OLYMPICS-BEIJING WILL MEET CLEAN AIR TARGETS – ADVISOR
12.4.07 Enviar esta notaNick Mulvenney
Beijing’s contingency plans to battle pollution for the 2008 Olympics are based on extensive scientific study and will prove effective in providing clean air for the Games, a senior advisor to the organisers said
CHINA, Hong Kong; December 4, 2007.- Dr Sarah Liao, a scientist and former minister in the Hong Kong government, is also convinced the environmental commitments she helped draw up for the host city bid in 2001 will result in a lasting legacy for the whole of China.
Pollution is a major concern for athletes and officials planning for next August. Olympic chief Jacques Rogge has said some events may have to be rescheduled if the air quality is not good enough.
Doubts persist that Beijing organisers are aware of what they need to do to solve the problem despite assurances that contingency plans are being drawn up based on the results of trials last August, when 1.3 million cars were banned from the city’s roads for four days.
“It’s not just something you pull out of your hat,” Liao told Reuters in an interview.
“This list was constructed through very extensive scientific study, they have asked Tsinghua and (Peking) Universities to model on various meteorological scenarios,” said added.
“They have gone through an extensive study. They are getting the data from the trials and going back to validate the models. We will fulfil our original bid commitment, namely to meet Chinese and pre-2005 World Health Organisation standards on air quality.”
One concrete result of the August trial, she said, was that measures — such as putting guards on pump nozzles — had been introduced to stop petrol fumes escaping into the air from thousands petrol stations, taking 20,000 tonnes of Volatile Organic Chemicals out of the atmosphere.
“In Hong Kong … it took seven years altogether, in Beijing it’s going to take seven months,” said Liao.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMMES
Beijing has invested 120 billion yuan (US$16.22 billion) in environmental programmes and Paolo Revellino, author of a United Nations Environmental Programme report, told Reuters last month he thought the work Beijing had done in bridging the gap to developed nations was “astounding”.
“In a nutshell there has been great improvement in air, water, waste, ozone depleting substances and the greening of Beijing,” said Liao. “They have set things in track that will never turn back.”
Aspects that pleased Liao most were that Beijing had leapfrogged to much higher standards in areas such as vehicle emissions and that environmental considerations now had to be taken into account in any new projects in the city.
“They have changed the energy structure from coal-based to a natural gas-based which wouldn’t have happened without the Olympics, or at least it would have taken much longer,” she said.
Liao said the oft-derided “blue sky day” tally, the measure by which city authorities have trumpeted environmental improvement, was not part of the original bid commitment but a method of getting local people to relate to the issue.
Getting Beijing’s 15.5 million citizens onside was an important part of making improvements, Liao said, and, she thought, the reason why the authorities had yet to release details of their contingency plans for next August.
“It is not as the West thinks, that the government can just call the shots and the people will just fall in line,” she said.
“The public will have to participate, you can’t just impose it upon them. They want to have to meet the standards but to have a minimum impact on the people and on the economy.”
Beijing’s booming economy is the main cause of pollution — a thousand new cars hit the streets every day — and Liao said the city government was aware that there was still a long way to go.
“I don’t think we can solve all the problems, not one single city has been able to do that in a short period of seven years,” she said.
“But the Games have accelerated change, the environmental system has been institutionalised. All these things will make for a much more environmentally friendly Beijing and this is the legacy.”
(Reuters)
Enlaces Relacionados
