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Officials Are Ramping up Efforts to Reduce Pollution

Planes are parked on the apron at Beijing Capital International Airport on January 24, 2022 in Beijing, China. With just over a week to go until the opening ceremony, final preparations are being made in Beijing ahead of the forthcoming 2022 Winter Olympics.
Planes are parked on the apron at Beijing Capital International Airport on January 24, 2022 in Beijing, China. With just over a week to go until the opening ceremony, final preparations are being made in Beijing ahead of the forthcoming 2022 Winter Olympics. Photo: Carl Court (Getty Images)

A stark uptick in pollution has come at just the wrong time for Bejing. In a statement provided to Reuters on Monday, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said the government was prepared to make an all-out push to reduce pollution just two weeks out from the start of the event. That statement comes as new data shows Bejing’ss average concentrations of PM2.5, a key measure of smog, hovered around 205 micrograms per cubic meter. China’s ideal PM2.5 standard is 35 micrograms per cubic meter. The World Health Organization has even more stringent guidelines at 15 micrograms per cubic meter averaged over a 24-hour period, above which the organization deems airinhealthy.

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