Calling the Air Pollution Police

Jan 11, 2017
1 min read

A police force for air pollution?

Yup. China has established a smog police to help fight its "war on pollution," which started about three years ago. Beijing's mayor Cai Qi said this Saturday that this new police would enforce regulations against open-air barbecues, garbage incinerators, biomass burning, and dust from roads. He also expressed his belief that China would be able to solve its pollution problems in less than 20-40 years-- faster than any western country, including Germany.

Is Qi too optimistic? Though a police force is certainly interesting and will help, many believe that long-term smog reduction is the result of an "unclean industrial and energy mix," as Environmental Protection Minister Chen Jin saiid on Friday. An energy transition, along with increased information and government transparency on pollution statistics and law-making, require strategic planning and many years to execute. With China's forking money into its renewable energy sector (as mentioned in our last post), one can hope that they will succeed in transitioning quickly. Increasing government transparency, however, is a whole other question... Can the government continue to provide transparent information without a change in governance? It will be at least be a challenge.