As it gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing has been awarded an unwelcome new accolade: the air pollution capital of the world.
Satellite data have revealed that the city is one of the worst environmental victims of China's spectacular economic growth, which has brought with it air- pollution levels that are blamed for more than 400,000 premature deaths a year.
According to the European Space Agency, Beijing and its neighboring provinces have the planet's worst levels of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause fatal damage to the lungs.
An explosive increase in car ownership is blamed for a sharp rise in unhealthy emissions. In the past five years the number of vehicles clogging Beijing's streets has more than doubled to nearly 2.5 million. It is expected to top the 3 million mark by the start of the Olympics in 2008.
China is the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, and the World Bank has warned it is home to 16 of the planet's 20 most air-polluted cities.
WORST TO COME
According to the European satellite data, pollutants in the sky over China have increased by about 50 percent during the past 10 years.
Senior officials warn that worse is still to come. At a recent seminar Zhang Lijun (張力軍), deputy director of the environmental protection agency, said that pollution levels could more than quadruple within 15 years, unless the country can slow the rise in energy consumption and automobile use.
A recently published study by the Chinese Academy on Environmental Planning blamed air pollution for 411,000 premature deaths -- mostly from lung and heart-related diseases -- in 2003. It said that a third of China's urban residents were exposed to harmful levels of pollution.
More than 100 million people live in cities such as Beijing, where the air is considered "very dangerous."
TOXIC WATER
Conservation groups say acid rain falls on a third of China's territory and 70 percent of rivers and lakes are so full of toxins they can no longer be used for drinking water.
China's environmental strategy will be under discussion at a G8 meeting on climate change to be held in London this week.
Energy and environment ministers from the G8 nations and the developing world are to thrash out ways of developing sustainable clean-energy sources and climate-change strategy.
G8 MEETING
But environmental groups fear the meeting in London will simply produce hot air unless ministers agree on firm proposals for a UN conference in Montreal.
The Kyoto treaty legally commits signatories to trim their output of six greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, by 2012 compared with 1990 levels. However, its impact has been limited by the US opting out.
"They should reiterate their commitments to Kyoto and emissions reductions and the carbon markets created by them," said Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace International's climate policy adviser.
"Unless they're binding, hard commitments, it's just wishy-washy talk of voluntary partnerships and fluffy agreements," Sawyer said.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
RSS