Beijing's heavy pollution weather continues today. According to data from the Beijing Environmental Protection Center, Beijing's PM2.5 reading has now reached 302, and the smog is expected to linger over the coming days.

​Beijing smoggy weather

At noon on the 20th, the yellow alert for heavy air pollution was activated for the first time. Twenty-four hours later, at noon yesterday, the alert was upgraded to orange. The fast-paced battle between the "emergency plan" and "smog" was intense from the very start, escalating repeatedly.

In October last year, Beijing issued the "Emergency Plan for Heavy Air Pollution," which divides smoggy days into four levels: blue alert, yellow alert, orange alert and red alert. The colors run from cool to warm, and the severity of air pollution rises level by level. When the alert moves from yellow to orange, the response measures also roll out the "four suspensions" as a major move.

What do the four suspensions mean? They refer to "suspending production," "suspending construction," "suspending parking" and "suspending burning." Specifically, some industrial enterprises are forced to suspend or limit production to reduce pollutant emissions by 30%; some earthwork and building demolition sites are forced to stop work; and across the city, fireworks and open-air barbecues are banned. The four suspensions are forceful and broad in scope, affecting everything from industrial enterprises to construction sites. But what we care about more is whether the hundreds of thousands of involved units can conscientiously implement the relevant regulations, and how the government will supervise and assess them.

When Beijing's "first" yellow alert for heavy air pollution on the 20th was still a hot topic, yesterday's even lower visibility immediately refreshed the focus. At noon yesterday, the yellow alert was upgraded to orange. Multiple relevant Beijing departments successively launched response measures in accordance with the emergency plan for heavy air pollution. The Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development even raised the response level, adopting the plan corresponding to the orange alert and halting earthwork at construction sites across the city. Wu Jian, deputy director of the Construction Management Office of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development:

Wu Jian: For construction sites where the developer and contractor have not taken good measures to control dust, we will apply a points-based penalty in Beijing's housing credit evaluation system.

But a reporter's investigation in Beijing today found that construction was still continuing at many sites within the Fourth Ring Road. At the construction site of the Beijing Institute of Technology comprehensive building, a worker told the reporter that the site had not stopped work today and that work had proceeded as usual all day.

Worker: We've done a bit more now, we worked in the morning too, we've been working all day.

At the same time, many construction sites showed no dust control measures such as covering or water spraying. And at the construction site of Metro Line 16 station west of Suzhou Bridge North Road, when asked about the measures corresponding to the smog alert, a worker said he had never heard of them.
Worker: Never heard of it.

　　According to the plan, based on the list determined by the sub-plan for suspending and limiting production at industrial enterprises during heavy air pollution, relevant enterprises must respectively suspend production or limit production to cut pollutant emissions by 30%. The head of a cement enterprise on the South Fourth Ring Road said that its three cement production lines had been fully shut down since the day before yesterday:

　　Head of enterprise: We spray water around the clock to prevent dust from rising, doing our part to reduce smog.

　　Li Hong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said that after the alert was upgraded, the industrial system promptly launched the sub-plan and called on enterprises to carry out energy-saving and emission-reduction measures:

　　Li Hong: As of now, 36 enterprises have suspended production, and another 75 enterprises have reduced emissions by more than 30% through production limits and cuts.

　　The Environmental Protection Bureau formed four inspection teams to monitor implementation of the "heavy pollution orange alert" across the city. At the same time, the Beijing Environmental Inspection Corps dispatched 10 groups of law enforcement officers to inspect and check each district and county. They inspected 50 coal-fired boiler units and found 9 exceeding standards. They also quickly dispatched law enforcement officers to handle on site 7 enterprises found to be exceeding emission standards for soot and nitrogen oxides through online monitoring of pollutants at 126 air pollution sources in Beijing. Zhao Zhiwei, deputy researcher of the Beijing Environmental Inspection Corps:

　　Zhao Zhiwei: We will ensure that all measures in our emergency plan are fully implemented, strengthen management of pollution source units, and make these enterprises reduce emissions so as to ease the degree of pollution.

　　The reporter reviewed how major polluters, construction sites and industrial enterprises responded to the heavy pollution emergency plan. But when smog strikes, each of us is both a victim and a participant. If the alert continues to escalate from orange to red, measures such as odd-even license plate restrictions and subsequent school suspensions will affect citizens' lives to varying degrees. Over the past two days, with the thick fog lingering, can travel and schooling still proceed normally?

　　In heavy pollution weather, public transportation is encouraged. The Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport said it has already been allocating transport capacity to support public transit. Citizens are more concerned about when odd-even license plate restrictions will be imposed on motor vehicles. A responsible person from the transport commission said it will strictly follow the "Emergency Plan for Heavy Air Pollution in Beijing." In the emergency plan, only when the red alert level is reached does "implementing odd-even driving restrictions for motor vehicles citywide according to regulations" enter into mandatory measures. The health protection reminder measures corresponding to the orange alert suggest that vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and patients with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases should stay indoors as much as possible and avoid outdoor activities; and that primary and secondary schools and kindergartens should suspend outdoor activities such as PE classes, recess exercises and sports meets. Yesterday, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission issued an emergency notice requiring district and county education commissions to follow the emergency plan. Li Yi, spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, said:

　　Li Yi: Kindergartens and primary schools must suspend all outdoor activities, and middle schools must suspend all recess exercises, morning exercises, PE classes, including other sports activities and amateur training. All school-, district- and city-level sports competitions and tests are also suspended, and off-campus institutions including children's palaces and science and technology museums must do the same.

　　Today is Saturday, so we also encourage everyone to stay at home as much as possible if there is nothing special to do. In fact, linking air pollution index forecasts with large-scale emergency measures is a huge test of government departments' execution and coordination capabilities. Before Beijing, some cities had already activated red alerts, but there were occasional cases of departmental coordination failure and citizens being completely unaware. Whether Beijing can learn from these precedents and improve its emergency response mechanism is a question we cannot yet answer. How air pollution will change in the coming days—whether it will continue to worsen and turn from "orange" to "red," or whether the clouds will part to reveal blue skies—Sun Jisong, chief forecaster of the Beijing Meteorological Observatory, told reporters that based on available data, this pollution episode is expected to last a long time, and air quality will not improve significantly before the 27th.

　　Sun Jisong: From the current weather trend, there will be no strong cold air affecting North China before the 27th. We estimate that the weather, dominated by haze during the day and fog at night, will continue, and there is little possibility of significant improvement before the 27th.

　　As for whether the weather will improve after the 27th, Sun Jisong said no definitive judgment can be made yet.

　　Sun Jisong: After the 27th, the atmospheric environment will adjust toward a spring pattern. Whether such long-lasting smog will occur is still unclear.