Grey Skies Over Beijing

News October 28th, 2007

smoggy bj air

Air pollution remains a significant challenge for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, according to a United Nations environmental report released Thursday, but Beijing officials expressed confidence in handling the problem.

The independent appraisal follows a report this month by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) that about 120 billion yuan ($16 billion) had been spent on environment-related projects from 1998 to 2006.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said that funds for improving the environment “appear to have been well spent”.

Even with all the money spent on cleanup and the good work that’s been done, there’s no denying that Beijing’s skies are grey everyday. BOCOG has even proposed moving events around if the air quality is too poor for athletes to perform, although some people are doubtful if postposting an event from a dark-grey day to a light-grey day will really be beneficial. Other believe that the air problems will affect all non-Beijing athletes equally, so we won’t see any broken records in this upcoming Olympics.

Is the air pollution going to wreck havoc on the Olympics, or is it all a bunch of hype? Let us know!

Via China Daily

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