Blue-sky thinking: Beijing’s emission mission | The World Weekly

The skies above Beijing were clear on Sunday as delegates from around the country descended on the capital for the National People’s Congress. Big political events in the city usually have this positive side-effect for locals, as the government temporarily shuts down factories and limits vehicle use to create an idyllic backdrop, dubbed ‘NPC blue’. Inside the Great Hall of the People, Premier Li Keqiang promised that smog-free days would become the norm rather than the exception. “We will make our skies blue again!”

Xi Jinping: Mr. Blue Sky?

The Communist Party’s recent rhetoric is a remarkable volte-face for a nation which has pursued aggressive industrialisation since Chairman Mao and become the world’s top polluter in the process. Images of thick smog blotting out the Beijing sun and stories of Chinese citizens buying bottled fresh air may grab headlines abroad but the government’s main concern is with the toll pollution has taken on public health and the economy. Air pollution causes around 1.6 million premature Chinese deaths every year, and public frustration has forced Beijing to change its ways.

Although President Hu Jintao did acknowledge the need to transition to a greener economy, it was his successor, Xi Jinping, who launched China’s environmental push in earnest. In 2013 his government unveiled a National Air Pollution Action Plan and in 2015 he signed the Paris Accords - two hugely ambitious measures which, along with several smaller steps, have already improved the situation markedly.

China’s use of coal peaked in 2013, carbon dioxide emissions are flattening out, and air quality has generally improved across the east of the country as industrial controls kicked in. China is by a long way the world's leading investor in green energy, spending $103 billion on renewables (excluding large hyrdroelectric dams) in 2015. This accounted for well over a third of the global total, and the US, which came in second, spent less than half that sum.

It has not all been sunshine. Although air quality is broadly getting better, the effect is not necessarily felt on the streets of China’s metropolises. Beijing declared a smog-induced ‘red alert’ for the first time ever in 2015, and thousands of ‘smog refugees’ fled the capital last winter seeking fresh air.

In part, this is because some polluters have until recently slipped through the net. “Coal-fired boilers at small industries and people on the streets cooking with coal for snacks - they’re not the largest sources of pollution,” Jennifer Turner, director of the Wilson Centre’s China Environment Forum, told The World Weekly. “But it can make a difference on the street level.”

Progress has also been stalled by a recent “economic policy shift back to the old playbook of stimulating heavy industry and construction with massive spending and credit stimulus”, adds Lauri Myllyvirta, a pollution expert at Greenpeace. Whether China can reconcile rapid growth targets with a shift away from manufacturing is one of the great unknowns in modern economics. Mr. Xi’s flagship ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative also involves significant investment in fossil fuels.

Green giant?

Mr. Li’s latest announcement will fuel hopes that China’s anti-pollution drive is going full steam ahead. Mr. Myllyvirta highlights changes to emissions monitoring in the coal burning industry, measures to tackle small-scale coal burning, a stronger environmental inspections agency and a push to cut clean energy waste.

Nonetheless, Beijing faces an uphill battle after picking off these low-hanging fruit. The policies it has outlined thus far, Mr. Myllyvirta said, are not "sufficient to reach the target of meeting national air quality standards in all cities by 2030”.

Regardless, Mr. Xi is now an environmental leader on the world stage. President Donald Trump’s nascent administration is slashing green regulations and funding, whereas Mr. Xi’s unprecedented speech at Davos this year framed China as the most powerful defender of the Paris Accords.

As such, China may cut a paradoxical figure. Decades of industry-led growth cannot simply grind to a halt, and transitioning towards a green economy will take time. “For the next five or ten years China will continue to struggle with air pollution problems while still being a leader on clean energy,” said Ms. Turner. “How do you turn the Titanic that quickly?”