Beijing Weighs Pollution-Control Measures
OFFICIALS IN Beijing City are considering new measures to keep the Chinese capital's air clean after two months of successful emergency steps around the Olympics raised public hopes for a permanent improvement in the city's smoggy air.
In recent weeks, city officials have been holding closed-door meetings with environmental think tanks and industry advocates to discuss ways to satisfy stronger demands from the public for clean air -- while limiting the economic consequences of any new restrictions, people familiar with the discussion say.
Some of the measures being mulled include increasing parking fees to discourage driving; charging people to drive in congested downtown areas, as London and some other cities do now; and auctioning automobile license plates to reduce the number of cars added to the roads.
The discussions come as a series of drastic measures to cut pollution ended with the completion of the Olympics in August and the Paralympics in September. Those measures, intended to be temporary, included relocations or closures of hundreds of polluting factories near Beijing, cessation of all construction in the city and tight restrictions on who could drive that nearly halved the number of cars on the roads.
As a result of those steps, which officially ended Saturday, levels of most major pollutants in Beijing were reduced by about half, to levels more typically seen in major developed cities in the West. Beijing residents are worried the old levels of smog will return.
'After the Olympics, the public's expectations are higher,' Du Shaozhong, the deputy head of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, said in an interview. He said the success of the Olympics measures has created public willingness to accept restrictions on their activities in order to fight pollution but also notes economic growth needs to be weighed in forming policy.
Ringed by coal-burning factories and dusty deserts, and jammed with 3.3 million cars on gridlocked streets, Beijing is one of the world's most polluted major cities. In recent years, the government rolled out numerous measures to improve the environment, but growth has often outpaced their regulations and many rules were poorly enforced or ignored. For the Olympics, the government made clean air one of its top priorities and cracked down on violators.
The success of its measures is prompting fresh debate over how much of a price the city is willing to pay for cleaner air -- a debate echoed across China as it struggles with the environmental fallout of three decades of zooming economic growth.
The government recently has been encouraging an unusual amount of public debate on the issue. It has published the results of opinion polls on automobile restrictions that show the public more or less split, with those who own a car against continued restrictions and those who don't supporting them. One online discussion had 400,000 participants.
Groups like the Energy Foundation have suggested low-cost bicycle rentals at subway stops or tiered pricing for different classes of buses to relieve congestion on crowded public transportation, by allowing some people to pay more for better seats.
Industry advocates warn that curbing car use could hurt one of China's pillar industries. The Beijing Auto Industry Association instead advocates higher fuel prices -- a move that is also favored by some environmentalists who want a long-discussed fuel tax enacted.
Mr. Du said the government will move ahead with retiring early about 10% of the city's older, more polluting cars because they don't meet current emissions standards. The 300,000 cars produced about half the city's auto emissions, he said.
Government fleets also are likely to face limited use. And trucks will encounter tougher spot-checks on emissions. Polluting factories that were closed during the games won't be allowed to reopen unless they meet government guidelines, he said.
Traffic was noticeably worse in the first few days after the end of the car restrictions. Still, on Monday, the first working day since the end of the limits, officials said there were 36 congested intersections, fewer than before the Games because many commuters still rode public transit. The skies remained unusually clear, in part because the fall typically has strong winds that carry pollution away.
If Beijing's air stays clean for long, it could weaken the consensus necessary for tougher measures. 'If the pollution comes back and people don't like it, that could force the administration to act,' said Yang Fuqiang, vice president of the Energy Foundation in Beijing. 'Otherwise, I don't think you're going to get pressure. In recent days, the air seems okay, so everybody's relaxed.'
Shai Oster |
|
/1 
