{"id":5225,"date":"2018-01-21T00:48:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-20T16:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/?p=5225"},"modified":"2020-07-15T11:57:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T03:57:12","slug":"chinas-air-get-better-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/chinas-air-get-better-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Did China\u2019s Air Get Better in 2017?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beijing said they would cut air pollution in a plan announced in 2017<\/a> (and a few months before that<\/a> and another one back in 2013<\/a>). But China\u2019s Environment Ministry forecasted<\/a> that weather conditions this winter would make China\u2019s air pollution particularly bad this winter.<\/p>\n

What does the data say? Here\u2019s how PM2.5 has trended in six major cities from 2011 to 2017.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"China<\/p>\n

Most cities have seen a steady decrease for the last 4 to 5 years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beijing<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next I analyzed 2014-2016 averages against 2017. Beijing was down 27%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some of that outperformance was because February through August were better in 2017 (red line) than in previous years (blue line). But the largest decrease was in the winter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shanghai<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shanghai\u2019s PM2.5 was down 22%.<\/p>\n

\"Shanghai<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unlike Beijing, Shanghai\u2019s improvement was much steadier throughout the year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shanghai<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chengdu<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chengdu\u2019s PM2.5 fell 15%, just a year after tying Beijing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chengdu has seen none of the miraculous winter Beijing has seen. Winter so far has actually been slightly worse than previous years for Chengdu. Instead, most of Chengdu\u2019s improvement came in the summer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Xi\u2019an<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Xi\u2019an is the biggest exception to China\u2019s improvement. The capital of Shaanxi actually saw PM2.5 rise 7%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Xi'an<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019an had a rough January and February, followed by an average rest of the year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Xi'an<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bad News #1: Here\u2019s Why People May Be Breathing More Pollution<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pollution is psychological. Compare 2013 to 2015. Back in 2013, Beijing\u2019s PM2.5 was worse, yet Baidu searches for air purifiers (and probably general awareness) skyrocketed 500%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As China\u2019s air pollution goes down, we risk getting lulled into a false sense of security and packing away our masks and purifiers. So even as PM2.5 decreases, many people may actually expose their lungs to more <\/em>pollution.<\/p>\n

Why do I say \u201cfalse sense of security?\u201d Because of bad news #2:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bad News #2: China\u2019s Air is Still Toxic<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

The improvement is great, but China still lags far behind other major like Tokyo, New York, and London.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Major<\/p>\n

The five major cities I analyzed were all within a few micrograms of the World Health Organization\u2019s annual limit<\/a>. Yet even China\u2019s cleanest major city, Shenzhen, averages almost three times the limit. Beijing averages nearly six times the limit. If you live in a major Chinese city, you\u2019re breathing dangerous air on an average day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bad News #3: China\u2019s Ozone Is Getting Worse<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ozone is arguably China\u2019s second most serious pollutant, and ozone hasn\u2019t gone down. In Beijing and Chengdu, it\u2019s roughly flat. Meanwhile, in Shanghai and Xi\u2019an, ozone has gone up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shanghai \"Xi'an<\/p>\n

Cleaning up China\u2019s air is a long-term project. Air-breathers like you and me can only hope China\u2019s progress continues into 2018!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beijing said they would cut air pollution in a plan announced in 2017 (and a few months before that and another one back in 2013). But China\u2019s Environment Ministry forecasted that weather conditions this winter would make China\u2019s air pollution particularly bad this winter. What does the data say? Here\u2019s … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1035,"featured_media":5437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-pollution","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1035"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5225"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11520,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5225\/revisions\/11520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}