{"id":6306,"date":"2018-07-18T15:49:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T07:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/?p=6306"},"modified":"2020-07-15T11:57:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T03:57:30","slug":"after-best-january-on-record-beijing-pm2-5-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/after-best-january-on-record-beijing-pm2-5-worsens\/","title":{"rendered":"After Best January on Record, Beijing PM2.5 Worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After best January on record, China\u2019s air pollution worsens<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

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An analysis by Smart Air of data from pollution stations found that, after Beijing\u2019s best year on record, Beijing PM2.5 levels are now worse than 2017. Data from 11 other major cities showed similar trends.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Beijing<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Compared to the first half of 2017, this year is down 14%, from 65 micrograms\/m<\/span>3<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0to 56.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Yet almost all of this progress came from a wildly clean January. Particulate levels in March and June were all worse than last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Xi’an<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

This pattern repeated in several other northern Chinese cities. Xi\u2019an was down 17%.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But this progress was due to January and February alone. Since then, Xi\u2019an has returned to last year\u2019s levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

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No Improvement in Southern China<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

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Shanghai<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This improvement didn\u2019t extend past the Yangtze River. This first half of 2018, Shanghai\u2019s pollution was actually up 4%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Broken down by month, it\u2019s a regular pollution year so far in Shanghai.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Controls Loosen After Historic Winter<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

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This winter saw extraordinary pollution controls<\/span><\/a>, from forcing factories to stop production to switches from coal to natural gas. However, there are reports that controls have relaxed<\/span><\/a> since then. This could explain why Beijing\u2019s air is now as bad as before\u2014and why southern China has seen little change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how 8 other major Chinese cities fared year over year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Changsha<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Changsha is down 5% so far this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Chongqing<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Chongqing is down 20% so far this year. Unlike other cities, Chongqing saw progress in every month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Chengdu<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Chengdu is down 12% this year so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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But like other cities north of the Yangtze, Chengdu returned to \u201cnormal\u201d after January.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Harbin<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Harbin\u2019s pollution has dropped 14% in 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shenyang<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Nearby Shenyang is down 20% so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shenzhen<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same old in Shenzhen. Although Shenzhen has lower PM2.5 than most cities in China, Shenzhen still averages\u00a0air pollution levels that cause long-term health damage<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hangzhou<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In a year when Shanghai’s air got worse, Hangzhou was actually down 7%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Zhengzhou<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Not far from Beijing, Zhengzhou is down 12% this year. That’s more progress than Beijing, but that still leaves Zhengzhou with 25% higher PM2.5 than Beijing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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After a record winter, air pollution is back to earlier levels or worse. Most of Southern China is “same old.”<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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

After best January on record, China\u2019s air pollution worsens     An analysis by Smart Air of data from pollution stations found that, after Beijing\u2019s best year on record, Beijing PM2.5 levels are now worse than 2017. Data from 11 other major cities showed similar trends.   Beijing Compared to … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1035,"featured_media":9189,"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":[17,126,257],"tags":[272,75,204,306,55,74,226],"class_list":["post-6306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-pollution","category-smart-air-news","category-pm2-5","tag-air-pollution","tag-beijing","tag-chengdu","tag-china","tag-guangzhou","tag-pm2-5","tag-shanghai","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306","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=6306"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9190,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions\/9190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}