It’s easy to forget, but a decade ago the winter months were routinely marked by apocalyptic imagery from Beijing. Cold, still air trapping the smoke belching from northeastern China’s coal plants and steel mills regularly turned the region into a hellish landscape, prompting booming sales of air purifiers and face masks and causing the US embassy to start publishing its own pollution data due to widespread distrust of official figures.

That nightmare situation has dissipated as quickly as a choking smog in the face of a strong northerly wind. A series of ever-tightening regulations on particulates — sulfur and nitrogen dioxides and other chemicals that can easily be inhaled and pass into the human bloodstream — has shown remarkable success in clearing up the skies.

QOSHE - The World Could Benefit From China Clearing Up Its Smog - David Fickling
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The World Could Benefit From China Clearing Up Its Smog

4 20
15.01.2024

It’s easy to forget, but a decade ago the winter months were routinely marked by apocalyptic imagery from Beijing. Cold, still air trapping the smoke belching from northeastern China’s coal plants........

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