans are particularly important because these provinces constitute the largest coal consumers in China. In particular, Shandong is China’s largest user of coal, burning as much coal as Germany and Japan combined. Hebei is the fourth largest coal burner. Until recently, all these provinces had seen their coal consumption increase considerably. Another two regions, the Yangtze River Delta (which includes Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, and accounts for 11 per cent of the national consumption of coal) and the Pearl River Delta, aim for an absolute reduction in coal consumption by the end of 2017. Finally, Liaoning and Jilin plan to limit growth in coal use to less than 2 per cent per year, from 2013 to 2017 (Figures 6.1, 6.2) (Shuo and Myllyvirta, 2014). In addition, apart from the 12 provinces that have pledged coal reduction measures, 17 provinces announced plans to cap and cut coal use. The fact that many provinces participate in the plan is particularly positive, because it means that there are fewer options for polluting industries to relocate to other provinces (Shuo and Myllyvirta, 2014). To better understand the importance of the changes introduced by the Chinese government, it is useful to compare the new plan to what would

70 Solutions have happened under a “business as usual” scenario. The new coal c­ ontrol measures imply a reduction of 250 million tonnes of coal in the provinces concerned by 2017, compared to a business as usual scenario in which emissions would be maintained at two-thirds of the rate of growth of coal

Figure 6.1  China’s coal control measures Source: Shuo and Myllyvirta (2014).

Figure 6.2  China’s projected coal consumption with coal control measures Source: Shuo and Myllyvirta (2014).

Solutions  71 consumption between 2006 and 2011 (to account for a slowing economy). If we assume that the rate of decline continues until 2020, the plan will have cut 655 million tonnes of coal. In terms of CO2 emissions, there is expected to be 700 Mt less CO2 by 2017, and 1,300 Mt less CO2 by 2020 (1,300 Mt corresponds to Canada and Australia’s total emissions combined) (Shuo and Myllyvirta, 2014). Between 2002 and 2012, the amount of CO2 emitted through coal burning in China increased by 4.5 billion tonnes. During this period, half the ­additional atmospheric CO2 in the world came from China. However, China’s annual coal consumption declined by 2.9 per cent in 2014, 3.7 per cent in 2015, and is expected to decline further in 2016 (Figure 6.3). This is a significant drop from the previous decade during which the average growth in consumption was of 9 per cent a year. Ten provinces, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong saw the absolute levels of coal consumption fall by about 66.5 million tonnes between 2011 and 2012. The same is true for the three key economic regions (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong), which burnt over 1 billion tonnes of coal (accounting for 30 per cent of China’s total coal consumption in 2012, or as much as the United States and Japan combined), but at the same time also cut their coal consumption by 0.7 per cent in 2012 (Shuo and Myllyvirta, 2014). Nevertheless, in 2013, when 92 per cent of Chinese cities failed to meet the national ambient air quality standards (Shuo and

20

19.2 17.5

15 10.8 9.5

10.6

10

9.4

7.4 5.6 5

3.7 2.8

0 2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2.6

2013

2014 –2.9

–5

Figure 6.3  China’s coal consumption growth rate (percentage), 2003–2015 Source: Shuo and Myllyvirta (2014) for 2003–2013, IEEFA (2016) for 2014–2015.

2015 –3.7

72 Solutions Myllyvirta, 2014), China continued to build new coal-fired power plants and factories. Addressing global climate change cannot be done without China drastically reducing its use of coal. On 12 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a bilateral agreement to reduce their countries’ production of greenhouse gases. This deal between the two largest producers of carbon dioxide in the world calls for the United States and China to voluntarily cut their emissions (Martin, 2015, p. 155). A week after the Obama-Xi handshake, China’s central government announced it would curb coal consumption at 4.2 billion tonnes a year, and reduce coal’s proportion of total energy to 62 per cent by 2020. Kelly and Jacobs (2014) stress that China’s ecological troubles will affect the climate worldwide. The world is dependent on China effectively reducing their air pollution. Indeed, experts unanimously agree that the future of the world’s climate depends on how successful China will be in reducing its levels of coal consumption in the upcoming years. And it cannot be emphasized enough what an immense undertaking this is, because China and coal have been inextricably linked for centuries. To illustrate this, the authors describe a phenomenon in which the pollutants drifted to California from China (p. 270): Two years before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Steven Cliff and his colleagues visited a mountaintop test site they’d prepared north of San Francisco. Chemical fingerprinting revealed it contained particulate matter from East Asia’s coal-fuelled power plants, diesel trucks, and smelters. […] Earlier that year, a viscous swirl of coal-stewed pollutants sprinkled Lake Tahoe in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. Astounded scientists claimed they were the darkest particles they had seen outside of congested urban sites. […] A 2010 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analysis concluded that more than three-quarters of the ozone fouling sections of California’s Sacramento Valley was of Chinese origin. […] South of there as much as a quarter of the ozone blotting Los Angeles’ air on certain days whipped from the People’s Republic. Myllyvirta (2015) discloses that “official data from China shows coal use is continuing to fall precipitously, bringing carbon dioxide emissions down with it”. The article contends that China has cut emissions during the first four months of 2015 by approximately the same amount as the total carbon emissions of the United Kingdom over the same period.1 According to Greenpeace, “if the reduction continues until the end of the year, it will be the largest recorded year-on-year reduction in coal use and CO2

Solutions  73 in any country”. Indeed, preliminary data from the International Energy Agency (2015) states that falling coal output in China has already had a big impact on global emissions, suggesting that “global emissions of carbon dioxide from the energy sector stalled in 2014, marking the first time in 40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gas that was not tied to an economic downturn” (IAE, 2015). To date, no other major coal-consuming country had ever implemented such rapid changes in their coal policies. Fang Yuan, a spokesman for the Climate and Energy Program of Greenpeace East Asia said, “This means that the government’s strict pollution controls are working, at least enough to record a modest improvement on last year” (Yangjingjing, 2015). But he was also aware this was only a silver lining and that 90 per cent of the cities still recorded levels of pollution that far exceeded China’s own air quality standards. Now that China is taking steps toward lessening their reliance on coal and addressing climate control and environmental concerns, Shuo and Myllyvirta (2014, p. 11) suggest: Internationally, China has to make a paradigm shift in its negotiation strategy within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The country needs to be more proactive in communicating its domestic progress. Up to now, the latest coal control measures are still a significant “unknown” in terms of China’s new climate ambition. But with these policies in the pipeline, China has the potential to be a game-changer within the UN climate negotiations in Paris, in 2015. By taking on a more proactive role and delivering a progressive pledge for binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020, China’s leadership can catalyse further ambitions by all Parties to the convention.2

Closure of small coal mines The Chinese government has been regulating the coal industry for many years. For example, in 1998, the State Council already took strategic actions to control emissions from mining, prohibiting the opening of any new mine whose coal contained more than 3 per cent of sulphur, in order to control acid rain and SO2 emission. Existing mines mining coal that contained more than 3 per cent sulphur were required to gradually suspend operations or were closed. In addition, new coal mines mining coal with 1.5 to 3 per cent sulphur content were required to install coal washing facilities, and existing plants were required to install the machines by degrees. However, many mines did not comply as they were unlicensed and, therefore, “off-the radar”.

74 Solutions According to Reuters (2014), the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced in April 2014 that it would close 1,725 coal mines by the end of the year, amounting to a total capacity of 117.48 million tonnes, with local governments ordered to shut all mines with an annual production capacity of less than 90,000 tonnes. Most of the mines set to close were the small, independent, unlicensed ones that litter the countryside of the northern and western provinces. According to Martin (2015, p. 163), most of these mines are outdated and very dangerous. It’s estimated that up to 90 per cent of China’s coal mining deaths occur in these small mines. The end result of the reforms announced in April 2014 will be to consolidate the sprawling, fragmented sector, and phase out inefficient and small-scale production, especially in remote areas such as the northwestern regions of Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang (Reuters, 2014). Ren Lexin, director of the coal department at the NEA states, “It is important for the coal industry to transform itself by becoming clean and green in order to survive this new era”. Lexin added that China would step up efforts to consolidate the sprawling, fragmented sector and phase out inefficient and small-scale production.

Closure of coal power plants in Beijing Bloomberg (2015) announced that Beijing plans to shut down all major coal power plants to help in China’s battle against pollution. The pollution in Beijing averaged more than twice the national standard in 2014, and Beijing, doing its part to cut down emissions intends to close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants in 2016. In 2014, the China Datang Corp. was shut down, and in 2015, plants owned by Guohua Electric Power Corp. and Beijing Energy Investment Holding Co. were closed. In 2016, the capital city will shut down China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-­megawatt power plant. Tian Miao, a Beijing-based analyst says, “Shutting all the major coal power plants in the city, equivalent to reducing the annual coal use by 9.2 million metric tons, is estimated to cut carbon emissions of about 30 million tons” (Bloomberg, 2015). Four gas-fired stations with the capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity will replace the facilities. Using natural gas will be much cleaner with less pollution, though the costs will be higher. Nationwide, the closure of small and inefficient coal-fired power plants accounted for a reduction of a 26.2 gigawatt production capacity in 2009, offsetting about a third of the new capacity added in the country (Gallagher, 2014). Yangjingjing (2015) reported that officials in Beijing boasted about finally making progress in cleaning up the city’s notoriously polluted air, as they lobbied for a chance to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. In the first four months of 2015, official figures showed that Beijing recorded a 19 per cent drop in the average PM2.5 level. Environmental groups also broadly agree

Solutions  75 with the improvement: Greenpeace recorded a 13 per cent decline in PM2.5 levels in the first quarter. The officials also indicated that half a million old vehicles were removed from the streets in 2014. It was also noted that the city recorded 57 days of good air quality, an increase of eight days from the same time in 2014. On the other hand, according to Greenpeace, efforts to clean up the air in Beijing led to the relocation of the more polluting factories to the west, which means “China’s choking air pollution is moving to the country’s west” (Reuters, 2015). This is not very helpful, since provinces in Central and Western China, including Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Sichuan, are those with the highest PM2.5 levels in China. Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner Zhang Kai emphasizes, “armed with this information, the government must now ensure that pollution is not simply relocated to other regions, and that the same strict measures enacted in cities like Beijing are actually enforced across the country”. In a study examining whether joint regional air pollution control can be more cost-effective, Wu, Xu, and Zhang (2014) conclude that “the cost efficiency of air pollution control will be improved in China if the conventional locally based regime of air pollution control can shift to a regionally based one” (p. 27).

Controlling pollution from power industries By the 1980s, air pollution and acid rain had become a problem in many areas of China. As a consequence, the Chinese government formulated a series of environmental regulatory policies. The first policy, known as the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (APPCL), was enacted in 1987. This law, however, excluded the power sector, the major contributor of SO2 emissions, and therefore failed to reduce air pollution (Qian and Zhang, 1998). SO2 emissions continued to surge, and areas affected by acid rain expanded. The APPCL was accordingly amended in 1995 to include a section to regulate pollutant emissions and coal combustion, particularly in what concerns the use of high sulphur-content coal at power plants (Hao et al., 2007). Although the 1995 APPCL “still had a weak enforcement mechanism and limited efficacy, a prominent feature of the amendment was to propose a future regional strategy, which would identify priority regions to improve air quality and prevent the spread of acid rain” (Tanaka, 2015, p. 92). In January 1998, this became official policy and was ­implemented as the “Two Control Zone” (TCZ) policy (State Council, 1998). The TCZ designated prefectures exceeding nationally mandated thresholds as either SO2 pollution control zones, or acid rain control zones (Tanaka, 2015). In total, 175 out of 333 prefectures, across 27 provinces, were designated as TCZs. Together, the two control zones accounted for 11.4 per cent

76 Solutions of the Chinese territory, 40.6 per cent of its population, 62.4 per cent of GDP, and 14 million tonnes of SO2 emission (58.9 per cent of the total SO2 emissions) in 1995 (Hao et al., 2001). The SO2 pollution control zones were “concentrated in the north due to high SO2 emissions for heating, whereas the acid rain control zones were primarily in the south, where heat, humidity, and solar radiation combine to create high atmospheric acidity” (Tanaka, 2015) (Figure 6.4). Acid rain in the south cannot necessarily be attributed to SO2 emitted in the north, but is rather due to local emissions. This is even more evident because acid deposition is greatest during summers, when wind direction is generally south to north. Table 6.2 provides a summary of some characteristics of the two different zones. The objective of the policy was to cut the total amount of SO2 to below the 2000 level by 2010, and reduce the areas with acid rain with a pH value below 4.5 (State Council, 1998). In the TCZ areas, the power industry, which contributed more than 90 per cent of air pollution, was required to cut SO2 and PM2.5 emissions and use new pollution control technology, while small and inefficient power plants were closed permanently (United Nations Environment Programme, 2009; Tanaka, 2015). Local

Figure 6.4  Two control zones in China with case study locations Source: Guttikunda and Johnson (2004).

Solutions  77 Table 6.2  Designation of two control zones in China SO2 Control Zone

Acid Rain Control Zone

Criteria for selection of region

• Average annual SO2 ­concentrations above the class II standards; • Daily average SO2 ­concentrations above the Class III standard; or • High SO2 emissions were recorded.

• Annual mean pH values for precipitation below or equal to 4.5; • Sulphate deposition exceeded the critical level; or • High SO2 emissions were recorded.

Area of concentrations

• Northern China.

• Southern China.

Result (from 1998 to 2005)

• Prefectures meeting Class II standard rose by 12.3 per cent; and • Those meeting Class III standard increased by 4.2 per cent; and • Those not meeting Class III standard fell by 16.5 per cent.

• Prefectures meeting Class II standard rose by 3.3 per cent; and • Those meeting Class III standard increased by 7.9 per cent; and • Those not meeting Class III decreased by 11.2 per cent.

Result (total)

• Reduced 3 million tons SO2 emissions; and • 71 per cent of all factories accounting over 100 tons of annual emissions met the SO2 emissions standard between 1998 and 2000.

Source: Adopted from Tanaka (2015). Note: According to the Chinese National Ambient Air Quality Standards (CNAAQS) for SO2, Class I standard designates an annual average concentration level not exceeding 20g/m3, Class II ranges 20 g/m3 < SO2 < 60 g/m3, and Class III ranges 60 g/m3 < SO2 < 100 g/m3.

and provincial governments which fell within the TCZ were required to submit detailed implementation plans to the State Environmental Administration for reducing SO2 emission by January 2003 (Guttikunda and Johnson, 2004). Tanaka (2015) found that infant mortality rate fell by 20 per cent in the areas covered by TCZ, with the greatest improvement in mortality rate appearing during the neonatal period, particularly among infants of low-­ educated families. Yet, other sources and types of pollution may have weakened the effectiveness of the TCZ policy. For example, Lin et al. (2013) revealed that pollutants other than SO2, such as NOx, CO, and O3, and regional transportation and traffic volumes within the city, deteriorated the air quality in Shanghai during the 2010 Expo.

78 Solutions

Higher emission standards for industry and energy production On 1 January 2012, China introduced new emission standards for coal power plants, which replaced those introduced in 2003. These new standards bring Chinese power pants broadly in line with the standards of developed countries, requiring factories and power plants to emit pollution below a certain statutory level. The new standards have to be followed by both new and existing plants, although existing plants have two and half years to adapt them. Table 6.3 reports the standard, comparing the Chinese standards with those of the EU and the U.S. The EU data are those of larger (> 500 MW) power plants. In China, no new smaller power plants can be built, and most existing small power plants have been decommissioned already, so the data are comparable. The nine regions with the most severe air pollution problems face even stricter standards (WRI, 2012), including different regulations for gas and oil power plants. The oil standards are at least as strict as the coal standards, while the standards for gas power plants are much stricter. Since the most common fuel used in power plants is coal, the coal standards are the most important. The government estimates that the new standards will require power companies to invest about CNY 261.4 billion to upgrade the pollution abatement equipment. The annual operating costs of meeting the new NOx standards alone are expected to be around CNY 61.2 billion. To pay for the investments that the power plants will need to make, the government has increased the electricity prices for industrial use by CNY 0.03 per KWh. This covers the costs of the new, higher environmental standards, while at the same time making renewable energy more competitive (WRI, 2012). While China now has some of the strictest environmental standards in the world, it is questionable how strictly these standards are actually followed. Local authorities often either collude with companies to encourage investment in the areas under their jurisdiction, or fear that the companies may leave the region if the standards are strictly enforced. Bloomberg (2014) reported that: Steel factories and thermal power plants in Eastern China that provide real-time emissions data frequently exceed national standards, a study led by an environmental group in Beijing said yesterday. Companies from those industries based in the provinces of Shandong and Hebei were in “serious breach” of discharge standards even during periods of severe air pollution, the report by the Beijing-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs said. The IPE studied data from industrial facilities in three eastern provinces that have begun releasing realtime information since July as part of a project initiated by China’s environment ministry.

0.03

Since 2012

30 20

100

50 3

–

0.037

50/100 6

500/2003

500/200

Until 2015 Since 2016

200

New plants

New

Existing

Plants built since 2006

Plants built 1978–2005

Plants built since 2006

Plants built 1978–2005

Existing plants

400

US

EU

Notes: 1) 400 for four provinces with high-sulphur coal 2) 100 for plants built 2004–2011; 200 for plants built before 2004 3) 500 until end 2015; 200 as from 2016 4) 160 for plants built 1997–2005; 640 for plants built 1978–1996 5) 117 for plants built after 2005; 160 for plants built 1997–2005; 640 for plants built 1978–1996 6) 100 for low quality coal (e.g. lignite) 7) German standard. No EU-wide standard 8) 0.002 for bituminous, gangue, and 0.006 for lignite 9) 0.001 for bituminous, gangue, and 0.005 for lignite

2

100/200

0.03

30

100

100

200/400 1

Regions with high Nation-wide pollution

Before 2012

Since 2012

Before 2012

Since 2012

Before 2012

Since 2012

Before 2012

Source: WRI (2012).

Mercury

PM2.5

NOx

SO2

Air pollutant

China

0.001/0.0059

0.002/0.0068

22.5

117

160/6405

160

160/6404

Table 6.3  Air pollutant emission standards for coal-fired power plants in China, the European Union and the United States (mg/m3)

80 Solutions Similarly, Wu Xiaoqing, the deputy minister of environmental protection, revealed in March 2014 that only three of the 74 major cities met national air quality standards throughout 2013: Haikou in Hainan, Lhasa in Tibet, and Zhoushan in Zhejiang. On the other hand, the smog-plagued BeijingTianjin-Hebei area experienced air pollution on more than 60 per cent of days during 2013, the worst in the country. Annual average levels of PM2.5 reached 106 micrograms per cubic meter in the region, more than ten times the World Health Organization’s safety limit of 10 (Li, 2014). Zhao et al. (2015) compared three different methods of environmental regulation, namely command and control policy (CCR), market-based regulations (MBR), and government subsidies (GS), and found that CCR had no statistically significant impact on cutting emissions of SO2 and CO2. The result implies that China should look beyond command and control, and incorporate more incentive-based solutions into its emission control policy.

Carbon trading The 11th FYP (2006–2010) had tighter climate-related regulations which were implemented, with relative success, through strict top-down command and control policies. This fitted well with the Chinese administrative and social system, but came at a higher cost than alternative market-based measures. However, recognizing the limits of top-down measures, and the difficulties of sustaining the successes of the 11th FYP in an environment where the pollution that was easier to reduce had already been reduced, the government decided to try to use market mechanisms to address air pollution, and in particular carbon emissions (Yu and Lo, 2015; Lo and Yu, 2015). In its 12th FYP (2011–2015), the government undertook to establish a national carbon trading system by 2015. The goal is to reduce pollution by offering polluters economic incentives to reduce ­emissions (Li, 2013a). As a first step, the National Development and Reform Commission of China initiated carbon trading in seven provinces and cities: the cities of Shenzhen (since 1 July 2013), Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, the province of Guangdong (since later in 2013), the municipality of Chongqing, and the province of Hubei (since 2014). The longer-term plan is to establish a nationwide carbon trading ­mechanism. However, one of the major challenges of a nationwide standard is to design it so that it does not favour or harm any of the provinces. “Setting emission caps – an essential departure point for any emission trading scheme – and allocating permits equitably could be challenging for China,

Solutions  81 given the wide differences in economic structure, growth rates, energy consumption and carbon intensities across Chinese provinces” (Han et al., 2012, p. xxi). In the spirit of “crossing the river by feeling the stones”, to find the right approach that works for the country, China has designed these seven regional schemes differently, trying to determine which method was the best, and which method (or combination of methods) could be used nationwide. The Shenzhen ETS covers 635 industrial enterprises from 26 sectors and 197 public buildings, which accounted for 38 per cent of Shenzhen’s emissions and 26 per cent of Shenzhen’s GDP in 2010. When it was set up, it was planned to eventually also include the transportation sector. This program was one of the tools used to achieve the goal of Shenzhen’s 12th FYP, which requires the city to reduce its carbon intensity (the volume of carbon dioxide emitted in the production of each unit of gross domestic product output) by 21 per cent between 2010 and 2015. China has not agreed to binding caps on carbon emissions, but it has committed to reduce its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020 from the 2005 levels. The carbon intensity of the firms covered by the Shenzhen scheme is expected to drop by 37 per cent by 2015 from 2010 levels, exceeding the 21 per cent citywide target (Li, 2013a). The municipal government gave annual emission quotas to each industrial enterprise and public building, mandating a reduction in carbon intensity over the next year. Local legislation requires firms whose emissions exceed their quota to buy extra rights from those which come under their limit, otherwise they will be liable to penalties three times the market price of the quotas. Making things more complicated, the allowances on the Shenzhen market are calculated based not only on the companies’ carbon emission levels, but also on their future industrial output. They have a combined quota of 100 million tonnes of carbon, which has to cover their operations between 2013 and 2015.Their performance is reviewed every 12 months, and their allotments are adjusted accordingly. The Shenzhen ETS was the first in China to allow individuals to trade (Beijing’s ETS ­stipulated that “deals between related parties, and deals above certain sizes be conducted in the over-the-counter market” [directly between two parties, without supervision]) (Ng, 2014). As it was a new requirement, many companies did not know well how it would work. SinoCarbon Innovation and Investment, a consultancy based in Beijing, surveyed about 120 firms in the Shenzhen scheme. They found that about 80 per cent had adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude, being unsure whether they had to buy or sell. Tang Renhu, the director of SinoCarbon, concluded that “only those enterprises with some knowledge and expertise

82 Solutions are willing to experiment” (Li, 2013a). As such, the trading activity was relatively small. China Emissions Exchange (2014) reported that during the first year, Shenzhen ETS sold 1.5733 million tonnes of allowances with a turnover of CNY 108 million. In spite of the relatively small number of transactions, at the end of the first year of operation, 631 of the 635 compliance companies fulfilled their emissions reduction obligation, according to China Emissions Exchange (2014). “The total amount of greenhouse gas emissions for 635 industry entities decreased by 3.75 million tons, with a decrease rate of 11.5 percent from 2010 to 2013, and the carbon intensity of industrial added values of covered entities decreased by 33.2 percent compared to 2010” (p. 5). Other exchanges are organized differently, as the government is testing different approaches to determine which one is the most effective in the Chinese context (Ng, 2013). For instance, Guangdong “is planning to allocate 95 percent of quotas free of charge and auction the remaining 5 ­percent, according to the provincial development and reform commission” (Li, 2013a). The other exchanges are either giving all quotas free of charge initially, or charge polluters for a tiny portion of their quotas. Lessons from these different exchanges will be used to set up a national carbon market, which should happen between 2016 and 2020. China’s unique situation – including its state energy pricing that does not allow emission costs to be easily passed on to end users – means that it should adopt flexible emission caps. This would allow it to avoid what happened in Europe, where carbon credit prices plunged when recession hit (Ng, 2013). For this reason, most of the mainland’s new exchanges have rules that allow local governments to influence the supply of emission permits. For example, the Tianjin exchange stipulated that “‘at times of great price volatility’, the municipal government can launch ‘market stabilization’ operations, such as the sale of new permits, or repurchases of permits” (Ng, 2014). Much work remains to be done to determine how regional and sectorbased trading schemes might be integrated. Nevertheless, a Citi research report mentioned by Ng (2014) concluded that while these markets have not yet had a material impact, due to the generous quota allocations, they have the potential to become important mechanisms for regulating emissions and could create financial pressure on everything from coal plants, to petroleum refineries, to steel mills.

Increase of renewable energy China’s 12th FYP allows for the construction of an additional 860 m ­ illion tonnes of new coal production capacity over the 2011 to 2015 period

Solutions  83 (Greenpeace, 2014). However, in November 2014, China announced that it would peak its total carbon pollution emissions in 2030. This commitment would essentially require Chinese coal use to peak in around 2020 at 4.2 billion tonnes (16.3 per cent more than the 3.6 billion tonnes burnt in 2013) (Shanghai Daily, 2014). The 2020 coal peak means adding 800 to 1,000 gigawatts of zero-carbon power in 16 years, which is “more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today, and close to total current electricity generation capacity in the United States” (White House, 2014). By 2020, the share of non-fossil fuels in China’s total energy mix is expected to rise to 15 per cent, according to a plan released by the State Council (Shanghai Daily, 2014) (Figure 6.5). The transition towards a less carbon-intensive energy mix is based on three strategies. First, considerable investments in the renewable energy ­sector. Indeed, in 2013, China was the largest investor of renewable energy sources (Larson, 2014) (Figure 6.6). In 2014, China invested more than USD 80 billion in green energy, a much larger amount than those of developed countries such as the US (USD 34 billion) and Japan (USD 37 billion) (Grey, 2015). Second, higher taxes on coal (discussed below).3 Third, a drop in the prices of renewable energy.

Figure 6.5  Energy mix in China, 2010–2050 Source: Zhang et al. (2014).

84 Solutions These three strategies have been set in motion in the early 2010s, and in 2012, for the first time, the production of wind power increased more than that of coal-fired power. The production of thermal power, predominantly based on coal, increased by 12 Terawatt hours (a growth of only 0.3 per cent) during 2012, while wind power production increased by about 26 Terawatt hours. This increase brought the total amount of wind power production to 100 TWh, “making it the third largest source of power after thermal and hydropower, and larger than nuclear energy”. The production of solar photovoltaic power has also increased, although at a much lower rate than wind. China installed 12 GW of solar panels in 2013, more than has ever been installed by any other country in a single year, and more than China had installed in all years prior to 2013, combined (Greenpeace, 2014). As for solar power production, China experienced a rise of solar energy output from 3 megawatts to 2,100 megawatts between 2000 and 2012, which is unprecedented in any part of the world (Grey, 2015). Such trends did not stop in recent years. Between 2013 and 2014 alone, there was a 67 per cent growth in the amount of photovoltaic (PV) production, ­making China the country with the highest capacity of solar energy production (10.5 ­gigawatts) from 2014 onward (Grey, 2015) (Figure 6.7). It is predicted that China, as the largest consumer of green energy, will accommodate a quarter of the world’s solar energy capacity (Grey, 2015). Different ­ renewable

Figure 6.6  Renewable energy investment by country and sector, 2013 Source: Twomey (2014).

Solutions  85 energy sources together accounted for 57 per cent of newly installed electricity-generating capacity for the first 10 months of 2013 (Xu, 2014). Unfortunately, the transition to a greener energy profile necessitates higher production costs to industries and businesses, particularly for energy-intensive industries such as cement, iron and steel, and aluminium. However, the move towards renewable energy also makes a substan­tial contribution to China’s economy, both in terms of job creations and trade balance. Those economic benefits make the transition more economically sustainable. In China, 943,200 jobs were related to renewable energy in 2010, almost three times more than the 367,000 jobs in Germany (Gallagher, 2014). In addition, the reduced reliance on imported fuel and increasing production of green energy means the trade balance could be improved, along with better energy security, making the economy more sustainable. Yet, there is the concern of whether the country has over-invested in renewable energy, as has happened in many industries. Gallagher (2014, p. 29) contends that “when an emerging industry shows signs of success in China, copycatting becomes rampant and a new factory sprouts up in every province”. Eventually, the local leaders provide “incentives to local ­entrepreneurs to set up local factories, which create local jobs and diversify the regional production base”. In some cases there is excessive supply, leading to a price crash. In the long run, the investment and innovations may drop, as oversupply forces companies to lower prices. Bloomberg (2015) 100,000 88,924

90,000 80,000

75,324

70,000

62,364

60,000 50,000

44,733

40,000 30,000

25,805 20,020

20,000 10,000 0

12,002 5,849 100 2007

140

300

820

2008

2009

2010

Cumulative solar installed capacity (MW)

3,520 2011

2012

2013

Cumulative wind installed capacity (MW)

Figure 6.7  Renewable energy expansion in China, 2007–2013 Source: Shuo and Myllyvirta (2014).

8,020

86 Solutions also mentions that China is pushing to restart its nuclear power program in an effort to clear the skies.

Openness “The seeds of the new transparency were sown by the U.S. Embassy when it began monitoring and publishing data on the fine particles in Beijing’s air. The Chinese government initially pushed back against such disclosure, requesting in 2009 that the United States stop making the data public. But in 2012, Chinese authorities ordered cities to publish their own data on PM2.5 pollution levels” (Denyer, 2014). In July 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a directive indicating that all provinces should establish online platforms to disclose real-time data straight from the major emitters. Since 1 January 2014, 15,000 factories in 179 cities – including influential state-run enterprises – are required to issue figures or their atmospheric emissions in real-time (Denyer, 2014). About half of the listed factories are those involved in the power sector, with other industries producing abundant pollutants such as the iron, steel and smelting industry, cement manufacturing, and the chemical industry (Cooke, 2014). Releasing real-time data is the “biggest thing China has done to address its pollution problems to date, and based on our experience in the U.S., the most likely to succeed”, wrote Linda Greer, director of the Health and Environment Program at the National Resources Defense Council (Bloomberg, 2014). Data disclosure is part of a new resolve of China’s government to confront its environmental problems, which have increasingly been the subject of protests. The standard of air quality monitoring in many cities, including Beijing, Dongguan, Nanjing, and Suzhou, is close to international levels (Bloomberg, 2014). However, air quality is often still well above what is deemed acceptable by the WHO. About 4,000 companies, including in particular companies in the petrochemical, refining, steel, and cement industry, contribute 65 per cent of China’s industrial emissions of pollutants. One would assume that it is fairly easy to monitor the emissions of these companies. However, progress is slow. While by January 2014 all provinces should have established online platforms for disclosure of real-time data straight from the major emitters, only Shandong, Hebei, and Zhejiang had complied. The data available show that many companies are far from achieving the national standards. Of 1,009 companies in Shandong that published emissions of nitrogen oxide, 61 per cent of those in the city of Dongying (in Shandong Province) exceeded the national standard (Bloomberg, 2014). Similarly, a report prepared by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, together with academic institutions and NGOs, revealed that a group of manufacturers contributing to significant level of pollution, such

Solutions  87 as thermal power plants and steel factories, are still maintaining emission levels that exceed the existing requirements (Cooke, 2014). While the enforcement of national standards is difficult since it involves high costs for the polluting industries, naming and shaming the polluters is the first step towards proper compliance (Bloomberg, 2014). In addition, the free access to emission information has made air quality levels more readily understandable by residents and local governments, pushing several local governments to formulate emergency contingency plans for periods of severe pollution. Real-time information on pollution allows for a more comprehensive dissemination of information. One effort in that direction was made by scientists working at the University of California, Berkeley, and Nanjing University, who used real-time information on PM2.5 from over 1,500 sites across China to produce a map of pollution (Figure 6.8) (Rohde and Muller, 2015). Another effort is that of Ma Jun, head of the Institute Conc.: AQL:

>>

Health Category

Ulaanbaatar

Mongolia

HEILONGJIANG

Harbin

JILIN

Inner Mongolia LIAONING Beijing

HEREI GANSU

North Korea Seoul

SHANXI

NINCXIA SHAANXI

QINGHAI

South Korea

SHANDONG

Xijan

China

Busan HENAN

Fukuoka

JIANGSU

Nayang

Shanghai Chenqdu

HUBEI

Wuhan

ANHUI

Changging

SICHVAN

Bhutan

HUNAN

GUIZHOU

JIANGXI

ASSAM NAGALAND MEGHALAYA

FUJIAN

MANIPUR YUNNAN

GUANCXI

TRIPURA MIZORAM

GUANGDONG Hong Kong

PM2.5 Air pollution Concentration (μg / m3) 0

100

Good Moderate

200 Unhealthy for sensitive groups

Hangzhou ZHEJIANG

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Bangladesh

300

400

Sea

Pyongyang

Tianjin

500

HAINAN

Very Unhealtrhy Unhealtrhy Hazardous

Created by Berkeley Earth

Figure 6.8  Map of pollution levels across China Source: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/air-quality/map.php.

Taipei

Taiwan Kaohsiung City

East China Sea

Hiroshima

88 Solutions of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, who is trying to develop a phone app that would expose which of the 15,000 factories that are required to publicly report details on their air emissions and water pollution are polluting excessively: factories meeting emissions targets would show up as blue, and those breaking the law would be red (Denyer, 2014). Nevertheless, there are attempts to enforce the law more strictly than in the past. According to Chen Jining, the Minister of Environmental Protection, the enforcement of environmental laws is the key to curbing air pollution (Hewitt, 2015). Hewitt (2015) notes that Chen Jining informed the country’s legislature that more than 2,000 cases of environmental violations were turned over to the police, and about 8,400 people were detained in 2014. He relayed that ground inspections and the use of drones “led to the closure of more than 3,000 companies, a similar number of small factories, and 3,700 construction sites in 2014”.

China’s slowing economy According to Spegele (2015), China’s slowing economy provides a boost to its war against pollution by forcing bloated industries like steel, cement, and glassmaking to close down. Roberts (2015) reports that the province of Hebei is one of the country’s biggest glass, steel, and cement manufacturers, “much of it built up since cheap loans became available after the 2008 global financial crisis” (Roberts, 2015), and that all three industries face serious oversupply. In its efforts to make the capital “breathable” again, the solution was to cut down Hebei’s manufacturing entities, particularly because in 2014 the province’s economy was considered one of China’s worst-performing. Roberts (2015) writes that provincial authorities have been pressured “to cut capacity in steelmaking and cement manufacturing by 60 million metric tons each by the end of 2017, and reduce coal use by 40 million tons”. Thousands of factories have already been closed with thousands more slated for the same fate, which has created panic among many people about the collapsing economy and loss of jobs. Sceptics point to earlier nationwide efforts to consolidate the steel industry that foundered because local governments resisted closing plants, which would have led to job losses. The attitude towards these efforts is best exemplified by a factory worker’s comment: “Our equipment is backward, and yes, we are polluting the skies, but we have maybe 30,000 workers…this factory is the biggest employer here…all our revenues go to Beijing. They won’t shut us down”. To address these issues, the government claims to be attempting to bolster the economy via a development plan which calls for “expanding the network of roads and high-speed rail” (Roberts, 2015). It’s noted that some government offices, and “most of Beijing’s wholesale markets in clothing

Solutions  89 and household goods will be moved to Hebei to relieve congestion in the capital and create jobs in the province”.

Improving standards in the automotive industry Beyond coal, the other major source of air pollution is vehicle emissions, especially in the larger cities. There is some controversy as to the relative importance of coal and vehicles. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) report released in December 2013, motor vehicle emissions were responsible for less than 4 per cent of Beijing’s PM2.5 in 2013, fossil fuel burning making the largest contribution. However, barely 24 hours after the CAS released its report, Pan Tao, president of the Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection, openly challenged the findings, telling People’s Daily online that the emissions from the 5.5 million cars clogging the capital’s streets were “undoubtedly” the major source of Beijing’s air pollution. Pan Tao cited studies carried out by Tsinghua and Peking Universities, which found that motor vehicle emissions were responsible for 20 to 30 per cent of Beijing’s air pollution, because the secondary inorganic aerosol (which contributes to more than one quarter of the PM2.5) is largely from car emissions (Piao, 2014). Regardless of the relative importance of vehicles in the air pollution of cities, China has undertaken a number of policies to address the problem of vehicle emissions, with the goal of reducing vehicle pollution by 40 per cent. In 1999, the government introduced national vehicle emission control standards (Figure 6.9), and fuel quality standards in 2000 (Figure 6.10). Through the years, the standards have gradually become stricter. The pattern is for Beijing to introduce the standards first, followed by Shanghai, then Guangzhou, and finally the whole of China, a few years later. In terms of vehicle emission standards, Beijing introduced the China V emission 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 China

Pre- China I Euro

Beijing

China I

China II

Shanghai

China I

China II

Guangzhou Pre- China I Euro Europe

Euro II

Euro III

China II China III

China III

China V*

China IV

China IV

China V

China China IV III China China III II Euro IV

China IV Euro V

China V China V Euro VI

Figure 6.9  Chinese environmental standards for light duty vehicles Source: Expanded from Fung et al. (2010). Note: * Due to difficulties in implementing the standard nationwide, the government has given itself a grace period until the end of 2017 (Green, 2013).

90 Solutions 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 China Beijing Guanzhou Shanghai

2,000 2,000

500

500

350

2,000

150 50

350 2,000

150

50

10

10 50 50

10 10

Figure 6.10 Fuel quality standards for gasoline in China (in parts per million [ppm] sulphur in the fuel) Source: Adapted from Shao and Wagner (2015), p. 6.

standards for diesel-powered vehicles on 1 February 2013, and on 1 March 2013 for gasoline-powered vehicles. The China V standard is roughly equivalent to the European Union’s Euro V introduced in 2009. In terms of fuel standards, in Beijing (since 2012), Guangzhou, and Shanghai (since 2014), the standard is of 10 parts per million (ppm) sulphur content, but in the rest of China, the standard is still of 50 ppm (Figure 6.10), because of concerns over the ability of suppliers to produce enough 10 ppm sulphur gasoline nationwide. One problem China faces is that some smaller Chinese manufacturers do not have the know-how to manufacture cars that follow these standards. To give the smaller manufacturers the necessary time to adapt to the standards, they are being introduced slowly, over several years. This is one reason the government has given itself a grace period to implement the China V standards nationwide until the end of 2017, five years after it was ­implemented in Beijing (Green, 2013). Yet, as long as the standard remains confined to Beijing, analysts suggest its impact will be limited. In April 30, 2014, Shanghai was the second city to introduce this standard. Guangdong Province set out to join “no later than December 31 [2015]” (Shao, 2015). At the same time, the government has also been promoting improvements in the fuel economy of new vehicles, as well as the adoption of New Energy Vehicles (NEV, vehicles that are partially or fully powered by electricity). In 2012, China released its “Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Plan”, which states that average passenger car fuel economy should increase to 34 miles per gallon by 2015, and 47 miles per gallon by 2020 (EIA, 2014). At the same time, in its 12th FYP (2011–2015), the Chinese government launched new measures to promote NEVs, and to support its domestic automobile industry to mass-produce NEVs, with a national target of 500,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2015, and one million by 2020. As such, the government set out to invest an estimated USD 15 ­billion in NEVs by 2020 (EIA, 2014). By so doing, the government is also trying to address the problem of the increasing demand for gasoline, the consumption

Solutions  91 of which has grown from 0.9 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2003 to more than 2 million bbl/d in 2013. This does not only have a negative impact on air pollution, but also forces China to import an increasing amount of oil. Since 2009, China has been importing more than half of its petroleum needs. Another approach to cutting emission related to car usage is that of limiting the number of cars on roads. Local governments started various programs to limit the number of cars, hoping that air pollution and the congestion problems in their cities could be mitigated, often by placing quotas on new car plates. One example is that of Shanghai. With only around 8,000 plates being issued every month, Shanghai holds an auction on the third Saturday of every month to allocate its plates. With economic growth and migration, the demand for plates is growing, as is the willingness of people to pay. In January 2012, plates cost CNY 50,000 (Li, 2013b). By December 2013, the average price for a Shanghai car plate reached CNY 76,000 (Zhen, 2014). Beijing, another city with serious air pollution problems, has been allocating the non-transferable plates via lottery for a modest administrative fee since 2011 (Feng and Li, 2013). This approach has reduced the number of newly registered cars from 810,000 in 2010 to 174,000 in 2011. However, the quota system of Beijing faces difficulties of unmet demand, as the majority of lottery participants lose, and their number accumulates over time. From July 2012 to July 2013, 588,000 residents were added to the waiting list for local plates (Feng and Li, 2013). Another measure taken by the Beijing government to cut vehicle emissions is the one-day-a-week driving restriction scheme. The policy had its pilot scheme in 2007, whereby a number of private vehicles were restricted access to roads, so as to reduce air pollution during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. From 2010, all cars are prohibited from driving one day a week according to their license plate number (Wang et al., 2014). When the government implemented the new regulations, it expected the scheme to reduce traffic volume by 20 per cent every weekday. However, Wang et al. (2014) found that 47.8 per cent of the regulated car owners didn’t follow the rules, so car use was likely to drop by only 9 per cent. This policy is part of the government’s comprehensive plan to divert the population to use public transport instead of private cars. Other policies include an improvement in public transportation, as well as restrictions on the use right of roads by cars registered elsewhere, whereby during rush hours non-locally registered cars cannot access the road network within the fifth ring. The comprehensive plan resulted in a rise of 13 per cent of vehicle speed on roads in the central city (Feng and Li, 2013). Because Chinese cities are still growing rapidly, urban planners are able to use transit-oriented development (TOD). City planners do not

92 Solutions necessarily take land use and residential density into consideration when they design rapid urban transport. However, “many cities retrofit their zoning codes after subway construction to allow development to cluster around transit stops” (Bachmann and Burnett, 2012). As of June 2012, at least 13 Chinese cities have one or more subway lines in operation, with a total of 54 routes, and a length of 1,700 km. Another 76 lines of an additional 1,600 km were under construction. By 2020, the target is 40 subway ­systems covering about 7,000 km (Bachmann and Burnett, 2012). By 2050, the target is 11,700 km of metro railway, which will correspond to at least half of the world’s total (Shih, 2013). Yang et al. (2015) estimated that that every 100 km of subway constructed in Beijing can save the city CNY 65,795,000, mainly in terms of less traffic volume, less fuel combustion, and better air quality.

Improving standards in the shipping industry Hong Kong was the first Chinese city to take strong actions against ship emissions, requiring ocean-going vessels (OGVs) to use bunkers with a sulphur content no greater than 0.5 per cent while berthing, from 1 July 2015. The Environmental Protection Department of the Hong Kong SAR estimates that the new regulation requiring vessels using fuel with less than 0.5 per cent sulphur content can help reduce the total emissions of SOx by 12 per cent, and overall particulate matter by 6 per cent (Schuler, 2015). Shenzhen is the second Chinese city that introduced a plan to cut down emissions from ships and port facilities, which encourages ship operators to switch their fuel to low-sulphur fuel containing no more than 0.5 per cent sulphur on a voluntary basis upon reaching the port (Civic Exchange, 2014). A subsidy of 75 per cent of the cost incurred by the fuel switching would be paid by the Shenzhen government. Following the initiative of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, other cities and regions, including Shanghai, Qingdao, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shandong provinces developed their own plans to tackle vessel emissions. Nevertheless, Chinese cities are still in the early stages of tackling the pollution from container shipping, and large room remains for further steps to improve the current emission control plan and enforcement. Implementation has always been the central challenge to newly-enacted plans, as the plans are not evidence-based due to a lack of data, and lack consensus among different stakeholders, including the port industry and other port cities within the same region. The clean shipping plans are criticized by the industry, and cities fear that introducing stricter regulations will prompt vessels to use other ports with looser regulations under the absence of a regional cooperation in emission control (Fung et al., 2014).

Solutions  93

Control of fireworks According to China’s National Environmental Monitoring Center, during the celebration of the 2015 Lunar New Year, air pollution levels in 106 Chinese cities reached a “dangerous level” (China Daily, 2015). As for Beijing, 410 mg per cubic meter PM2.5 concentration was recorded at the celebration, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center. The air quality problems during festivals forced the government to regulate firework displays. In 2015, the Beijing government asked its residents to use less fireworks during the three days of Lunar New Year celebrations (SCMP, 2015). The government also set out to reduce the number of retailers allowed to sell fireworks, and cut the sales period from 20 days to 11 days. These policies resulted in firework orders to drop by 20 per cent (SCMP, 2015). However, such regulations did not extend to the countryside, where the consumption of fireworks is rising, with some counties such as Qianshan (Anhui Province) having sales of CNY 50 million annually (China Daily, 2015). As the standard of living in rural areas is increasing, setting off fireworks for celebration are becoming more prominent than ever. Migrant workers may also buy large amounts of firecrackers during the New Year festival to flaunt their wealth (China Daily, 2015). From the rural areas, the pollution may be transported to urban areas.

Indoor air pollution The Chinese government introduced the National Improved Stove Program (NISP) and the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) standards to tackle the problem of indoor air pollution related to the combustion of fossil fuels to power homes. From the early 1980s to 2007, about 180 million stoves were improved with these initiatives, with the installation of chimneys and, in some cases, electric blowers to improve efficiency and reduce indoor air pollution (Zhang and Smith, 2007). Another improvement was the promotion of formulated coal, such as honeycomb coals (Zhang and Smith, 2007). The coals are designed with a perforated shape, which allows a more efficient combustion, and therefore lowers the levels of air pollution. Yet, there is no statutory requirement for testing household coal, and only limited restrictions in the coal fuel market. This makes promoting cleaner coal fuel much harder. In addition, improved coal stoves may not work well in reducing the health impact of indoor combustion in households that do not have proper ventilation and filtration, as pollutants may still remain inside the house. Furthermore, even when efficient chimneys or extractors are installed, pollutants are simply extracted from inside the house to the surroundings, so people are still subject to unhealthy levels of air pollution. In light of these

94 Solutions problems, Zhang and Smith (2007) stress that substituting the current dirty fuels with cleaner fuels is central to successfully cutting down pollution from indoor combustion.

Notes 1 Liu et al. (2015) argued that these data have to be reviewed, in light of the lower emissions per unit of coal from China compared to other countries. In ­particular, they found that “total energy consumption in China was 10 ­percent higher in 2000–2012 than the value reported by China’s national statistics”. However, “emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 percent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and […] emissions from China’s cement production are 45 percent less than recent estimates”. In conclusion, they argued that “China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production is 2.49 gigatonnes of carbon (2 standard deviations = ±7.3 percent) in 2013, which is 14 percent lower than the emissions reported by other prominent inventories. Over the full period 2000 to 2013, our revised estimates are 2.9 gigatonnes of carbon less than previous estimates of China’s cumulative carbon emissions” (Liu et al., 2015, p. 335). 2 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is slated for November 30 – December 11, 2015. 3 The Chinese government spends more than USD 1.2 billion a year to subsidize coal consumption (Martin, 2015, pp. 154–155).

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98 Solutions Schuler, M. (2015, July 1). Hong Kong’s new low-sulphur regulations enter into force. gCaptain. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://gcaptain.com/hongkongs-new-low-­sulphur-regulations-enter-into-force/#.VeVq7Ze1-OA. SCMP (2015, February 18). Beijing fears pollution effect of lunar new year fireworks. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.scmp.com/news/china/ article/1715737/beijing-fears-pollution-effect-lunar-new-year-fireworks. Shanghai Daily (2014, November 19). China sets cap on energy use. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx? id=253473. Shao, Z. (2015, May 8). Early adoption of China 5/V vehicle emission standards in Guangdong. The International Council of Clean Transportation. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theicct.org/update-early-adoption-china5-v-guangdong. Shao, Z., & Wagner, D. V. (2015). Costs and benefits of motor vehicle emission control programs in China. Berlin: The International Council of Clean Transportation (ICCT). Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/­ publications/ICCT_China_MVEC_benefits-costs_20150629.pdf. Shih, T. H. (2013). Beijing and other key cities plan for ten-fold expansion of metro railways. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.scmp.com/business/ economy/article/1148177/beijing-and-other-key-cities-plan-10-fold-expansionmetro-railways. Shuo, L., & Myllyvirta, L. (2014). The end of China’s coal boom – 6 facts you should know. Greenpeace East Asia. Beijing: Greenpeace. Retrieved 15 March greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/briefings/­ 2016 from www.­ climate/2014/The-End-of-Chinas-Coal-Boom.pdf. Spegele, B. (2015, July 20). China war on pollution benefits from economic ­slowdown.  The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www .wsj.com/articles/china-war-on-pollution-benefits-from-economic-slowdown1437410558. State Council (1998). Official reply of the state council concerning acid rain control areas and sulfur dioxide pollution control areas. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.asianlii.org/cn/legis/cen/laws/orotsccarcaasdpca1016/. Tanaka, S. (2015). Environmental regulations on air pollution in China and their impact on infant mortality. Journal of Health Economics, 42, 90–103. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.02.004. Tao, X. (2014). Problems of air pollution prevention in key regions of China. Scientia Sinica Vitae, 57(3), 356–357. Twomey, D. (2014). Biggest polluter leads world clean energy spend. Econews. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://econews.com.au/38121/biggest-polluterleads-world-clean-energy-spend/. United Nations Environment Programme (2009). Two control zone plan and program to control sulfur pollution. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://ekh.rrcap .ait.asia/files/GP-2.pdf. Wang, L., Xu, J., & Qin, P. (2014). Will a driving restriction policy reduce car trips? – The case study of Beijing, China. Transportation Research Part A, 67, 279–290. DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2014.07.014.

Solutions  99 White House (2014, November 2014). FACT SHEET: U.S.–China Joint Announcement on Climate Change and Clean Energy Cooperation. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/11/factsheet-us-china-joint-announcement-climate-change-and-clean-energy-c. WHO (2005). WHO air quality guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen, dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Geneva: World Health Organization. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/69477/1/WHO_ SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf. WRI (2012). China adopts world-class pollutant emissions standards for coal power plants. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute. V. 1.4. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.chinafaqs.org/files/chinainfo/China%20FAQs%20 Emission%20Standards%20v1.4_0.pdf. Wu, Dan., Xu, Y., & Zhang, S. (2014). Will joint regional air pollution control be more cost-effective? An empirical study of China’s Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Journal of Environmental Management, 149, 27–36. Xu, B. (2014, April 25). China’s environmental crisis. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental-crisis/ p12608. Yang, X., Chen, D., & Guo, D. (2015). Comprehensive evaluation of environmental and economic benefits of China’s urban underground transportation construction projects. Journal of Environmental Biology, 36(4), 733–744. Yangjingjing, Xu. (2015, May 22). Beijing’s air is getting slightly ­better – here’s how and why. The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/22/beijings-air-isgetting-slightly-better-heres-how-and-why/. Yu, X., & Lo, A. Y. (2015). Carbon finance and the carbon market in China. Nature Climate Change, 5(1), 15–16. Zhang, D., Liu, J., & Li, B. (2014). Tackling air pollution in China – what do we learn from the Great Smog of 1950s in London. Sustainability, 6(8), 5,322–5,338. DOI: 10.3390/su6085322. Zhang, J., & Smith, K. R. (2007). Household air pollution from coal and biomass fuels in China: measurements, health impacts, and interventions. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(6), 848–855. Zhang, X., Karplus, V. J., Qi, T., Zhang, D., & He, J. (2014). Carbon emissions in China: How far can new efforts bend the curve? MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Beijing: Tsinghua University and Cambridge: MIT: China Energy & Climate Project Report No. 267. Zhao, X. L., Yin, H. T., & Zhao, Y. (2015). Impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency and CO2 emissions of power plants in China. Applied Energy, 149, 238–247. DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.03.112. Zhen, Y. (2014). Car plate prices fall 3.4% after ceiling returns. Shanghai Daily. Retrieved 15 March 2016 from www.shanghaidaily.com/Metro/public-services/ Car-plate-prices-fall-34-after-ceiling-returns/shdaily.shtml.

7 Conclusions

China’s breathtakingly rapid industrialization has been an impressive ­economic feat, but its environmental degradation and the loss of lives and good health are some of the most pressing challenges to emerge. China’s government is facing the glare of the international media, and considerable domestic and international discontent. The country has to find a way, equally creative as its modernization efforts, to address its environmental problems. Dr. Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. (Rowe, 2014), is confident that air pollution can be addressed. She says, “The big challenge with air pollution is that [polluters] don’t turn on the de-sulphuring equipment. The technology is there to deal with a lot of air pollution, it just doesn’t get used” (p. 8). Hopefully she’s right. International agreements on climate change – in particular the Paris Climate Change Conference of November 2015 – might be a “game-changer” for the country. China has made a great deal of progress in addressing air pollution, or at least it has attempted to do so. The central government seems indeed committed to improving environmental standards, as is indicated by the higher environmental standards it has introduced, and is encouraging the provinces to adopt. However, these standards have to be enforced by local ­governments, and the reality is that local governments often depend on polluting companies for income and employment. Another dilemma the g­ overnment faces is trying to meet people’s expectations for delivering high, sustained economic growth, which has been averaging 10 per cent a year for the last 20 years, and at the same time protecting China’s environment – another major concern for both the population and the government. Closing the biggest polluters would address the pressing need for a cleaner environment; however, such steps may also create economic problems and considerable social discontent, as many people care more about keeping their jobs than about improving air pollution. In addition, as the more polluting companies

Conclusions  101 close in the wealthier provinces of the east, which can afford to enforce higher environmental standards, they may reopen in neighbouring provinces in the west, which cannot afford to be so picky. This is hardly a solution.

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Further reading

This is a very concise list of recommended books, which provide a more general discussion of the environmental problems in China, in particular those related to air pollution. Day, K. A. (Ed.). (2005). China’s Environment and the Challenge of Sustainable Development. New York: ME Sharpe. Economy, E. C. (2011). The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Elvin, M. (2004). The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Geall, S. (2013). China and the Environment: The Green Revolution. London: Zed Books. Hathaway, M. J. (2013). Environmental Winds: Making the Global in Southwest China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ho, M. S., & Nielsen, C. P. (2007). Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kelly, W. J. (2014). The People’s Republic of Chemicals. Los Angeles: A Vireo Book/ Rare Bird Books. Lora-Wainwright, A. (2013). Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and Dying of Cancer in a Chinese Village. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Ma, X., & Ortolano, L. (2000). Environmental Regulation in China: Institutions, Enforcement, and Compliance. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Managi, S., & Kaneko, S. (2010). Chinese Economic Development and the Environment. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Marks, R. B. (2012). China: Its Environment and History. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Nielsen, C. P., & Ho, M. S. (Eds.). (2013). Clearer Skies Over China: Reconciling Air Quality, Climate, and Economic Goals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Shapiro, J. (2001). Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shapiro, J. (2012). China’s Environmental Challenges. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sze, J. (2014). Fantasy Islands: Chinese Dreams and Ecological Fears in an Age of Climate Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Further reading  103 Tilt, B. (2010). The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Watts, J. S. (2010). When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind – or Destroy It. New York: Simon and Schuster. Zhang, J. Y., & Barr, M. (2013). Green Politics in China: Environmental Governance and State-Society Relations. London: Pluto Press.

Index

“acid islands” 51 acid rain 49–51 aerosol optical depth (AOD) 30 agricultural residue, 24–5 agricultural sector, economic costs of air pollution 39 “airpocalypse” 1, 7 Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (APPCL) 75 Air Quality Index (AQI) 3, 8 air quality levels, measurement of 3–7; daily particulate levels 6; face masks 7; second-tier cities 5; smoking lounge, Beijing air pollution compared to 4, 5; social media 6; sources of particle emissions 3 amount of air pollution 3–12; “airpocalypse” 7; air quality levels, measurement of 3–7; cities with best air quality 10; daily particulate levels 6; face masks 7; most polluted cities 9, 11; national capital region 7; regional distribution of pollution 7–10; second-tier cities 5; smoking lounge, Beijing air pollution compared to 4, 5; social media 6; sources of particle emissions 3 automotive industry: improving standards in 89–92; lack of knowhow in 90 Beijing Olympics (2008) 43, 72 birth weight 43–4 burning, contribution of to greenhouse gas emissions 25 “business as usual” scenario 71

cancer villages and rural communities 44–8, 57; biggest killer 46; cancer rates 44–5; compensation 48; government use of term 44; journalist 46; NGO officials 46; untreated waste water 47 carbon trading 80–3 catastrophic flood events 49 central heating system, governmentsupported 30 chemical oxygen demand (COD) 14 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) report 89 climate change: coal problem and 15; main villain in 15 coal: burning, acid rain and 49; dependence on, beginning of 17–20; mines, closure of 73–4; output, falling 73; “poisonous” 28; production, growth of 19 coal power plants: closure of 74–5; health study of 42 coal problem 14–16; attempt to diversify energy sources 16; beginning of dependence on coal 17–20; climate change 15; greenhouse gases 15; statistics 15 command and control policy (CCR) 80 container shipping: emissions 22–4; impacts of on ecosystems 24 cooking fuel 29 deaths, premature 1, 41–2 demonstrations 60–3 disease, indoor air pollution and 27, 28

Index  105 economic costs of air pollution 38–41; agricultural sector 39; environmental degradation 38; ethos of economic development 38; Five-Year Plan 40; Green GDP 39, 40; health impact 38; inaccurate data reported by 41; political pressures 39–40; social stability 40; target responsibility system 40; “tournament competition” 40 ecosystems, impacts of container shipping on 24 education: environmental awareness and 59; green 60 embarrassing department 57 energy: alternative sources of, struggle to find 9; increased demand for 13; production, emission standards for 78–80; renewable 83–6; sources, attempt to diversify 16 environmental degradation 38 environmental impact 48–51; “acid islands” 51; acid rain 49–51; floods 48–9; hazardous events 49; ignorance 58; summer monsoon rainy belt 49; weather 48–9 face masks, styles of 7 factory closings 88 “factory of the world” 22 fertility problems 43 fireworks 25–6, 93 Five-Year Plan (FYP) 19, 40, 68 floods 48–9 fossil fuels: acid rain and 49; combustion of 9; most carbonintensive of all 15; standards introduced to tackle issue of 93 “game-changer” 100 GDP: annual growth in 14; Green 39, 40 global warming 24 government: emission quotas issued by 81; ignorance of officials 58; inaccurate data reported by 41; propaganda 56–7; subsidies (GS) 80; -supported central heating system 30 Great Leap Forward (Chairman Mao) 18

“Great Smog” 42 green education 60 Green GDP 39, 40 greenhouse gases 24; emissions, contribution of burning to 25; world’s largest emitter of 15 Greenpeace: study of health impact 42; testing of power plants by 16 health, impact of pollution on 41–4; birth weight 43–4; fertility problems 43; Greenpeace study 42; lung cancer and premature deaths 41–2; stroke mortality 41 heavy metals 23 highways, massive build-up of 21 hospital admissions, seasonal variation of 31 household heating 28, 31 ignorance 58–60 illegal protest 61 impact 38–55; acid rain 49–51; agricultural sector 39; birth weight 43–4; cancer villages and rural communities 44–8; catastrophic flood events 49; economic costs of air pollution 38–41; environmental degradation 38; environmental impact 48–51; ethos of economic development 38; fertility problems 43; Five-Year Plan 40; “Great Smog” 42; Green GDP 39, 40; hazardous weather events 49; health effects 41–4; lung cancer and premature deaths 41–2; political pressures 39–40; target responsibility system 40; “tournament competition” 40; “Wu Mai” 42 indoor air pollution 27–9; cooking fuel 29; household heating 28; morbidity, increase in 27; plastic furnishings, building built with 28; “poisonous” coal 28; solutions 93–4 Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) standards 28, 93 industrialization 8; advantages of industrialization 13; demands of 13–14; early history of 17; environmental degradation and 100;

106 Index GDP, annual growth in 14; motor vehicles, growth in number of 14; shift of towards inland cities 8 “killer smog” 13 legal challenges 57–8 Loess Plateau 18 lung cancer 41–2, 46 manufacturing: automobile 90; industry, smog conditions produced by 20; rural 27 market-based regulations (MBR) 80 mass protests 62 medical waste, improper disposal of 58 migration, mass 14 Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) 3, 40, 57 morbidity, increase in 27 motor vehicles, growth in number of 14 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) 66 National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 39 National Energy Administration (NEA) 74 National Improved Stove Program (NISP) 93 New Energy Vehicles (NEV) 90 news outlets 63 nitrogen oxide (NOX) pollution 21, 23 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 26, 46, 86 north-south divide 29–32; differences in indoor heating 29; governmentsupported central heating system 30; hospital admissions, seasonal variation of 31; household heating, pollutants released by 31; satelliteretrieved aerosol optical depth 30; total suspended particulates 29 ocean going vessels (OGVs) 22, 92 official denial 57–8 Olympics (Beijing, 2008) 43, 72 paraxylene (PX) plant 62 particulate matter, airborne 7 petition 61

photovoltaic (PV) production 84 plastic furnishings, building built with 28 “poisonous” coal 28 port terminals 23 premature deaths 1, 41–2 products of incomplete combustion (PICs) 28 protests and demonstrations 60–3 reaction 56–65; cancer villages 57; education 59; embarrassing department 57; government propaganda 56–7; illegal protest 61; mass protests 62; medical waste, improper disposal of 58; moral victory 58; news outlets 63; official denial and legal challenges 57–8; people’s ignorance 58–60; petition 61; political issue 63; protests and demonstrations 60–3; rural communities 59; school children, classes boycotted by 61; social media 56; state-owned CCTV 56 regional distribution of pollution 7–10; airborne particulate matter 7; “airpocalypse” 7; cities with best air quality 10; fossil fuels, combustion of 9; industrialization 8; most polluted cities 9, 11 rural communities: cancer villages and 44–8; lack of knowledge in 59; small and medium enterprises in 26 satellite-retrieved aerosol optical depth 30 school children, classes boycotted by 61 “second revolution” 18 shipping industry, improving standards in 92 small and medium enterprises (SME) 26 smoking lounge, Beijing air pollution compared to 4, 5 social media 6, 56 social stability 40 solutions 66–99; ambient air quality standards 66–8; automotive industry, improving standards in 89–92; “business as usual” scenario 71;

Index  107 carbon trading 80–3; China’s slowing economy 88–9; closure of coal power plants in Beijing 74–5; closure of small coal mines 73–4; command and control policy 80; control of fireworks 93; controlling pollution from power industries 75–7; factory closings 88; failed goal 68; FiveYear Plan 68; government subsidies 80; higher air quality standards for specific regions 68–9; higher emission standards for industry and energy production 78–80; increase of renewable energy 83–6; indoor air pollution 93–4; market-based regulations 80; New Energy Vehicles 90; openness 86–8; provincial targets for coal consumption reduction 69–73; shipping industry, improving standards in 92; Total Suspended Particulates 66; transitoriented development 91; Two Control Zone policy 75; “yellow label” vehicles 69 sources of air pollution 13–33; adverse health effects 27, 28; atmospheric cooling 24; burning agricultural residue 24–5; coal problem 14–16; container ships emission 22–4; cooking fuel 29; dependence on coal, beginning of 17–20; fireworks 25–6; global warming 24; Great Leap Forward (Chairman Mao) 18; greenhouse gases 16, 24; growth of coal production 19; household heating, pollutants released by 31; Imperial China 17; indoor air pollution 27–9; “killer smog” 13; Loess Plateau 18; loosely regulated factories 27; manufacturing industry 20; mass migration 14; nitrogen oxide pollution 21; nongovernmental organizations 26; north-south divide 29–32; ocean going vessels 22; port terminals 23; products of incomplete combustion

28; rapid industrialization, demands of 13–14; resource disaster 17; “second revolution” 18; small and medium enterprises in rural areas 26–7; standard of living 18; “sustainability radar” 26; total suspended particulates 29; unfavourable topographic conditions 32–3; unrestrained mine development 19; vehicle emissions 20–2 standard of living 18 State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) 39, 57 state-owned CCTV 56 straw burning 24 stroke mortality 41 sulphur oxides 23 “sustainability radar” 26 target responsibility system (TRS) 40 total suspended particulates (TSPs) 29, 66 “tournament competition” 40 transit-oriented development (TOD) 91 Two Control Zone (TCZ) policy 75 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 73 United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 3 unrestrained mine development 19 UV-proof face masks 7 vehicle emissions 20–2 villagers: cancer rates among 45; lifestyle of 27; moral victory for 58 “War on Pollution” 9 waste water, untreated 47 weather 48–9 World Bank 38 World Health Organization 3, 8, 43 “Wu Mai” 42 “yellow label” vehicles 69