After a week of battling smog so thick and noxious that cars were ordered off the road in Beijing and factories temporarily idled across northern and central China, the latest air-quality crisis in China is beginning to ease. Yet no cold front can easily sweep away the underlying factors that led to it — rapid economic growth built on a foundation of an abundant supply of cheap, dirty fossil fuels, poorly regulated and heavily polluting factories and widespread urbanization.
In fact, China and other developing countries, especially India, are likely to continue to see similar problems in the near future unless dramatic steps are taken to curb an array of pollutants, experts familiar with China’s environmental issues told Mashable.
See also: Shanghai's Disappearing Skyline: 21 Images of Record Pollution
For example, coal, which contributes much of the pollution that resulted in the smog during recent days, still supplies more than 70% of China’s energy used today, according to Ailun Yang, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington.
For now, a cold front sweeping in from far northern China is forecast to bring clearer skies, lower temperatures and blustery air to the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai, where the air quality deteriorated to dangerous levels in recent days. For at least a week, a hazardous haze enveloped portions of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, eastern Shanxi, northwestern Shandong, northern Henan and the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi, among other areas, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
The thick smog that has blanketed much of China resulted from an area of high pressure that was draped across northern and eastern China. This led to a period with light winds and sinking air aloft, which helped to trap pollutants in the lower atmosphere. In China, the use of coal for heat increases the likelihood of such smoggy conditions during the winter, according to Judy Shapiro, a professor at American University and author of the book, “China’s Environmental Challenges."
Similar situations have occurred in other countries, including the U.S., but the Chinese air pollution is noteworthy for how extensive and intense it is, even showing up on satellite imagery from space.
“The Chinese people themselves are really worried and really angry about it, and this mood has been putting a lot of pressure on the central government,” Shapiro said in an interview.

Image: NOAA/ESRL

In response to public pressure, the Chinese government has been taking steps to incentivize energy efficiency, and shift some power plants from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas, among other measures. According to Yang, the government has even banned new coal-fired power plants in major cities, and China’s renewable electricity growth has outpaced that of the U.S. in recent years, as well.
“It’s fair to say that the Chinese government is taking this very seriously, and taking very strong actions,” Yang said. “Whether or not they're strong enough to solve the problem in the period of time that the public wants to see [remains to be seen]."
During this most recent air-quality crisis, the concentration of hazardous particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, since they are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less (far smaller than the diameter of a human hair), rose to nearly 20 times the safe level established by the World Health Organization.
Particulates of less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are believed to pose the highest health risks since they are small enough to seep into a person’s lungs and bloodstream. The U.S. EPA has tied such pollutants to significant health effects, including higher likelihood of premature death, respiratory illness and heart disease.
Because of the health risks posed by poor air quality, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, along with American diplomatic facilities in other parts of China, operates equipment to provide air-quality-index readings that are technically meant for Americans living in China, but have been used by many Chinese citizens to fact check what their government has been telling them regarding the air quality. These AQI readings were well into the “hazardous” range during the height of the smog event earlier this week.
Coal-fired power plants are a major source of particulate matter and other air pollution, but the abundance of cheap domestic coal reserves in China means that coal will be a key part of the energy mix for decades to come, according to U.S. government projections and independent experts. During the next 10 years, U.S. projections show that China will likely add the equivalent of about one new 600-megawatt coal plant every 10 days.

In a sign of the growing public frustration with the Chinese government over air-pollution issues, this week a judge will decide whether to hear the first-ever lawsuit by a Chinese citizen to hold their local government responsible for exposure to potentially deadly air pollution.
Even if it is quashed by a judge, the lawsuit may prove to be a watershed moment for the burgeoning environmental-justice movement in China.
“I don’t think that one particular litigation will have a very big impact … but it is an example that the public wants to do something,” Yang said.
China’s air pollution woes are not simply a domestic issue, either. For one thing, so many goods are now manufactured in China and shipped elsewhere, that the U.S. and Europe share responsibility for some of the pollution, according to Shapiro. Already, China has been shifting some factories internally, moving them away from cities and into more rural areas, in an effort to reduce the smog in urban areas. However, this only adds to the pollution burden in outlying areas, which have less political clout, Shapiro and Yang said.
In addition, some of the pollutants, such as mercury, which is a potentially hazardous heavy metal, have been detected in the western U.S., having hitched a ride on the jet stream blowing from west to east across the Pacific Ocean.
“This is a global crisis,” Shapiro said. “China needs all the help it can get to deal with this problem, rather than being blamed.”
“This is a tremendously sad situation. China is a beautiful country beneath that smog.”
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The Great Wall of China sits under thick smog Monday. Approximately 15 percent of China's total land has been covered in the past six days.
An increasing number of people in Beijing are seeking hospital treatment for respiratory problems due to heavy smog that has engulfed the city.
A man and a car are obscured by heavy smog in China's northern Hebei province Wednesday.
Traffic inches along a main away on Tuesday, the sixth straight day severe pollution has affected Beijing. A roadside in Chinese reads: "Somg weather, reduce going outside."