Blog Two: China to Reward Cities and Regions Making Progress on Air Pollution

This article was published on 13 February 2014.

Summary: On Thursday, Chinese officials stated that they would begin offering a monetary award (about $1.65 billion) to Chinese cities and regions that started making “significant progress” controlling air pollution. It should be obvious that, because of this large award, it has been somewhat of an uphill battle trying to get companies (or whole cities/regions) to adequately regulate their air pollution. It was also announced on Thursday that, according to the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the city of Beijing, China is “almost unfavorable for human living,” due to the extremely high levels of toxins in the air. Some of the ways in which Chinese cities are being urged to lower their emissions include using higher quality gasoline in cars and other vehicles, lowering energy use in construction, using cleaner boilers, and controlling coal consumption (on a nationwide scale). The article stated that most of the energy used in China comes from coal, which is one of the dirtiest forms of energy.


Analysis: I thought this article was really well written. It gave a lot of good background information regarding China’s fuel consumption and talked about how bad coal is for the environment (contributing to greenhouse gases, etc.). I also really appreciated that the article spoke about particulate matters and what happens when you breathe them in. I think because we have all, for the most part, grown up in industrial times/regions, we are used to the smokestacks and paper mills and other common icons of industry. I think sometimes it takes being told what is in the smoke coming from those smokestacks to make a person realize, “this isn’t healthy for me.” I think it’s also important to note the point that the environmental issue has come to. The Chinese government is willing to dole out $1 billion to EACH city that makes a substantial difference in their level of emissions. That’s incredible, but also incredibly sad at the same time. This is definitely a case in which someone has to almost twist another person’s arm to get their way. The Chinese government has to bribe these cities to create a cleaner country.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/world/asia/china-to-reward-localities-for-improving-air-quality.html