On 4 February 2022, the Winter Olympics will start in Beijing. The timing is inconvenient as weather conditions are usually such that they favour air pollution. But Beijing has a contingency plan.
At the moment, Hebei province, where Beijing is located, is undergoing the transition from winter to spring, a time when air pollution occurs quickly. To ensure that the air is clean when athletes from all over the world come to Beijing, drastic measures were already taken last year. The steel mills in the cities around Beijing have shut down their production since August last year. Many coal-fired power plants and heavy industry have been relocated to other parts of the country far away from Beijing. In addition, dirty coal stoves have been replaced with electric and gas heaters in 25 million homes in the two host cities, Beijing and Zhangjiakou. All energy needed during the Games will come exclusively from renewable sources, Chinese officials said. The Zhangjiakou ski resort, which lies 180 kilometres north of Beijing, was connected by a climate-friendly high-speed train, and only electric and gas vehicles are used on the Olympic site itself. So basically, the Olympic site is nothing more than a huge environmental zone. But although Beijing is doing everything it can to make the air more bearable, the Swiss institute IQAir still qualifies the air in the Chinese capital as very unhealthy. The measured values, which were set as a standard by the World Health Organisation (WHO), are still far below the values actually measured in Beijing. Should the environmental pollution worsen even further during the Games, emergency plans will be put into action: they envisage shutting down further production of industrial goods and, if necessary, stopping it altogether. It is a pity that Beijing has only taken real measures to confront air pollution and protect its population with the Games. However, there is not much hope that the trend to reduce emissions will continue after the Games.