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Chinese officials have recently announced a slew of temporary
measures to clean up the capital's polluted air in time for
the Olympic Games.
In a city teeming with cranes and round-the-clock building
sites, officials plan to halt all construction and excavation
by July 20. Heavy polluters and four coal-burning plants will
have to further reduce emissions by 30 percent. Service stations
and tanker trucks that have not been upgraded to meet certain
environmental standards will be shut down. Even outdoor spray
painting will be temporarily banned.
The announcements by Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the
Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, were part
of an effort to convince skeptics that the city will be safe
for the August 8-24 Olympic Games. Officials had previously
announced many of the measures - they discussed others recently
without providing specifics on implementation.
For example, officials said they would discuss - at another
time - plans to order Beijing's 3.3 million vehicles to drive
on alternate days, based on odd and even license plate numbers.
Du said that officials had a contingency plan of even more
stringent measures in case of "extremely negative meteorological
conditions" - but provided no details.
Critics maintain that Beijing's method of measuring pollution
- counting 'blue sky days' - is misleading and
glosses-over the severity of the problem. The International
Olympic Committee (IOC) has warned that some outdoor endurance
events might have to be postponed if air quality does not
improve.
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