What happened to China's 'airpocalypse'?

BEIJING: Blue skies are back in China’s big cities.

Levels of PM2.5 – fine particulate matter that can travel deep into the lungs and enter the blood stream – have dropped 54 per cent between 2013 and 2023.

The country’s environment ministry announced this figure in September, calling it "steady improvement" in local news reports.

Official data showed major Chinese cities are seeing good air quality about 80 per cent of the time.

Beijing experienced 90 per cent good days last year, as well as 2 per cent bad days – that is, eight days of severe air pollution, with six of them due to sandstorms. 

“China set an unprecedented example for how fast a country can tackle air pollution when political will, social will and resources align," said Dr Christa Hasenkopf, director of the Clean Air Program at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. 

"It's also shown that a country can achieve cleaner air without sacrificing the growth of its economy."

HOW DID CHINA DO IT?

China declared war on air pollution in 2013 with an action plan, now dubbed the country’s most influential environmental policy.

Air pollution was a long-standing problem for the country, and controlling it was a "herculean task", the document read. 

The government cut and moved heavy industries away from big cities like Beijing. 

Authorities also got buildings and households to switch to clean heating and set about electrifying road transport.

In 2017, Shenzhen in southern China became the first city in the world to electrify its entire fleet of about 17,000 public buses. 

The central government is willing to pay for better air, investing about US$4.2 billion in air pollution control every year, according to a Xinhua report.

STILL EXCEEDING WHO GUIDELINES

But is China's deadly “airpocalypse” – a phrase that has made global news headlines for years – gone for good? 

"There's reason to be impatient for cleaner air in China," said Dr Hasenkopf.

Air pollution remains the second biggest risk factor for reduced life expectancy in the country, second only to tobacco-smoking, she added. 

According to the University of Chicago's Air Quality Life Index, 99.9 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion people still live in areas where average air pollution levels exceed World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

Winter is peak pollution season in the country, when coal burning for heating and power generation cranks up. But bad air days can hit during other periods.

In March 2023, thick smog hit Beijing just as the capital city was holding the country's politically important “Two Sessions” parliamentary meetings. That year, PM2.5 levels saw a spike after falling for the last 10 years.

About 30 times smaller than a strand of hair, PM2.5 pollutants are particularly harmful to human health when inhaled.

They come from vehicle emissions, industrial processes, as well as natural sources such as wildfires and dust storms.

Beijing residents CNA spoke to have largely adapted to air pollution as a part of life, and air purifiers have become common among urban Chinese households. 

"I used to have an air purifier that's effectively on 24/7. But these days (the air quality) is lot better," said a 38-year-old Beijing resident, who wanted to be identified as Mr Tang.

"I’m married with children, and at preschool they can't go outside when there's smog," said another resident who wanted to be known as Ms Gao.  

"It seemed very bad two days ago. That's why I'm wearing a mask today," another lady who was visiting the Chinese capital from Shanghai told CNA.

A recent study by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University found that PM2.5 pollution led to the premature deaths of 49 million people in China between 1980 and 2020.

AIR POLLUTION AND LIFE EXPECTANCY

Dr Hasenkopf noted: “You often see air pollution cited in terms of the number of people it kills. It's millions across the world every year, but that number is so large and so difficult to connect with your own life.”

Her research team that came up with the Air Quality Life Index made that connection, converting air pollution into its impact on human life expectancy.

According to the index, people are losing as much as 3.2 years of life on average in China’s most polluted region of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.

“That's not just necessarily at the end of a long life," Dr Hasenkopf pointed out. 

The figure also factors in lives that are cut short, "like children or babies who are even more deeply affected by air pollution than, say, adult populations," she said. 

NEW ACTION PLAN

In December last year, China released a new air quality action plan to cut PM2.5 levels by 10 per cent next year, compared with 2020.

The plan also includes cutting the proportion of heavily polluted days each year to 1 per cent or less, and reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds by 10 per cent.

China is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060, and wants non-fossil energy to account for at least 20 per cent of its total energy consumption by 2025.

Experts say China has made remarkable progress, but new targets are becoming harder to meet.

“There's still a long way to go,” said Professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

“But improving air quality, because the low hanging fruit is no longer there, will be a more uphill battle.”