Believe it or Not, Beijing's Air Was 6 Percent Better in 2015

Now that we Beijingers have survived a particulately horrendous (geddit?) December, we can take some solace in this morning's news from Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau that the annual average PM2.5 concentration for 2015 was 6 percent less than the previous year, falling from 80.6 micrograms per cubic meter to 86.2. That 6.2 percent drop in PM2.5 exceeded the government’s goal of a 5 percent reduction.

On top of that, Beijingers enjoyed 186 days that exceeded the (albeit lax) national safety air quality standards in 2015, a 14-day increase from the year prior.

Despite that good news, optimists should take a deep breath, as it were, and keep their enthusiasm in check.

That’s because the considerable improvement in 2015’s pollution averages still fell far short of the national safety standard, which is an average of 35 micrograms per cubic meter, according to a China Radio International report.

The China Daily quoted Beijingers who were less than impressed by the new findings, including one 29-year-old resident named Chen Yang who said: "I didn't feel the clear improvement in air quality in the winter, and many of my friends and colleagues have coughed and experienced sore throats due to the bad air recently.” Meanwhile Li Li, a 52-year-old Beijing civil servant, told the newspaper, "When might we feel the real improvement, instead of the data?"

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That frustration is even being echoed by local officials like Fang Li, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Bureau, who admitted: "PM2.5 pollution is still the prominent problem in Beijing and requires strengthened efforts.”

And while the latest pollution study findings fell short in the eyes of many Beijingers, they do point to a potentially promising trend. We now have three years of solid PM2.5 measurement data from the city to work with, and if we project that forward, we could be looking at amazing air quality – a dozen or so years from now.

To put that 80.6 micrograms per cubic meter in perspective, Bakersfield California – an city in the US known for having the worst air quality nationwide – had an annual average PM2.5 concentration of around 19.7 in 2014. Yes, that's nineteen-point-four. Or in other words, Beijing is roughly four times worse than one of the filthiest places in the United States (poke around with US EPA stats here).

In the meantime, a special sort of demographic in the capital is making the most of that frustratingly slow progress: artists, whose pollution inspired works – like Orange Alert themed costumes and the now infamous smog bricks made by Brother Nut – were outlined in a Creators Project article published yesterday. Pollution has even become a muse for arguably the most technically inclined profession imaginable – meteorology. The Global Times reported yesterday that China Weather Network employees compiled a collage of photos of Beijing’s horizon, showing how “the city’s sky was dominated by smog for the majority of days last year.”

Hopefully improving pollution trends will leave such creative types searching for new muses in 2016.

Image: US EPA