Press conference: Air quality during the Games

Date/Time: 10:00 a.m., Saturday, August 9

Venue: Main Press Conference (MPC)

Wang Hui, the host of the press conference.

Wang Hui

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience, I know you've been here all day long. The press conference is jointly hosted by BOCOG and IOC. You are interested in the weather. We are honored to have the key figures in this field, Mr. Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, United nations under-secretary general, Mr. Satinder Bindra, Director of Division of Communications and Public Information of the UN environment agency, Mr. Du Shaozhong, deputy director and spokesman of Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. First of all, now I would like to invite Mr. Achim Steiner to brief you on the environment in Beijing and the work Beijing has done in this part.

Achim Steiner gives a speech.

Achim Steiner

Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome for you in the morning after an extraordinary evening at the Bird's Nest. We wanted to invite you to a press conference this morning to look at the environmental dimension of the Olympic Games. As you know, in the last few days, a great deal of reporting has occurred about the air quality issued the notion of 'Green Games'. What we would like to do this morning is to share with you some of the scientific and empirical basis that underpins the commitment of BOCOG, Beijing and China in hosting a 'Green Games'.

We do so as the United Nations Environmental Program that has agreed to be a partner in advising Beijing in terms of environmental standards and technologies. But we were advisers. We assisted at the time in trying to determine some of the commitments that could underpin the hosting the 'Green Olympics'. We also completed the invitation of BOCOG, a report in 2007 that looked at the questions that these were targets and commitments, what we achieved and not achieved.

The United Nations Environment Program is a very rigorous organization. We based our conclusion on scientific and empirical evidence. This report is available online that allows you to determine the assessment of how far the commitment that go well beyond the issue of air quality, and have it been met or not met.

I personally spend the last two days because to me it was also very important having heard and read many of the international commentaries about the environment achievements. To look once again and personally on the empirical basis upon which data has been generated, I spent 2 days going around the public transport system and traveling on the underground. I visited the public transport cooperation and spent the afternoon in their control room. I also spend the afternoon in the Environmental Protection Bureau. I visited monitoring stations, and spend the afternoon again in the control room looking at the online real time generation of the monitoring data about the environment quality of air atmosphere in Beijing.

Ladies and gentlemen, one thing I can say with certainty that for a capital city in the developing world. You may have never yet encountered a system that is as supplicated and modern and verifiable as you find installed here. There have been some questions about whether monitoring data can be relied on. Let me tell you that the 27 monitoring stations are state of the art technology. They are calibrated. They are not machines you can manipulate, at least in terms of the data that made available to you and to us and to the citizens of Beijing, I can assure you so far as anyone can form a visit like this, this is a data that we can work with.

As you know the data also shows the issues on air quality of particular matter. The Beijing host is struggling at the moment of the weather conditions to keep within the range that they have committed the quality for the athletes. Here I would like to refer to 2 legacies that will underpin the questions about the 'Green Games' in Beijing. As you know, and the Chinese people and the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau knows, China has a very painful legacy of pollution in the rivers, in the air, land degradation and deforestation. It is a legacy built up over the decade. That legacy has post a particular challenge to a host city for the Olympic Games. But this is perhaps the important aspect that we should not lose perspective of. In addressing this legacy, the objective and ambition of Beijing was to create a legacy in the future of the city of Beijing and its citizens through the hosting of the Olympic Games. You have heard a lot for the last few days about the kinds of measures that Beijing has put in place over the last few years.

I don't want to give you too much detailed figures and numbers. But let me just give you a little bit of context becuase it is important to appreciate the magnitude and task that Beijing made. Many industrialized countries are struggling at the moment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions even by its 3-4% when the economy is growing by 1-2%. The city of Beijing in the last seven years has grown its population by 20%. Energy consumption has increased by 50%. The number of cars on the streets of Beijing has doubled from 1.5 million to 3 million. So the backdrop by which the city of Beijing was trying to achieve an environmental quality was enormous because when the economy grows at 10-12% per year. You can sit in your armchair and criticize the fact that people are using more energy in buying cars. This is universal phenomenon. As wealth comes, people want to have more comfort and more convenience. So the phenomenon of economic growth is widely known. Against this backdrop to realize the kinds of commitment that the city of Beijing and BOCOG made in hosting the olympcs do take on an enormous magnitude.

I'd like to say that from our perspective as UNEP, one thing is to access the commitment made, and the extent to which they have been met, both in terms of the quality of the conditions for the hosting of the Olympics during the day that we are now all in Beijing. But one reason why UNEP works with the international Olympic movement and also with the events like this is the question that the legacy for the people of the host city and the host nation. And here, I have no hesitation in saying that many of the commitments made seven years ago have in large part been fulfilled, many of them even beyond the limits set.

This is city is without doubt going to be a better city for the citizens of Beijing to live in as a result of having accepted the invitation to host the Games, whether it is in terms of the new infrastructure that is available in terms of public transport. As I mentioned to you and you have read already, tens of thousands of buses have been replaced. The largest compress natural gas bus fleet of the world is now running here in Beijing. 10,000 taxies have been replaced. 60 kilometers of bus rapid transport lanes have been established for the Olympic Games, but perhaps more importantly in the long run, for the citizens of Beijing. Over 150 kilometers of rail transport, underground and suburban railways have been added to the public transport system. This is the legacy for the mobility of the citizens of Beijing. Yesterday I visited the new Olympic Forest Park, over 600 hectares of newly forest land, a major asset for the city of Beijing and its people in the future. But there is another dimension that I think we should not underestimate. These Games are always intended by our host here in China to also be an effort to leverage technology, to show innovation. And I urge you to take a look as you walk around the Olympic Village but also in the city, to look at the sheer number of technological innovation that have been attempted for the voltages of renewable energy, fuel cell vehicles. Many of these have for the first time been tried on a public scale in China.

We need you to look upon Olympic Games as an opportunity to have countries and the host city to move the boundary of the environmental responsibility and sustainability. We believe that a great deal has already been accomplished here, but ultimately we have to wait until the Games are over, and perhaps more importantly, what will happen to many of these achievements once the visitors to the Olympic Games have left the city Beijing. That is why we have also suggested that UNEP will undertake 6 months after the completion of the Games a review of the lessons learned. And I would like to simply end my statement by saying that our engagement with the city of Beijing is not unique. The UNEP has for many years now been working with the International Olympic Committee on trying to understand how the hosting of the Olympic Games can in fact be an opportunity not only to host Green Games, but in fact use the Games to green the economy, the cities and the environments where people live after the Games are over. We are doing so in collaboration with many of the host cities, and not even only with the Olympic movement anymore, but also with the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. And we are looking at other sports events that we would like to use our expertise to assist in moving the environmental responsibility element forward. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to end by saying that we are together today on this podium in apt because we would like you to have the opportunity to access the information, the signs, the empirical evidence. That is the bottom line for our assessments in the UNEP. And having myself spent these 48 hours visiting, talking to the scientists, the monitoring station managers, I would invite you to visit the Environmental Protection Bureau of Beijing, their control rooms, look at the actual monitoring stations, examine what is being done on a daily basis here. It will not take away the haze of the city, not remove particle matter, but it will put in perspective the enormous efforts that Beijing is making. And sometimes you need a little bit of luck. A little bit of rain, a little bit of wind can also change the number significantly. And I hope that bit of luck will also be part of the next few days. Thank you.

Wang Hui

Thank you very much. Now I would like to give the floor to Mr. Satinder Bindra of UNEP. He will call on journalists to ask questions.

Satinder Bindra gives a speech.

Satinder Bindra

Before asking the journalists and friends to pose questions, I would also like to say that after taking a few questions, Mr. Steiner will also make an announcement. It's a very exciting announcement. And we'll also take questions on that. But for now, we'll give the floor.