The impact of periodic air pollution peaks in Beijing on air quality governance in China

During the month of January 2013, Beijing suffered air pollution of unprecedented intensity. This event, which was named “airpocalypse” in international media, was followed by vibrant media reporting and public discussion on the topic and prompted the central government to issue unusually ambitious measures to contain air pollution more effectively. This paper explores the impact of the airpocalypse on China’s air quality governance by conducting a qualitative analysis of pollution control policies that followed the airpocalypse and concludes that this event of heavy air pollution was indeed impactful in causing the issuance of stricter national targets for pollution control as well as increased public awareness. In combination with the newly amended environmental protection law, these aspects put local governments under intense pressure to address air pollution more effectively. However, the changes caused by the airpocalypse were not revolutionary in a sense that it led to major structural reforms of government institutions and their interrelationships. The case of the airpocalypse demonstrates that single disruptive events of heavy pollution can cause a recalibration of policy priorities. In this context, the role of “disruptive events” may be worthwhile of more systematic research in order to understand their potential impact on institutional environments

Guide on Ambient Air Quality Legislation - Air Pollution Series.

Embedding ambient air quality standards (AAQS) in legislation is an important foundation for effective national air quality governance. Legislation can establish institutional responsibility for air quality standards, set mechanisms for accountability, public participation and enforcement, and institutionalize processes for setting and updating robust air quality standards as knowledge and technologies develop. UNEP’s 2021 Regulating Air Quality: The First Global Assessment of Air Pollution Legislation found that, while most countries in the world do embed AAQS in legislation, there was no common legal framework for AAQS globally. UNEP has developed this Guide on Ambient Air Quality Legislation to assist national lawmakers and policymakers to develop or improve ambient air quality legislation. The aim of this Guide is to promote robust national systems of air quality governance that prioritize public health outcomes and respect that all humans share the same need to breathe air of adequate quality. The Guide emphasizes that air pollution is a collective problem arising from decisions and behaviours across a wide range of policy sectors. Thus, regulatory alignment across wide-ranging policy areas is critical to achieving AAQS in practice. This Guide addresses a lacuna that exists in air quality laws globally, providing a legal resource for developing robust national legislation that supports public access to scientifically evidenced levels of clean air

Environmental city-regionalism in China: War against air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

The state remains central in contemporary environmental politics and policies, although environmental governance increasingly involves neoliberal and non-state mechanisms. Environmental management in China holds features of an ‘environmental state’ and has been undergoing continuous restructuring, manifested by a recent city-regionalism turn. Informed by the theories of eco-state restructuring (ESR) and eco-scalar fix, this paper investigates air pollution management in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region by tracing the practices of environmental and territorial governance over the past decades. Through the analysis of parameters of the eco-state, this paper conceptualises the air pollution governance in China into three phases, namely pollutants emission control (the 1990s2005), campaign-style regional governance (2006-2012) and city regionalism in air quality governance (2013 onwards). We find that the central state plays proactive but different roles in each phase, characterised by state strategic selectivity, adjustments of state apparatus, deployment of a set of policy instruments, and enhanced state capacities for monitoring, control, and legitimation. In this context, the city-regional level has become the key scale at which environmental regulations are targeted and the economic and environmental realms are being (re)formed. This state-led eco-scalar fix process to cope with urgent environmental issues explains the underlying rationality of building up the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region as a new national strategic project

Disruptive Events of Environmental Pollution as a Transformative Force - The Impact of Extreme Air Pollution on Policy Making in China

During the month of January 2013, Beijing suffered air pollution of unprecedented intensity. This event, which was named "Airpocalypse" in international media, was followed by vibrant media reporting and public discussion on the topic and prompted the central government to issue unusually ambitious measures to contain air pollution more effectively. This dissertation explores the impact of the "Airpocalypse" on China's air quality governance as well as the underlying factors which caused the central government to react differently to the "Airpocalypse" compared to previous events of extreme air pollution. Based on qualitative interviews, a quantitative timeline analysis and a quantitative survey, following factors were identified to have had a significant direct or indirect influence on central government decision making during and after the "Airpocalypse": 1) Historically high levels of particulate matter concentration, 2) Improved level of publicly accessible information on particulate matter concentrations in large Chinese cities, 3) Unprecedented intensity of media reporting and public discussion on air pollution, 4) The ongoing government transition from the administration of Hu Jintao to the administration of Xi Jinping. The theoretical framework of this dissertation consists of three approaches: Focusing Events (based on Birkland 1997), Media Agenda Setting (based on McCombs and Shaw 1972) and New Institutional Economics (based on Williamson 1975). These approaches can be meaningfully combined in order to identify impactful events of pollution as well as identify and interpret their consequences in the Chinese context

Transboundary Air Pollution in Northeast Asia: Two Pathways Forward for China and South Korea

Simply put, air pollution kills. Each year, more than 5.5 million people die from illnesses caused by breathing polluted air worldwide. In 2013 alone, one in ten deaths globally were associated with air pollution. Such alarming statistics ought to provide governments a strong incentive to combat air pollution, but toxic air unrelentingly blankets places like New Delhi, Seoul, and Bangkok. Fundamentally, this may be because humans take the atmosphere for granted as a place to dump industrial waste. This article will discuss two alternative pathways to addressing transboundary air pollution between China and South Korea. One involves binding international dispute resolution based on the principles of Trail Smelter, and the other promotes deeper bilateral cooperation through consensus-building, transboundary environmental impact assessment, and private standard-setting

Transboundary Air Pollution in Northeast Asia: Two Pathways Forward for China and South Korea

Simply put, air pollution kills. Each year, more than 5.5 million people die from illnesses caused by breathing polluted air worldwide. In 2013 alone, one in ten deaths globally were associated with air pollution. Such alarming statistics ought to provide governments a strong incentive to combat air pollution, but toxic air unrelentingly blankets places like New Delhi, Seoul, and Bangkok. Fundamentally, this may be because humans take the atmosphere for granted as a place to dump industrial waste. This article will discuss two alternative pathways to addressing transboundary air pollution between China and South Korea. One involves binding international dispute resolution based on the principles of Trail Smelter, and the other promotes deeper bilateral cooperation through consensus-building, transboundary environmental impact assessment, and private standard-setting

Rethinking Clean Air: Air Quality Law and Covid-19

Air quality has long been a serious health problem caused by industrialisation and urbanisation.1 It has also been a very difficult policy and regulatory problem to address.2 This is partly a problem of regulatory strategy—what suite of measures work together to reduce air pollution levels without simply displacing pollution? It is partly a problem of controlling individual behaviour—as a collective problem, many individual actions generate air pollution. It is partly a problem of policy priority—air quality is often traded off against economic progress. And it is partly a failure of governance—identifying the appropriate actors to govern air quality and ensuring they work in concert. It is also a matter of defining what is acceptable air quality in the first place, and expressing this in law. None of these issues had been resolved well before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The pandemic sheds these air quality law challenges in a new light. It is a public health crisis with many links to air quality, whether related to air pollution and its impacts on disease outcomes, or by examining the transmission pathways of COVID-19. Responding to the pandemic has involved bold regulatory experiments, heavily restricting behaviours, such as movements across transport networks, that are prime causes of urban nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution in particular. Above all, the pandemic has increased the profile of air quality as a social problem to address, creating a moment to rethink this problem and what we might do about it

Is Partnership Quality or Quantity More Effective?

Current scholarship identifies benefits to both high quality partnerships and extensive networks when managing shared policy goals. However, with limited collaborative capacity, many public-sector agencies are faced with a decision of whether to pursue quality connections with specific organizations or more partnerships with an array of organizations. Using survey data from 72 local air agencies, findings indicate that quality of partnerships are better predictors of improved air quality than quantity of partnerships. Conclusions suggest building high quality partnerships is more important than having many partnerships when pursuing shared policy goals in a multi-dimensional environment