Beijing’s air pollution spikes to frightening levels as Paris climate talks begin
Published: Nov 30, 2015
As smog chokes China’s capital, residents are ordered to stay indoors
Reuters//Kim Kyung-Hoon
Beijing’s stifling air pollution reached its most hazardous level of the year over the weekend, underscoring the urgency behind China’s environmental struggle as world leaders meet in Paris to discuss climate change.
As a thick blanket of smog enveloped China’s capital, the government issued its highest air-pollution alert of 2015 after a reading for PM 2.5, poisonous particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, spiked to over 600 micrograms per cubic meter in the city, according to a U.S. Embassy monitor.
Some readings outside the city climbed to as high as 976 micrograms, according to ABC News, far exceeding the World Health Organization’s safety guideline for a maximum level of 25 micrograms per cubic meter.
“I felt like my lungs were blocked,” Xu Pengfei, a security guard in Beijing, is quoted as having told ABC. “We have to stand in the open for many hours a day, and the pollution really affects us.”
Reuters
Beijing raised its smog alert to orange for the first time since February 2014 on Sunday, the same day China claimed it had reached its target for reducing emissions six months earlier than scheduled, reported state-run news agency Xinhua. China formed a five-year plan to cut pollutants in 2010, which involved shrinking levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ammonia nitrogen in the air.
Under an orange alert, the second-highest level in the country’s four-tier warning system, residents are urged to stay indoors, large vehicle are banned and factories are required to reduce production. Visibility was limited to less than a few hundred yards in many parts of the region, and residents wore masks over their noses and mouths to protect themselves from pollutants.
As China pushes for rapid growth and development, one of the biggest pollutants coating the air is coal, used in homes and factories for heating, particularly in the northern region, according to nonprofit Berkeley Earth, which also found that pollution was responsible for 1.6 million deaths a year, or roughly 17% of all deaths, in China.
As the climate conference opened in Paris, President Obama urged other countries to do their part to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and slow global warming, calling on them to “rise to this moment.” Meanwhile, satellite imagery taken from the Hong Kong Observatory showed what China looked like engulfed in smog on Monday.
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