Air Quality Suffers in China as Air Pollution Sweeps Beijing with Sandstorm

The region was covered in dense clouds of orange dust on Wednesday as a result of a severe sandstorm brought on by air pollution that blanketed Beijing and several nearby northern provinces in China.

Hazardous Air Quality

According to the Beijing Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, dense clouds engulfed the Chinese capital where the air quality index of PM10, or pollutants less than ten micrometers in diameter has exceeded monitoring charts.

PM10 can enter the human body through the nose and travel to the lungs where it can cause complications.

Beijing's weather officials have advised against exercising or engaging in other outdoor activities, and they have urged drivers to slow down and be extra cautious due to poor visibility.

Most Severe Sandstorm of the Year

Beijing's monitoring center reported on Wednesday that the most severe sandstorm so far this year occurred at 6 AM local time when PM10 particle concentrations reached 1,667 μg per cubic meter.

That amount is over 37 times the daily average recommendation set by the World Health Organization of 45 μg per cubic meter per day.

Springtime in Beijing is frequently marked by sandstorms, which are made worse by the smog by expanding industrial activity and quickening deforestation all across northern China.

According to the China Meteorological Administration, nearly a dozen provinces, including Shaanxi, Shanxi, Jilin, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Shandong, Anhui, Henan, Jiangsu, and Hubei, issued yellow warning signals between Wednesday and early Thursday morning.

China's four-tiered weather warning system rates the severity of the weather, with the most severe as red followed by orange, yellow, and blue as the less severe warnings.

According to Chinese weather forecasters, the current sandstorm began on Tuesday in Mongolia and slowly crept toward central and eastern China.

Sand particles also have drifted into the nation as a result of low-pressure winds and a lack of rainfall, CNN reported.

Air Pollution in China

According to China Power, developing nations may find it more difficult to balance environmental protection with economic development because these countries frequently depend on urbanization, industrial output, and motorization, all of which can significantly increase pollution.

Rapid economic growth in China has helped millions of people escape poverty, but it has also contributed significantly to environmental degradation.

Coal, a cheap but highly polluting energy source, has fueled much of China's growth.

In 1990, coal accounted for 76.2% of all energy used in China.

Despite a steady decline over the previous three decades, coal still made up 57.7% of China's 2019 energy consumption.

India, a coal-dependent nation with the second-largest population in the world after China, generated 46.8% of the energy used in 2018-2019 from burning coal.

In 2019, the two nations together make up 36% of the world's population, but they consume 63.5% of the world's coal.

These figures were published in a 2021 article by China Power.

China's air pollution has historically been primarily caused by the production of electricity.

Large coal-powered industries, though important for China's economic growth, are now a bigger part of the country's air pollution issues.

By 2017, China's largest polluter had moved from electricity production to the steel industry.