"Green Olympics" Commitments Raise Concerns Over Transparency and Implementation

Beijing's bid in 2000 to host the 2008 Olympics promised a "Green Olympics" and the "greatest Olympic Games environmental legacy ever," yet concerns remain over Beijing's transparency and progress toward fulfilling the specific commitments underlying these promises, especially with regard to air quality. In its bid, Beijing promised to achieve objectives in the city's environmental master plan three years ahead of schedule with the completion of 20 major projects by 2007. The projects include infrastructure improvements addressing air and water quality, waste management, and energy, according to Table 1.1 in the 2007 United Nations Environmental Programme's Environmental Review of the Olympics (UNEP report). Beijing also promised that air quality would meet World Health Organization (WHO) standards and that the city's drinking water, which it said met WHO standards, would continue to be protected. The UNEP report noted that "Beijing has already achieved many of its bid commitments, for example on waste water treatment, water source protection, and waste management, and appears to be well on the way to fulfilling all of them." The UNEP report called the progress "an achievement in itself."

Despite this noteworthy progress, there are concerns over Beijing's promise that air quality "will meet Chinese and WHO standards." The WHO air quality guidelines include guidelines for particulate matter (PM) 2.5 and PM 10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. According to an October 5, 2006, WHO press release, revisions made to the guidelines in 2005 significantly reduced the guidelines for PM 10, ozone, and sulfur dioxide. The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau monitors PM 10, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon, but does not monitor ozone or PM 2.5, according to the UNEP report and an October 16 Washington Post (WP) article. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to small particulate matter such as PM 2.5 and ground-level ozone, which is at particularly high levels during the summer, have documented adverse health effects. The UNEP report recommended "further investigation" into ozone levels because of the timing of the Olympics in August 2008.

With less than a year to go until the Olympics, air pollutants such as PM 10 and nitrogen dioxide currently exceed WHO guidelines (both before and after the change in 2005) by a significant amount, according to information presented in the UNEP report and the WHO guidelines. There is some ambiguity over whether Beijing is obligated to meet current WHO guidelines or the guidelines in place at the time of Beijing's bid in 2000. The UNEP report uses the current WHO guidelines, but a December 3 Reuters article (reprinted in the Guardian) quotes one of the drafters of the environmental commitments as saying, "We will fulfil our original bid commitment, namely to meet Chinese and pre-2005 World Health Organisation standards on air quality." The Host City Contract, entered into between the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the city of Beijing and China's National Olympic Committee, may help to clarify Beijing's contractual obligations in this regard. The contract, however, has not been made publicly available.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad pledged in its 2002 Beijing Olympic Action Plan to make preparations for the Olympics transparent, yet there are concerns over the difficulty in accessing information on pollutants and charting Beijing's progress toward achieving its bid commitments. Chinese Communist Party censorship of domestic media reports concerning air quality may lead to less information or misleading information being made available to the public and the scientific community. In addition, Beijing officials refuse to publicly release information on pollutant levels in different areas of the city and during different parts of the day, although there are 27 monitoring stations throughout the city, according to the WP article and a November 29 Associated Press article (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune). In May 2008, the Measures on Open Environmental Information (in Chinese) will go into effect, but it remains to be seen whether these measures will lead to greater transparency regarding Beijing's pollution.

Other areas of concern include what kind of environmental legacy the Olympics will leave behind in Beijing and elsewhere, and if the pursuit of the environmental targets for the Olympics actually signifies greater protection of the environment. For instance, the availability of fuel cell buses highlights Beijing's goals for clean energy and an improved public transportation system, yet an October 23 China Watch article notes that the buses are running far short of their capacity and that usage may be hindered by the lack of signs and schedule information.

For more information on environmental protection and access to information in China, see Section II, on "Environment" and "Freedom of Expression," in the CECC 2007 Annual Report, available on the Web site of the Government Printing Office.