China takes radical action to clear smog pollution in time for the Olympics

Last Modified: 20 Jul 2008
By: Lindsey Hilsum

All construction work in Beijing has stopped and traffic has been halved, with odd numbered licence plates one day, even the next.

The Chinese government has ordered factories to close to clear the air for the Olympics. It may well work, but it will cost ordinary Chinese a lot of money, yet it won't solve the the capital's long term environmental problems.

A nasty mixture of fog, dust, ground level ozone and sundry chemicals creates Beijing smog but with a bit of luck and a through wind you can breathe quite easily in.

Olympic teams are training elsewhere because they fear air pollution may affect their performance. But the government ordered the capital to grind to a halt to clear the air.

At Beijing city limits the queue goes back for miles. Some of it is for security, but large trucks are now barred from the capital. Some have taken days to get there with supplies for Beijing businesses, only to be turned back.

Beijing's biggest polluter, Capital Steel, is moving out of the city by 2010. But it's nearly idle now, radically reducing production for the Olympics.

That will undoubtedly improve air quality but there is a knock-on economic impact.

Small workshops are keeping going as long as they can, but with no supply of steel some will shut for two months. At one business, workers will be on one third their normal wage, hoping the enterprise doesn't go bust.

Maybe it will work, maybe the air will clear in Beijing. But the people here, the factory owners and workers, are going to lose a lot of money. They don't want to talk about it in public though, because they're afraid they'll get into trouble if they criticise the Olympics.

The government says it's a green Olypmics... the venues recycle water and have solar power. They're festooned with plants and flowers, with most connected to an automatic watering system. Beijing will look clean and green for the Games but critics say the underlying environmental cost is huge.

Years of poor rains have made it harder to grow food in Hebei, just outside Beijing. The water table has fallen, as the huge, growing city has sucked up groundwater. The reservoirs on which the farmers depend have been earmarked as Olympic emergency supply with channels built to divert precious water from the countryside into the thirsty capital. The farmers are given no choice.

Clearing the smog for a few weeks is one thing; solving Beijing's long-term environmental problems is quite another.