Pollution is a known and rampant issue in China today. Stories about the poor air quality of the huge manufacturing nation come out almost daily. This most recent story concerns the falsification of air quality statistics. “China’s environmental protection watchdog will launch a two-year probe to root out falsified air quality data, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. In China, “the central government puts a lot of pressure on local governments to meet strict pollution reduction targets.” These numbers are often very hard to reach and local governments feel the need to lie in order to appease the government and not get in trouble themselves.
In march, President Xi Jinping stated that the violators of the nation’s environmental laws would be punished with an “iron hand.” I believe that China must say such things in order to appear firm when it comes to environmental issues. The country already has a bad wrap when it comes to air pollution and illegal dumping into the ocean and other water sources. “The environmental protection ministry had told local governments to cut air pollutants by 5%-25% by 2017.” This incident has hurt their “environmental image” a great deal. In order to pull away from this stereotype of not being environmentally conscious, things like this will need to stop.
Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-02/china-to-conduct-probe-of-faked-air-pollution-data-xinhua-says
I think it will be a while before we actually see China begin to decrease carbon emissions. According to China, carbon emissions in the nation are down 2%. I think China manipulated its numbers to please the world. China is under a lot of pressure from the world to cut carbon emissions. I think carbon emissions are the one of China’s last priorities. With a slowing economy, I believe China will remain using cheap coal rather than spending extra capital to find cleaner energy sources.
Air quality can’t be measured in a single number. Rather SOx, NOx, PM2.5, ozone (O3), and CFCs, among others. If the only emissions were CO2, China would have clear skies, no acid rain and no ambient-air related pulmonary disease.
Note that the US provided the first independent source of pollution data in Beijing, as they posted readings taken inside the Embassy compound. How many other independent sources are now available? The equipment isn’t that expensive, though you do have to know how to operate it and calibrate it.