Beijing will adopt emergency measures shutting down the capital’s industry if pollution threatens to disrupt next year’s Olympic Games, organising committee chief Liu Qi said on Tuesday.
Poor air quality constitutes a serious problem for the August 8 to 24 Games next year in Beijing, one of the world’s most polluted cities.
”If the pollution is really heavy during the period of the Games, then we can adopt hard measures like ordering a temporary closure of industry,” Liu said in Beijing.
Beijing’s pledge to clean up the environment by staging a ”green” Olympics helped it win the contest to host the 2008 Games in a vote by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Moscow in July 2001.
Since then, the city has spent $12-billion on planting trees and parks and curbing polluting industries, according to the city government.
Liu said that major polluters such as Capital Iron and Steel are being moved out of the capital, and 200 small and medium-sized firms have been closed.
As a result Beijing enjoyed 241 ”blue-sky” days last year, up from just 100 clear days a decade ago. ”Even so, there is a big gap between Beijing and some very clean and tidy cities,” he said. ”But we can only do our best to reach our goal and sincerely hope that during the time of the competition we can provide a good environment for all the athletes.”
Last week, IOC vice-president Ludmilla Linberg urged Beijing authorities to work harder to reduce pollution.
On her 15th visit to the Chinese capital, the Swedish IOC member said that poor air quality was among the chief problems about 500 days ahead of the opening ceremony.
Liu said the main cause of pollution is the coal used as fuel by Beijing residents, which is slowly being phased out and replaced by natural gas.
He also said that emission standards are being raised for Beijing’s three million cars, reducing another significant cause of poor air quality. — Sapa-AFP