China Cuts Water and Air Pollution Levels
The Reuters report China cuts key water, air pollutants in early 2008 offers readers some hope that some of the recent actions taken to curb pollution may be working.
Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, dropped by 2.5 percent from the same period last year as new sewage plants came online, while sulphur dioxide emissions were down 4.0 percent, the official Xinhua agency said.
Before taking those figures at face value (I have spent a lot of time within the volumes of statistical report in China), where my optimism resides is in the passage:
The government shuttered small, dirty power plants with over 8 gigawatts of capacity, the report said.
Desulphurisation equipment was also added at plants with 40.6 GW of installed capacity, although that increase still represents well under 10 percent of the country’s power plant capacity.
Both small measures, but important ones in addressing the issues of acid rain.
Now, if some efforts could only be taken on soil erosion. Another large issue that feds back into China’s overall sustainability to do list
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