The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic GamesAugust 8-24 2008
Related story: Air quality during the Games ensured
Date/Time: 11:00 a.m., Friday, August 8
Venue: Main Press Conference (MPC)
Sun Weide
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Since everybody is paying attention to the air quality in Beijing, now we have this press conference on the air quality in Beijing. We are glad to have Mr. Du Shaozhong, deputy director and spokesman of Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureauand; Mr. Guo Hu, director of Beijing Meteorological Observatory; and Hao Jiming, the member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Tsinghua's dean of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology.
First of all, I would like to invite Mr. Du to give a briefing on the air quality in Beijing.
Du Shaozhong
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I was thinking that there was no chance for me to meet all of you prior to the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. However, due to the mists and haze days, now I have to meet all of you guys here. Well, it's not a bad thing actually to know about the summer in Beijing.
Actually in the summer in Beijing, we have sunny days, cloudy days and hazy days as well in Beijing. Since people are paying very much attention on the air quality, you must also pay attention on pollutions emission reduction. Ever since July, we adopted temporary emission reduction measures in Beijing. We have every reason to say that today the emission reduction is very much lower than the ordinary level in Beijing. So we believe that the improvement of the air quality is a result of natural thing.
According to the current data we have, from August 1 to August 3, the API numbers were 28, 34, and 36 respectively. From August 4 to 7, the API is 83, 88, 85, and 96 respectively. The set of numbers can explain two things: Firstly, the overall emission of the pollutants in Beijing has remarkably decreased; secondly, it helps to explain us when we have sunny or cloudy days. We will reach the first level of standards of the air quality condition. Even if we have some decrease which will not help to reduce the pollutants, we can even reach the level of standards 2.
Of course, I believe that everybody will be very much interested in the current air quality condition in Beijing. Up to yesterday, I would like to tell you some numbers and date we have. For example, the emission of the major pollutants and the inhalable particulates are 96 and 14 for the sulfur dioxide, 15 for carbon monoxide, 16 for nitrogen dioxide.
Even now, although today we feel it is a hazy day and foggy day. It is not a very nice picture if of the surrounding environment. However, the data we have of the nearest location which is close to the 'Bird's Nest' and the 'Water Cube' shows that the concentration is about 110 and API number is about 80.
Well later if any friends from the press are interested, you can contact us and visit the monitory station, and you can get the first hand information about weather monitory. The numbers I gave you is the illustration that the air quality well met the standards. The previous analysis also helps to explain the relationship between air quality and weather condition. We are here to send one message: through hard work, since August, we have been able to maintain the good air quality condition, and the condition has met relevant standards. In the future we will try the best to provide a better monitory service and to implement relevant temporary and permanent emission reduction measures for the Beijing Olympic Games.
Sun Weide
The floor is open for questions.
Reporter from Australia
This morning, President Rogge of IOC said that he is a little big disappointed in the preparation work done by Beijing as far as the air quality goes. And he said the legacy of this Games is probably going to be the weather. Even though you were shutting down factories in July, do you think you've done enough work considering for the last 7 to 8 years, China has been extremely polluted? And Shanxi of China is ranked in the top 3 most polluted cities in the world. Mr. Du, do you think you've done enough? How do you respond to the comment made by IOC?
Du Shaozhong
First of all, I don't know about the quote made by IOC of the disappointment. I have never heard of it. But I can assure you all the concerning efforts we have made from Beijing relevant departments. Having well organized by the international community, at every press briefings and other occasions, we try our best to introduce the efforts and measures we have taken to improve the air quality. Beijing has gone through a very extraordinary process to improve its air quality. We have achieved quite outstanding results now, in terms of the work for the Games, of course, have also reached smooth process.
Although I would love to give you more time for question, I saw many new faces here so I believe it is necessary for me to brief you the major steps and measures we have taken to improve the air quality in Beijing.
Generally speaking, we have summarized the air quality improvement in Beijing into three major steps. We call it triple jacks. Well the first step is from 1998 to end of 2007. Over 9 years, Beijing Municipal Government has taken 13 stages of steps and more than 200 measures to reduce the pollutant emission from the motor vehicles, coal fire units, construction sites and the industrial pollution sites.
The days meeting the relevant standard has increased from 100 to 246 days. In terms of the percentage, it has increased from 27.4% to 67%, with 40% increase. Also the emission of the major pollutions such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide as well as the inhalable particulates have been decreased by 60.8%, 39.4%, 10.8%, and 19.8% respectively. Especially the emission of three major pollutions has been decreased to reach the relevant national standards.
The second step is covering for the first half of the year. We call it stage 14. In this stage 14, we have taken the comprehensive treatment measures to improve the air quality condition in Beijing. This is the first part of the air quality improvement work specifically before the Games.
In the stage 14, we have all together have 21 projects covering 4 major areas, mainly targeted on the reduction of the pollutants from motor vehicles to meet new pollutants emission standards. Also new standards for the oil products and very strict measures for the coal fire units.
The result is the emission of the sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide have been decreased by 20% and the emission of the inhalable particulates has been decreased by 21%.
All the results and the progress have leaded us to the gate of the Olympic Games. Ever since the July 1, we have implemented the treatment measures to improve air quality conditions. All the temporary measures include the specific traffic control for the motor vehicles and the emission reduction for the heavily polluting industries and construction shuts, some of which have been shut down on the urge to reduce the emission by 30%.
The hard work of BOCOG to improve the air quality condition as well as the achievements and the results have been well recognized by IOC, UNEP (The United Nations Environment Programme) and other international well known scholars and experts.
I believe that the background briefing I've given. If you are familiar with the meteorological conditions, it is not hard for you to understand that the air quality in Beijing is good and is up to standards.
Foreign reporter
The last two days, both you and the IOC have gone through the different implementation of cleaning up the air here in Beijing and how it meets the Chinese standards. The fact that it does not meet the international standards, not even close. I was wondering if I can get a comment from you that how you feel about that missing the international standards that you promised to IOC in 2001 and also what you would tell the 11,000 athletes who are expecting clean air.
Du Shaozhong
We have the experts sitting here on the podium and give you the explanations about the air quality here in Beijing. I am definitely confident and I would like to emphasize that the standards for the air pollution in Beijing especially in terms of the inhalable particulates are in line with the WHO standards. This is very definite. For the 3 commitments in terms of the air quality in Beijing, we tried very hard to meet and honor the 3 commitments.
Actually, I believe that for the 3 commitments we have made for the IOC when we won the bid for the hosting of the Olympic Games, we did great efforts. It will take sometime for us to explain how we tried very hard to honor the 3 commitments. I can only give you the conclusions. I wish I could have more chances to give you more explanation about how we have been tried very hard to honor our commitments.
The conclusions are the following; the first is that the monitoring on 4 major pollutants are carried out everyday, and we also issue in the press in Chinese and English, in terms of the four major pollutants in the air. In terms of the air quality improvement, we have tried very hard in terms of the triple jump. We also tried very hard to make sure the air quality could be improved. And we can have a good air quality during Games-time. I have introduced to you about measures to control the pollutants. What I am confident is that for media, we would ensure that the air quality during the Games is good enough.
AP
Just a follow up on the last question. Many independent people were in town, AP stared yesterday we found 373 microgrammes per thousand or whatever, the WHO standard is 50, so it is as much as eight times higher than WHO standard. Is that satisfactory for the international athletes? What can be done to get the particular matter out of the air, which is obviously the problem? We can't expect you to control humidity and heat, but you did promise to control the air quality, which is not in control.
Du Shaozhong
As to what steps taken to monitor the air quality in Beijing, I can certainly ask our expert to give you some explanation on that. We need to look at if the measures are scientific or not. Some of the measures are misled in terms of the air quality.
What I would like to exchange ideas with media friends on two issues:
1. Trying to observe and judge the air quality by photo is not scientific. Photo can only reflect the visibility but they can't reflect the real air quality. If we only judge the air quality by photo, the world won't make such effort to inventing monitory automatic system.
2. The second concern is that some of the individual friends are trying to observe the air quality by uncertified machines. I used to get an interview from the press; the journalist who interviewed me took out a potable instrument given by one of his friends to measure the air quality. And he said if the expert said no, he won't use it.
I think it is indeed a common sense question. As for instrument used by the gentlemen, it is something intend for the indoor air quality assessment but not for outdoor assessment. Moreover, I am not sure if the instrument is certified or not. As for the air quality monitoring, we need to have standards. For indoor monitor, we need to close doors and windows for 24 hours and then we can test. As for the outdoor, we need to have standard measures too. Actually, what I have emphasizing is that we need to let the general public know about the scientific air quality monitoring. For the environment during the Olympics, we do hope that we have a very good and playable environment. Thank you.
Hao Jiming
What I want to add is that as for the air quality measuring we need to have very good quality up to standard instrument to do the monitoring. And as for the data of air quality monitoring, we have very consistent data and also we need to have up to standard data. For example, the inhalable particulates, we need to have the data from the consecutive of 12 hours so the time is very important. As for the air quality monitoring, we need to have a network. For example, in Beijing we have more than 20 air quality monitoring network. What I want to emphasize is that we need to have good quality instrument. We need to have enough time, and we also need to have geographically sites in order to collect the data. So personally speaking, I am not sure about the data mentioned by the gentlemen. What I want to say is that if any of you is interested in air quality monitoring, we can do it together.
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