Schools Closed as Beijing’s Smog Reaches Red Alert

Half of smog-hit Beijing’s 5.5 million private cars were today kept off the roads, with the Chinese capital enforcing its first-ever red alert for pollution as air in the city of over 22 million people turned “hazardous” and schools and construction sites remained shut.

Beijing issues first ever red smog alert as the Chinese air pollution monitor reported presence of severe amount of tiny particles known as PM 2.5 in the capital’s air.

Outdoor construction work is barred and some industrial plants were told to cease or reduce operations, with some schools were also urged to close.

Emergency measures include restricting road traffic, except electric vehicles, using an odd and even licence plate number system pioneered before the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Government agencies have vowed not to drive their cars on the streets for 30 percent of this time. It is expected to disperse Thursday afternoon as a cold front is set to arrive. “There are many reasons for this pollution”, said Beijing resident He Xiubao.

The question is raised as there was only an orange alert for the severe smog with an AQI reading exceeding 500 at the beginning of December, while this time a red alert was issued with an AQI of more than 200.

Environment group Greenpeace called the red alert “a welcome sign of a different attitude from the Beijing government”, and Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times, wrote that it marked “a near-revolutionary change in thinking” over the span of only a few years. According to The Times, particulate matter in some parts of the city exceeded 40 times the levels recommended by the World Health Organization.

Officials from China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MHURD) have blamed Beijing’s smog on vehicle carbon emissions, while the Ministry of Environmental Protection has said the major causes are coal-burning central heating systems, which MHURD oversees. Officials said extra trains and buses would be added to handle the additional strain on public transport. A study led by atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld, of Germany’s Max Planck Institute, published this year in Nature magazine, estimated that 1.4 million people each year die prematurely because of pollution in China. Employees at Beijing’s Kids’s Hospital have been overwhelmed by the assortment of children in search of remedy after being sickened by the poisonous air.

China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, aims to have its emissions peak by 2030.