Minister refutes air quality survey

By Li Jing, Si Tingting and Wan Zhihong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-04 11:23

China's environment minister shot down claims that Beijing's air quality test results during the 2008 Olympics were inaccurate and blamed the allegations on the media's subsequent exaggeration of the capital's pollution.

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Zhou Shengxian praised Beijing for its efforts in improving air quality during a panel discussion on Friday at the Global Think Tank Summit.

Zhou pointed his finger at, but did not name, an embassy in Beijing that made assumptions that the air quality results for last summer's Olympic Games were inaccurate. He said the embassy had installed its own air quality monitoring equipment for measuring PM 2.5 (particles less than 2.5 microns).

Although Zhou refused to specify the embassy, his remarks have come after many media reports on the US embassy's monitoring in Beijing. The US embassy sends regular Twitter postings about the pollution levels based on its findings. It releases air quality data that differs widely from those released by the capital's environmental protection bureau.

Zhou said China was highly responsible for its air quality monitoring during the Games.

Zhu Tong, an environment professor with the Peking University, who participated in Beijing's Olympic air quality panel, said hundreds of experts from both China and abroad have made a systematic analysis on the data gathered from the capital's monitoring systems.

"They (the experts) have ensured the accuracy of the data during the Games," Zhu said.

David Dollar, who ended his five-year tenure as China's director of World Bank on Friday and will take up his new role at the US embassy in Beijing next week, also told China Daily that he was impressed at how clear the air has become.

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