Beijing's Air Quality Is Worse Than Smoke-Filled California Cities
(Bloomberg) -- Beijing's air quality deteriorated to the worst in a year-and-a-half on Wednesday, with authorities forecasting it'd be at least another day before conditions improve.
Levels of the most-hazardous, tiny particulate matter -- known as PM 2.5, which can lodge deep in a person's lungs -- soared to 288 as of noon in the Chinese capital, according to data published by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. That's 11 times higher than what the World Health Organization says is the average level of healthy exposure in a 24-hour period.
It's also higher than PM 2.5 levels recorded in several Californian cities where the air has been affected by local wildfires. The reading was 161 in Napa Valley, 188 in Sacramento and 164 in San Francisco as of 11 a.m. Beijing time, the U.S. government's AirNow website showed.
Beijing's pollution levels, though high on Wednesday, are also significantly below heights reached earlier in the decade. The gauge reached 761 on March 22, 2010, before a government campaign to curb pollution by cutting down on the use of coal and fuel oil. Officials are particularly focused on improving air quality in the winter heating season, which runs from November through March, when energy demand is at its peak.
Many residents of the Chinese capital responded by posting pictures to social media with the tag “gone are the buildings," a practice that's spread as the air worsens during the winter. Some areas of Hebei Province and Beijing experienced visibility of less than 50 meters.
“The only motivation to go to work this morning is that my office has a much better ventilation system and hundreds of air purifiers to ensure the air quality is better than at home," quipped one person on social media.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Claire Che in Beijing at yche16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Richard Frost at rfrost4@bloomberg.net, Sharon Chen, John Liu
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
With assistance from Editorial Board
-
Signature Play: The Classic Cocktail Is Dead. Or Is It?
Classic cocktails are disappearing from India's cocktail menus. But they're still being ordered, taught to bartenders and borrowed from. So, who's really having the last drink?
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
