University Essay: Air Pollution in China, Policy and Future Solutions

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of air pollution in China, highlighting its origins in coal burning and industrial processes, as well as the impact of vehicle emissions in urban areas. It discusses the economic growth fueled by fossil fuels, leading to high emissions of carbon dioxide and particulate matter. The essay analyzes the effectiveness of the Air Pollution Action Plan and the new Three-year Action Plan, while also acknowledging the health consequences of polluted air. It suggests implementing stronger policies, utilizing technological advances, raising public awareness, and adopting models like tiered transferable pollutant pricing to control pollution. The essay also emphasizes the need for a robust legal framework and active judiciary to enforce environmental rights and ensure effective pollution reduction in China. The essay concludes by emphasizing the ongoing challenges in addressing air pollution and the need for continuous efforts to improve air quality and protect public health.

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Air Pollution in China
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Introduction
China has indeed impressed the world with its faster economic growth at a huge
environmental cost. Today, it is seen as one of the world’s most country and the main producer
of greenhouse gases. The essay discusses the measures that can be adopted by China to help
prevent air pollution.
The air pollution problems started in China during the initial stage of economic
development because of coal burning and industrial processes. Today, the increasing problem of
pollution in urban areas is attributed to vehicle emissions. Chinese economic growth was fuelled
by fossil fuel use that resulted in maximum emission of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and fine
particulate matter in the world (Cl Jin, Andersson, & Zhang 2016, p. 2). Air Pollution Action
Plan has been a significant environmental policy to control air pollution in China. The plan has
indeed been successful to improve air quality in critical regions and lowered PM2.5 levels in
Beijing and the Pearl River Delta between 2013 and 2017 (Hai 2018). The government has
banned the burning of coal and shut down coal-fired power stations. Despite those efforts, none
of the Chinese city achieves the suggested average of PM2.5 level set by the World Health
Organization. The new Three-year Action Plan 2018-2020 is the additional stage of the initial
air pollution policy and will apply to all those these that have not reached the standard on PM2.5
levels (Hai 2018). It is apparent that China is aware of the severe issue of air pollution and is
making efforts in this direction. Despite draconian anti-pollution measures, a lot more needs to
be done to control the sources of pollution and improve transitions in industrial, energy and
transportation. Millions of people in China are breathing in polluted air and can face serious
health consequences as those air pollution particles get deposited within their lungs and enter
their bloodstreams. World Health Organization research shows that air pollution is hazardous to

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human health and increases the severity of respiratory infections, particularly in children. Data
analyses from Shanghai finds an increase in asthma admission with an increase of PM2.5 levels
(Song et al. 2018, p. 2).
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment should take on higher responsibility for
climate change mitigation and pollution control in China. Stronger policies should be
implemented to control air pollution and set stricter enforcement of emissions standards (Tilt.
2019, p. 277). Financially viable new advances in science and technology should be used to
motivate forward-looking, environmentally responsible development. The bureaucratic barriers
and inefficiencies need to be removed to encourage the use of renewable energy. China’s wind-
power segment is an encouraging example (Tilt. 2019, p. 278). The next step is raising
awareness among the public and motivate the citizens to respond against the pollution crisis.
Chinese citizens should enjoy easier access to information about the nation’s air pollution and
the new regulations and policies on controlling air pollution. A tiered transferable pollutant
pricing (TTPP) control is looked upon as an ideal model to control air pollution problem in
China (Li, Wang, Xie, & Xue 2018, p. 862). The model imposes strict amount of some pollutant
within a polluted zone and allocates the maximum permissible quantity of some contaminant to
each area. The model can work within China’s strategic policy that is valid for five years. The
model can be tried in seriously polluted areas as the employment of tiered pricing may face snags
in China. China does not have a robust legal framework to regulate the environment, and as a
result, the local governments often ignore environmental results over the economic results.
China’s central government bears the responsibilities of regulating the environment. It is
essential to enforce an active judiciary to support the approach towards fundamental
environmental rights in China (Rahman. 2018, p. 177). Recently, the central government in

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China has enforced provincial inspections and promotes provincial based on their performance in
meeting pollution reduction targets. Punitive measures are imposed on those violating
environmental laws.
It is still a challenge to formulate practical and strong solutions to control China’s air
pollution. The continually changing energy landscape, changes in power and the shifts in
environmental protection bureaucracy only add to those challenges. Today, China is still battling
with recurrent episodes of choking smog in its major cities.

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Bibliography
Cl Jin, Y., Andersson, H., & Zhang, S. 2016. Air Pollution Control Policies in China: A
Retrospective and Prospects. International journal of environmental research and public health,
13(12), 1-22.
Hai, F., 2018. China releases 2020 action plan for air pollution men [Online] (updated 6 July.
2018) Available at: < https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10711-China-
releases-2-2-action-plan-for-air-pollution> [Accessed 9 May. 2019].
Li, C., Wang, H., Xie, X., & Xue, J. 2018. Tiered transferable pollutant pricing for cooperative
control of air quality to alleviate cross-regional air pollution in China. Atmospheric Pollution
Research, 9(5), 857–863
Rahman, N. 2018. A Comparative Analysis of Air Pollution Control in Delhi and Beijing: Can
India’s Model of Judicial Activism Affect Environmental Change in China. Tulane Journal of
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Song, J., Lu, M., Zheng, L., Liu, Y., Xu, P., Li, Y., … Wu, W. 2018. Acute effects of ambient air
pollution on outpatient children with respiratory diseases in Shijiazhuang, China. BMC
pulmonary medicine, 18(1), 1-10.
Tilt, B. 2019. China’s air pollution crisis: Science and policy perspectives. Environmental
Science and Policy, 92, 275–280.