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Chapter Six: Critical Juncture II: 2014 APEC Summit
Introduction
After five years since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing
also created a critical moment for Beijing to clear its sky. The 22nd annually gathering
of leaders in the pacific area provided Beijing another momentum for implementing
mitigation policy.91 Some similarities can be observed between the 2014 APEC
Summit and 2008 Olympics. First, they were both international event that were paid
highly attention on; second, both events were held in Beijing, so the air pollution
problem came to surface; third, the major goal of both events were not showing the
environmental protection determination of China but for either the disclose of China’s
soft power or the stability of political and economic situation in Asia-pacific region.
These similarities gave out the reasons for why choosing the Olympics and APEC
Summit as the critical juncture for Beijing’s air pollution problem. This chapter will
show the endeavor which China implemented before the 2014 APEC Summit for
cleaning up Beijing’s air pollution.
91 Lu Hui, “China Focus: Beijing to Adopt Strict Air Quality Plan for APEC,” Xinhua English News, October 14, 2014. Last accessed:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-10/14/c_133715960.htm
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The similar situation seemed to happen again when the APEC Summit was held.
Thus, the summit was chosen to be the second critical juncture for Beijing’s air
pollution problem. Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2014 APEC Summit was the
biggest event held in Beijing. Compared to the Summer Olympics when favorable
meteorological conditions played an important role in reducing the concentrations of
air pollutants, APEC was held in the middle of November when meteorological
conditions worsened.92 The exact date of 2014 APEC summit was during November
3rd to 11th. It was extremely closed to the official winter heating schedule in China
which began in the middle of November93. Historically, the air quality in Beijing
during the heating season was the worst compared to the rest of the year because of
the enhanced consumption of fossil fuel especially coal and high frequency of
stagnant weather.94 Thus, it was more challengeable to achieve good air quality
during the APEC than 2008 Olympics. It is worth a deeper look to the statistics to
know about the more serious policies China offered for cleaning Beijing’s air for 2014
92 Kan Huang, Xingying Zhang, Yanfen Lin, “The APEC Blue Phenomenon: Regional Emission Control Effects Observed from Space,” Atmospheric Research 164 (2015): 65-75.
93 The heating season in Beijing normally starts on November 15th and ended on March 15th.
94 Yu, L., Wang G., Zhu, G., Zhang, R., “Characteristics and Sources of Elements in Atmospheric Particles Before and During the 2008 Heating Period in Beijing,” Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae 30 (2010): 204-210.
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APEC Summit. More than 20 world leaders, including U.S. former president Barack
Obama, Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe of Japan, will attend the major international
meeting to discuss regional trade and investment details.95 Beijing officials would not
allow the embarrassment of the bad city air conditions.
Statistics of Air Pollution Data Before, During and After the 2014 APEC Summit
In this chapter, three types of indicators will be given to show the air quality
improvement during the 2014 APEC Summit period. The three indicators are “PM2.5”,
“good air quality days”, and “NO2 concentration.” The sampling time periods were
cut into three: T1, T2, T3. T1 is the “pre-APEC” time area which is from 20 to 31
October 2014; T2 is the “APEC period” time area which is from 1 to 12 November
2014; T3 is the “post-APEC” time area which is from 13 to 24 November 2014. The
main statistics in this chapter is from Wang et al.’s paper.96
First, we identified the main pollutants again in the study. From Table 2, we can
tell from the mean value that PM2.5, NO2, and PM10 are the main pollutant in the study
95 Jonathan Kaiman, “Beijing Attempts to cut Air Pollution for APEC Summit,” The Guardian, November 4, 2012. Last accessed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/04/beijing-smokescreen-hide-pollution-apec
96 Hongbo Wang, Laijun Zhao, Yujing Xie, and Qingmi Hu, “’APEC Blue’- The Effects and
Implications of Joint Pollution Prevention and Control Program,” Science of the Total Environment 553 (2016): 429-438.
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period. Pollutants also have strong correlation with each other. For PM2.5, strongest
correlation was detected with PM10, CO, and NO2. For PM10, on the other hand, has
stronger correlation with NO2, CO, and PM2.5. The higher the correlation between PM
and NO2, CO is, the stronger evidence that combustion-related process such as fuel
combustion, industrial production, and vehicle exhaust emission have direct
relationship with air pollution problem in Beijing.97
After pointing out the main pollutants, let’s look into the different pollutants
separately. One can simply see the downturn of PM concentration in both PM2.5 and
PM10 in the T2 time period which respectively showed in figure 3 and 4. The red
dotted line is the mean value of each statistics and only in the T2 time period, the red
dotted line is lower than the black dotted line which represent the mean value of the
corresponding period in previous year. One could also speculate a more stringent and
97 Pavlos Kassomenos, Sotiris Vardoulakis, Archontoula Chalonlakou, Anastasia Paschalidou, Georgios Grivas, Rafael Borge, and Julio Lumbreras, “Study of PM10 and PM2.5 Levels in Three European Cities: Analysis of Intra and Inter Urban Variations,” Atmospheric Environment 87 (2014):
153-163.
Table 2: Descriptive Statistics for the Six Pollutants in Beijing Throughout the 36-‐day Study Period
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complex measures were taken at the time period so that the air quality could improve
in such short period.98 One other phenomenon need to be mentioned is the
bounce-back of numbers in both PM2.5 and PM10 after T3. T3 time period covers the official
heating season for Beijing thus the heavy use of coal and other types of fossil fuel
would inevitably cause the number to rise.
98 Rowe Walker, “China Tightens Air Pollution Standards,” China & US Focus, October 17, 2013. Last accessed: http://www.chinausfocus.com/energy-environment/china-tightens-air-pollution-standards/
Figure 3:PM2.5 Concentration Data During 2014 APEC Summit
Figure 4:PM10 Concentration Data During 2014 APEC Summit
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Other pollutants such as SO2 and NO2 also experienced great decline during the
Summit. Figure 5 and 6 shows that the lowest concentrations were both in T2 and the
mean value (red dotted line) during that time was also lower than the previous year
(black dotted line). This signifies that atmospheric pollution during the 2014 T1 and
T3 phases was worse than that during the corresponding 2013 phases and that if no
measures had been enacted, the pollution during the 2014 T2 phase would also have
been worse than that during the corresponding 2013 phase.99
99 Ibid., 96.
Figure 5 NO2 Concentration During the 2014 APEC Summit
Figure 6:SO2 Concentration During the 2014 APEC Summit
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Another well-shown chart shows the “good air days” in different time period around
the APEC Summit time (see figure 8). Compared to T1 and T3, twelve days in T2
only consisted of one day that was categorized as lightly polluted. Other days were all
with moderate or even better air quality.
T1 and T3 only had less than half days being categorized as moderate, even “heavily
severely polluted days” were seen on both periods.
Overall, the research didn’t find significant differences of meteorological
conditions between 2014 and the other years, which suggested that the changes of
ambient air pollutant concentrations presented above should be mainly ascribed to the
emission control methods. Although the mitigation measures against air pollution
were proved a success during the short period of the Olympics and APEC Summit,
Figure 7:Good Air Quality Data During the 2014 APEC Summit
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but long term and sustainable improvement of air quality in Beijing remains a great
challenge for China.100
Policies Implemented
Same as 2008 Olympics, stricter implementations of regulations were given
before the meeting. The difference between 2008 Olympics and 2014 APEC Summit
was the duration of the implementation. For 2014, much shorter duration was given
thus if we could observe immediate improvements during the APEC Summit, that
implies the measures taken were very useful and effective. According to Wang et al.,
Beijing emission reduction measures taken for 2014 APEC Summit were deemed “the
strictest measures in the history.”101 Joint prevention and control measures were
implemented throughout T2 phases to ensure the air quality in Beijing region is good
enough for meeting the “good” standard. Besides the same policies package such as
limitation of car on-road by odd or even car plate and power plant shut-down as 2008
Olympics, special measures were also taken to enhance the cleaning effect. These
100 Hainan Yang, Jing Chen, Jiaojiao Wen, Hezhong Tian, and Xingang Liu, “Composition and Sources of PM2.5 Around the Heating Periods of 2013 and 2014 in Beijing: Implications for Efficient Mitigation Measures,” Atmospheric Environment 124 (2016): 378-386.
101 Ibid., 94.
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measures included shut-down of all Beijing building sites, free to take bus for citizens
in Beijing, prohibition of outdoor barbeque and waste incineration, and a
6-days-vacation for institutions and schools from 7 to 12 November.102 Beijing residents
were even encouraged to travel outside the city such as nearby Henan province with
the offered discounts or free tickets.103 According to reported statistics, traffic flows
in Beijing decreased about 20% during the APEC period because of this policy.104
Chapter Conclusion
This time in 2014 APEC Summit, Beijing showed again its determination on air
quality improvement. From path dependent point of view, 2014 APEC Summit was a
unique moment to use path dependent to test whether China has changed its policies
toward a more active voice. From the above statistics, the average concentration of
PM2.5, PM10, NO2 clearly decreased compared to the values in the corresponding
phases on 2013, proving the measures to be effective. The statistics were then
compared to the situation if no actions were taken before the Summit. The actions
102 Kit Tang, “Thanks to APEC, Beijing Gets Another Golden Week,” CNBC, 5 November (2014). Last accessed: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/05/thanks-to-apec-beijing-gets-another-golden-week.html
103 Zheping Huang, “G20 to the Olympics. Just like Beijing,” Quartz Media, August 30, 2016. Last accessed: https://qz.com/768676/how-to-host-a-successful-international-event-from-the-g20-to-the-olympics-just-like-beijing/
104 Ibid., 88.
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contributed the 30% decline of PM2.5 average from November 1 to 12.105 But
meanwhile, same worries came after the Summit when we observed the bouncing
figure after the event indicating that these measures only caused short term effect.
Domestically, after a year in February 2015, the most influential environmental
documentary “Under the Dome” by Chai Jing caused China and its people to rethink
about the ecological disasters that had been mooted previously. This time, even the
governmental-environmental bureau in China concurrently supported the
documentary. This event, again, proved the self-reinforcing effect after the critical
juncture to be ancillary for the changing mindset of environmental issues in China.106
After the meeting and the documentary, China’s National People’s Congress
Standing Committee approved the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention and Control law
which will come into force on January 2016. The State Council also made a five-year
national action plan to control PM2.5 pollutions in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze
Delta, and Pearl Delta through ten integrated pollution control measures.107 Even a
105 “’APEC Lan’ weizhongguozhilidaqiwurandailaiqishi” (APEC Blue Brought Important Message to China’s Control Measures of Atmospheric Pollution), Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, November 17, 2014.
106 Yueran Pan, “Special Report: The Government and Politics Behind Chia Jing’s Smog Investigation,”
BBC Chinese, March 6, 2015. Last accessed:
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/china/2015/03/150306_view_chaijing_politics
107 Xuejun Liu, Yunhua Chang, Weifeng Zhang, Peter Vitousek, Pamela Matson, and Fusuo Zhang,
“Evidence for a Historic Change Occurring in China,” Environmental Science & Technology (2015).
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national monitoring network for PM2.5 that will cover 190 cities with a total of 959
national monitoring network will provide detailed information on the PM2.5 dynamics
and the effectiveness of pollution control implemented through the updated
Atmospheric Pollution Prevention and Control Law.108 These follow-up policies
appeared after the Summit showed the growing awareness of China on its air
pollution problem. Though “APEC Blue” experiment revealed potential pathways for
short-term regional air pollution control, knowledge-based efforts to reduce emissions
without economic disruptions like closing factories offer a more promising pathway
to environmental protection in the long run.109
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid.
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