Beijing wants to host the 2008 Summer Olympics and is prepared to shut down factories and shut cars out of the city to achieve its goal.
In mid-November Beijing launched a World Bank-aided anti-pollution project. Bank officials said the $1.25-billion (U.S.) initiative, for which $349-million is being lent by the World Bank, will help Beijing approach the World Health Organization clean-air standards for cities, by 2006.
But David Chernushenko, president of Ottawa-based environmental consultant firm Green and Gold Inc., an adviser to Toronto’s 2008 bid committee, and a volunteer on Toronto’s environment committee, says he’s skeptical that Beijing will meet its goal.
Chernushenko says that while the Chinese government has pledged more than a billion dollars to tackle air pollution, water pollution and traffic congestion, there are no specifics yet and added “the IOC will be expecting more detail than this”.
He said “it is too late to make any tangible impact to the IOC visit in the new year. The best Beijing might do is to order a short-term shutdown of factories and a moratorium on driving for a few days, in an attempt to impress the evaluation commission. Most of the IOC commission members, however, are sophisticated enough to see through this old approach”.
He added “Beijing stands no chance of meeting, by 2008, the air-and water-quality levels we observed in Sydney, so it would likely be the dirtiest Games ever — although Athens may earn itelf the dubious world record for air and water pollution and traffic congestion in 2004. Toronto will be a league above both of these cities, on the same general level as Sydney”.
But Chernushenko called environmental concerns a “serious challenge” for Toronto. “Should we prevail in the vote this summer, we must begin to seriously address transportation, power generation and industrial emission issues — in partnership with all of the stakeholders, three levels of government, industry and citizens of the region, as well as our neighbours across the border”.
