Beijing is the victim of geography where pollution is often trapped in an inversion; a problem like Salt Lake City in the states. Beijing has much fewer cars per person than say Seattle, and the problems arise from too many people more than too many cars, coupled with shitty cheap oil refined poorly leads to a huge problem in aggregate. On the other hand, the subway system has been built up nicely, and is expanding very quickly, though it is always wicked full and not very comfortable by western standards. Beijing's traffic problems simply boil down to too many people and cars and not enough road with nowhere really to build more.
Old coal boilers are another problem, and a lot of pollution blows in from the Hebei country side and gets stuck in Beijing without an outlet. All buildings in Beijing are heated by the city, so it's not even the building owner's option to be more efficient. Beijing is slowly switching over to natural gas for heating but the transition will take a couple years to finish.
The AQI right now is down to 50 where it was 340 only a few hours ago. I can only imagine we got some wind to blow out the bad air all of a sudden.
Old coal boilers are another problem, and a lot of pollution blows in from the Hebei country side and gets stuck in Beijing without an outlet. All buildings in Beijing are heated by the city, so it's not even the building owner's option to be more efficient. Beijing is slowly switching over to natural gas for heating but the transition will take a couple years to finish.
The AQI right now is down to 50 where it was 340 only a few hours ago. I can only imagine we got some wind to blow out the bad air all of a sudden.