Aug 22 2008
Pollution and Traffic
Beijing enjoys best air in decade, vows to banish smog.
By Gillian Murdoch
BEIJING (Reuters) - Olympic host Beijing enjoyed its cleanest air in 10 years this month and will adopt strict new measures to ensure its notorious smog does not return, a top environment official said on Tuesday.
Over the past 18 days, air quality in the capital ranged between excellent and fairly good on China’s index, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, told reporters.
And he pledged good conditions would continue.
“Beijing will be built into a liveable city,” Du said. “We will take some new measures to ensure that air quality will reach a new level after the Olympic Games.”
Du said those measures would be announced after the Games end on Sunday, once officials had studied Beijing’s “successful experiences”.
Isn’t this the kind of talk that has to happen before actual change can happen? The whole article…
I just got back from Beijing. Brought surgical masks along for the ride—never took them out of the bag! The pollution that was promised was absent as far as I could tell—but so was any traffic all the way to the Great Wall! (Controlled it was. There was no non-Olympic purpose driving, then only odd and even day driving…)
We’ll see if things change, but this is the first step—isn’t it?
—iChef P
