China's plan to reduce smog in cities has just moved it to other regions

The air in Beijing was so polluted that you could not see across the street. Thousands of parents and children have overflowed hospitals and rows of babies have been hooked up to machines with respiratory problems. If you zoom out on a map, the smog cloud covers one-sixth of the country.

In 2013, China's airborne particles, which were often bad, had become a complete "airpocalypse" due to increased iron and steel production, diesel trucking, and increased production. coal energy.

"A normal day of normal pollution" equals a score of 160. I think [one] The rating was above 600, "said Anthony Singleterry, a Seattle resident who lived in Beijing at the time.

In response to the pollution, the Chinese government quickly developed and launched a smog plan in its big cities. It set ambitious air quality targets for the capital region and also achieved them: by 2017, particulate air pollution in the region had been reduced by 25%.

However, as a team of Chinese and international scientists have found, this quick search for cleaner air for cities has necessitated the outsourcing of most of the country's coal-based energy production and, hence, from air pollution to the poorer neighboring regions.

A new study in Science Advances examines unintentional damage caused by the plan to bordering regions.

Under this policy, 53% of Beijing's energy output was transferred elsewhere. More rural areas often have less efficient technologies and less stringent environmental standards.

The study found that the plan increased particle pollution and carbon emissions nationwide. This has also resulted in water scarcity in the more rural provinces, which now supply water to coal plants. Overall, according to the study, these measures could only transmit pollution problems to the less developed regions of the country.

"Our intention is certainly not to blame or discourage environmental policies designed to reduce air pollution", but rather to look at the unwanted side effects of isolated environmental policies, said Kuishuang Feng of the & # 39; 39, University of Maryland, co-author of the study.

Part of the smog from these new power plants located in neighboring areas will also be returned to cities, reversing some of the progress made in achieving the 25% reduction target of pollution.

"Especially with a problem like air pollution, it's not the smartest scientific approach," Chris Nielsen, executive director of the Harvard-China Project, told Grist, adding that policies should be more holistic and long-term. "China's air pollution policies may be too narrow, both in their spatial focus and in their environmental focus, focusing on a single pollutant."

Nielsen said the Chinese government has an interest in setting such narrow goals: they are easy to measure and communicate easily to the public. A multi-faceted environmental policy requires "complex and complicated science," he said. "So it's hard to explain what you're chasing."

Lara Cushing, a public health researcher at San Francisco State University, said she's already witnessed this type of coaching effect: here in the states. She has published work on similar issues related to California's cap-and-trade program.

"The problem is that without a larger coordinated strategy, there are very big leakage – pollution issues that are just moving," Cushing said.

After a study conducted in 2018, California had significantly reduced emissions at the state level, but at the expense of the poorest communities, the state had developed its own justice tool to map pollution by county and show areas where people were particularly vulnerable.

The study on China is important, said Cushing, because it highlights not only the effect of contagion; This shows how unforeseen consequences can also have an impact on water and climate.

Since China achieved its initial targets set after "airpocalypse" for 2017, it has put in place a new, slightly more comprehensive climate plan. His name translates as: "Plan of Action to Win the Blue Sky War". No city in China yet reaching the particle levels recommended by the World Health Organization, the new policy expands air pollution targets to all cities, rather than the world's largest cities. 39 to those in the capital region. .

Since 2013, the Chinese government has also restructured its environmental policy staff. Climate policy was previously the responsibility of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development and now has its own branch. According to Nielsen, this has been done to allow scientists to coordinate their policies more closely with government officials.

"This is proof that the government recognizes, at least to some extent, what is described in this document," said Nielsen.