China in it pursue to become the largest industrial country in the world to compete with the US, Japan and Europe, had to pay a large environmental bill by burning more Oil and Coal. This has led to the largest CO2 emission worldwide that had a direct effect on all their major cities that were filled with smog. These industrial cities were deprived of clean air and blue skies.
This has lasted for decades and the Chinese were fed up by this situation because they thought that was a very high price to pay where their health and that of their children, they were not allowed to have more than one, were at stake.
The government, now with a deep pocket, has to react and has made a very clear pledge to ‘bring back the blue skies,’” said Sydney-based Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “Hardly a week goes by when China doesn’t bring in a new regulation or policy to further this commitment.”
This plan was made on different levels, first by halting the usage of power plants that run on coal and replace them by gas. Start generating electricity from alternative energy sources like wind but mostly solar. Replace cars and motorcycle that run on fossil fuel to run on electricity that the country is already producing using clean energy. It has pursued a target to dominate the global electric-vehicle market and it succeeded. Now China is the global leader in EV and its targeting over 7 million annual sales by 2025.
China started to exercise pressure on their local authorities by extending monthly air quality rankings to 169 cities from 74. By enforcing stricter emissions regulation China is trying to avoid another so-called “smogocalypse” events that haunted their cities in the past.
All these measures allowed the Beijing residents, to reap the benefits of China’s anti-smog push by breathing some of the cleanest air in a decade but most importantly to see the blue skies, that the government already pledged.
China has a lot of lessons to learn from the west and their industrial revolution as Charles Dickens described the “smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle” in 19th century London. China’s rapid cleanup could outpace previous efforts, according to Jiang Kejun, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute under China’s National Development & Reform Commission.
“Our technology is better than that in old smoggy London, so it’s likely that China may go faster in curbing air pollution,” Jiang said.
We can only hope that Chinese Cities see more Blue Sky for the sake of their people and the rest of the world.
High carbon dioxide levels cause plants to thicken their leaves, could worsen climate change effects. To read more click zouhourfestival.com
