This is just a quick heads up to point out my piece on time.com today about the short-term measures the government is putting in place to ensure clean air for the Olympics. What I was hopping to convey was that it’s a bit silly (and yes, I’ve been guilty of it, too) to look out the window with a month to go before the Games, see the Beijing haze and declare that the Games are in peril. The short-term measures that are being put in place, like taking close to half the cars off Beijing streets nearly three weeks before the events start, will have a significant effect on air quality.
That will be great for the Games and everyone in Beijing over the next two months. It also means that the long-term measures taken to reduce emissions weren’t enough to do the job, and things will turn gray again when winter rolls around if not sooner. Will the improvements that we’ll begin to see after the vehicle restrictions start next week inspire further efforts? Hard to say. Below is an email from Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center, pondering the pros and cons of these measures:
One could look at the car ban from the glass half empty or full angle of course. Naturally it is important for Beijing to do what it can now to guarantee cleaner air for the Olympics. They have, as you know, invested considerable amounts of money into getting rid of the dirty industries, promoting even more cleaner energy, clean taxi and public transport, but ultimately the growth in cars nullified much of it (just ponder how bad it would have been had all those industrial emissions not been stopped).
Half empty angle: car ban just a short-term band-aid on a growing air pollution problem that is seriously impacting the health of urbanites throughout China.
Glass half full angle: Seeing really blue skies in Beijing could help provide [the Ministry of Environmental Protection] more fuel (pun intended) to push forward even more aggressive controls of auto emissions in China. One even wonders whether it could also have a major impact on public perceptions on what they value in terms of a clean environment. I don’t think taking cars off the road is a real option, for the government has long considered autos a pillar industry of the economy and it is a major employer now. Besides requiring cleaner technologies, there could be efforts made to increase investments in public transport and the fact municipalities make a LOT of money on selling car licenses is also a rather skewed incentive for cities to issue them as fast as they can.