BEIJING — Thick, gray, soupy air used to be synonymous with Beijing, a sprawling city of 22 million.
No longer.
The Swiss firm IQAir Air-visual said Thursday that the Chinese capital could drop off the list of the world’s 200 most polluted cities, with concentrations of small particulates falling to their lowest level since records began in 2008.
The data, pulled from sensors installed by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and Chinese authorities, confirm what many longtime residents have reported anecdotally: a noticeable — if not total — improvement in the city’s air over the past two years as the government clamped down on the burning of coal for heating, shuttered polluting factories, and kept heavy trucks outside city limits.
Average annual concentrations of tiny PM2.5 particles have fallen almost 60% from 2010, according to IQAir, a Swiss air purifier manufacturer that issues worldwide air-quality reports in partnership with Greenpeace.
Despite the improvement in the capital, however, other regions appeared to be moving backward as authorities sought to stoke growth during an economic slowdown, said Lauri Myllyvirta of Greenpeace.
Myllyvirta noted that emissions of compounds such as nitrogen oxide in northern China’s industrial heartland have actually ticked up in the past year because of a rise in cement and steel production feeding a government-spurred construction boom.
A key question now, Myllyvirta said, is whether Chinese provinces will adhere to a coal consumption ceiling set for next year by the central government in an effort to move the country toward cleaner energy.
China expects emissions of greenhouse gases to peak as early as by 2022, years ahead of the original target of “around 2030” outlined in the Paris climate agreement reached by numerous countries in 2015, a senior Chinese government researcher told Reuters this week.