Beijing’s notoriously dirty air was cleaner during last summer’s Olympic games, but pollution levels were still much worse than at recent Olympics, despite a massive Chinese cleanup campaign, a new report said.

Athletes in Beijing faced pollution levels that were up to 3.5 times higher than those in recent Olympic cities like Athens, Atlanta and Sydney, said the study published Friday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The pollution often exceeded what the World Health Organization considers safe.

The joint American-Chinese study — the first major one published on air pollution during the Olympics — also found that the weather, and not the Chinese government’s strict controls imposed in the run-up to the games, played the largest role in clearing the air.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air pollution, Beijing, Olympics air pollution, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Beijing’s tremendous efforts and investment in environmental initiatives for the 2008 Games have allowed many of the city’s bid commitments to be met. What is particularly unique about the 2008 Games is that they will leave an important environmental legacy for the city of Beijing in areas such as transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency, and in the development of renewable energy, water, and waste treatment capacities.

However, in other areas, such as forestry and water minimization, Beijing has missed a key opportunity to use the Games to initiate world’s best practice and policies for all venues. In 2008 and beyond, it is important to look at how these successes can be adopted by other cities throughout China as well as how missed opportunities of the Games can inform future environmental policies.

Perhaps the greatest problem in Beijing’s attempt at hosting aGreen Games is the limited engagement and minimal third party assessments of its environmental efforts. A lack of available independently verified data and limited ability for third parties such as NGOs to access information undermine the ability to evaluate Beijing’s environmental performance. More openness, transparency and efforts to engage civil society in decision making processes and environmental action could help to strengthen the development of green initiatives in the future.

In his reflection over the question “Are ‘carbon-neutral’ Olympics possible?,” Li Taige, an editor of chinadialogue.net, comments that setting China’s environmental legacy and trajectory is more meaningful and valuable in the long run than achieving “carbon neutrality” for the event.

© Xiao Niu for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: civil society, Olympics environment, sustainable development
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Underground water levels in Beijing are rising this year, reversing a nearly decadelong decline, in part because of conservation efforts tied to the Olympics.

Aquifer levels in the Chinese capital have risen about half a meter this year, after having fallen about one meter each year since 1999 due to drought. The shortage had forced the city to dig ever-deeper wells, which provide the bulk of its municipal water.

The increase comes despite warnings from environmentalists that the Olympics would contribute to a greater strain on Beijing’s water resources, with water being diverted from neighboring regions to supply everything from competition venues to the 40 million ornamental flowers around the city.

The government has rejected those admonitions. Officials say the water supply has benefited from unusually plentiful summer rains as well as decreasing demand and greater water recycling that the government pushed as part Beijing’s efforts toward a “Green Olympics.” Overall, water consumption fell to less than 3.4 billion cubic meters last year, from 4.04 billion cubic meters in 2000, officials say. Waste-water treatment rates have passed 90% as the city rolled out new treatment plants in time for the Games.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, Olympics environment, water supply
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Are the Beijing Olympics a signal that China can pursue both economic growth and a cleaner environment?

When we look back at the Beijing Olympics, great sporting moments will stay with us. Watching Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt break world records made all the air quality concerns leading into the Olympics seem like distant memories. But before the world bids “zaijian” to Beijing, it’s worth reflecting on what this Olympics meant and could mean for China. This, after all, was designed to be China’s great moment on the world stage, and the Beijing Olympic Committee set the lofty goals of delivering Green Olympics, High-Tech Olympics, and People’s Olympics. So how did Beijing score in those events?

Was this a Green Olympics? Fortunately, the oppressive weather and smog that marked the run-up to the games dissipated quickly, and Beijing enjoyed the best August air quality in many years. In the end, there were no reports of withdrawals from endurance events. In fact, never before has a city come so far environmentally in the lead up to an Olympic games. Beijing raised emissions standards, closed factories, placed emissions controls on all power plants, and removed half of its private cars from the road. Probably most important and little noted, the city increased wastewater treatment from 22% in 1998 to over 90% this year.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The blunders began when officials started to worry that Beijing might not have enough water to cope with 500,000 visitors to the Olympics. There was talk of a 30% spike in demand. Their gaze turned to Hebei province, its fields ripe with vegetables, corn and rice, providing a good living for its huge rural population.

Decrees were issued, targets were set and engineers scurried to complete a “100day struggle” to build almost 200 miles of channels and pipes to Beijing. These will form part of a gigantic project to bring the waters of the Yangtze River to the drought-stricken plains of northern China. Meanwhile, four strategic reservoirs in Hebei, around the city of Baoding, were filled to the brim.

Accounts differ of what happened next. Some farmers say the price of water was raised by 300% to put it beyond their reach. Others simply say that their irrigation channels ran dry. As subterranean water levels fell, their wells collapsed, fields were abandoned, mud-brick farm houses stood empty.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baoding, Olympics environment, water supply
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

But the massive cleanup effort for the Olympic Games has come at a cost to the local economy of some nearby industrial cities, whose factories have been forced to close down temporarily.

The roar of industry in one of these towns, Tangshan, has quieted to a hum recently. Just 90 miles from Beijing, 267 factories have been closed down for the Olympics. They are mainly big polluters like steelworks, cement plants and power generators. Some have been closed since the beginning of July, while others shut their doors just recently.

One sleepy village houses workers from a major steelworks. Some of the factory’s 4,000 employees are still working, but many others are at home, on enforced “holidays.”

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: factories, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Though human rights and environmental issues — such as censorship and pollution in Beijing — have been the two major focuses of criticism levelled against the Chinese government during the lead up to the Olympic games, Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is expected to address some of Beijing’s environmental successes during the opening ceremonies.

In continuing support for the Greening of the Games initiative, Steiner will take part in the Olympic Torch Relay before attending the opening ceremony. He will also meet with Zhou Shengxian, China’s environment minister, and Wan Gang, the minister for science and technology.

Steiner “will definitely address all the environmental issues, Theodore Oben, UNEP chief of sports and the environment, told IPS in a telephone interview from Beijing. “We have to see after the Games,” Oben said, when asked about the environmental impact of the games.

The Games will have a positive environmental legacy if the new environme

ntal standards and measures taken for Beijing are adopted countrywide, according to UNEP.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air pollution, blue-sky days, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chinese officials insist the notorious Beijing air will be cleaner by August, making such contraptions unnecessary. Concerned about the pollution, the U.S. Olympic Committee is distributing a high-tech mask, developed in secrecy, to its more than 600 Olympians. If athletes deploy it, they risk insulting the hosts. Then there’s the geek factor.

“I probably will want to wear it,” says the 26-year-old Mr. Shoemaker, who plans to have his mask on nearly all the time he’s in Beijing when not competing. “Whether I will be allowed to is a different issue.”

Though the practice is less common today, Chinese for years have worn masks to protect their lungs from the country’s heavy dust and pollution. But foreigners wearing them during the Games this summer — particularly at the opening ceremony broadcast to billions of television viewers around the world? That’s a different matter.

Having foreigners cover their faces at the Olympics could mean a loss of face for the Chinese. “When you’re walking around with a mask on, you’re basically saying, ‘You guys stink,’ ” says Scott Schnitzspahn, performance director of the U.S. triathlon team.

© Japhet Weeks for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air pollution, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Beijing is taking Draconian measures to clean up for the Olympic Games which start next month. In the past week, 300,000 high-emission or yellow-labeled vehicles, mainly freight trucks, have been banned from the city until Sept. 20 to ensure a “green” Olympics.

Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing municipal environmental protection bureau, announced the auto restrictions in an attempt to ensure acceptable air quality for the Olympic athletes. Beijing residents are familiar with such bans–during conferences and for periodic “blue sky” days–but how they will cope with such a long-term ban is difficult to imagine.

Another concern of the clean-up was revealed two weeks ago when the Chinese authorities revoked licenses for three pharmaceutical manufacturers, punishing 125 other companies (mainly retail pharmacies) for making, selling or distributing performance-enhancing drugs.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics environment, pharmaceuticals
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chinese officials defended the accuracy of pollution data and reaffirmed their ability to make the Beijing Games a “green Olympics,” even as the capital remains mired in gray haze less than a month before the opening ceremony.

Separately on Thursday, the government announced it will roll out free public transportation for Olympics ticket holders, the latest measure aimed at reducing traffic during the Games and cutting the polluting emissions from Beijing’s more than three million cars.

Beijing officials claim to have significantly improved air quality, with just over two-thirds of the days last year meeting national health guidelines, up from only 20% a decade earlier. But some analysts have charged that pollution standards have been loosened, air-quality-monitoring stations have been moved and data have been manipulated to show better results.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air pollution, Beijing, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s pledge of a “Green Olympics” has taken on a worrying meaning at the sailing-venue city of Qingdao, where an algae bloom has coated the coastline, according to witnesses and Chinese media.

A bright green covering of algae was Friday seen smothering beaches and extending out several hundred metres (yards) into the Yellow Sea off the city, about 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Beijing.

Photos posted on the website of the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening Post showed bags being filled with the spinach-like growth.

Algae blooms are common in heavily polluted China, particularly in freshwater lakes.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics environment, Qingdao, water pollution
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Athletics Australia says its Olympians will not march in the opening ceremony at Beijing because of concern for athletes’ health and welfare.

It is usual for swimmers and cyclists to miss out on marching because they are competing the next day.

But Athletics Australia has pulled the entire Hong Kong-based squad from the opening ceremony even though athletics events are being staged in the Games’ second week.

Athletics Australia’s national performance manager, Max Binnington, says there are concerns that pollution in the host city will affect the competitors.

Read also Aussie track athletes to miss opening by AP, and Olympic athletes angry by Jackie Epstein.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Australia relations, Olympic athletes, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

On the night of July 13, 2001, tens of thousands of people poured into Tiananmen Square to celebrate the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing. Firecrackers exploded, flags flew high, and cars honked wildly. It was a moment to be savored. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders exhorted the crowds to work together to prepare for the Olympics. “Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the international community,” Wang Wei, a senior Beijing Olympic official, proclaimed. The official Xinhua News Agency reveled in the moment, calling the decision “another milestone in China’s rising international status and a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation.”

Hosting the Olympics was supposed to be a chance for China’s leaders to showcase the country’s rapid economic growth and modernization to the rest of the world. Domestically, it provided an opportunity for the Chinese government to demonstrate the Communist Party’s competence and affirm the country’s status as a major power on equal footing with the West. And wrapping itself in the values of the Olympic movement gave China the chance to portray itself not only as a rising power but also as a “peace-loving” country. For much of the lead-up to the Olympics, Beijing succeeded in promoting just such a message.

The process of preparing for the Games is tailor-made to display China’s greatest political and economic strengths: the top-down mobilization of resources, the development and execution of grand-scale campaigns to reform public behavior, and the ability to attract foreign interest and investment to one of the world’s brightest new centers of culture and business. Mobilizing massive resources for large infrastructure projects comes easily to China. Throughout history, China’s leaders have drawn on the ingenuity of China’s massive population to realize some of the world’s most spectacular construction projects, the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, and the Three Gorges Dam among them. The Olympic construction spree has been no different. Beijing has built 19 new venues for the events, doubled the capacity of the subway, and added a new terminal to the airport. Neighborhoods throughout the city have been either spruced up to prepare for Olympic visitors or simply cleared out to make room for new Olympic sites. Official government spending for the construction bonanza is nearing $40 billion. In anticipation of the Olympics, the government has also embarked on a series of efforts to transform individual behavior and modernize the capital city. It has launched etiquette campaigns forbidding spitting, smoking, littering, and cutting in lines and introduced programs to teach English to cab drivers, police officers, hotel workers, and waiters. City officials have used Olympic projects as a means to refurbish decaying buildings and reduce air pollution, water shortages, and traffic jams.

Listen to this essay on CFR.org and read also In China, the game has changed by Victor D. Cha.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics environment, Olympics human rights, Olympics politics
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Olympics boycott, Olympics environment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall