The government of the world’s most populous country, China, issued its first ever “red alert” for the city of Beijing last week, closing schools, shutting down factories and halting outdoor construction because of poisonous air quality, according to the New York Times.
Smog coated Beijing, bringing the city to a standstill.
The municipal air quality index reached up to 308, a rating marked “hazardous” by the United States and “we’re screwed,” in sanity’s standards.
Essentially, people were warned not to step foot outdoors.
The thick smog certainly caused an inconvenience for residents, but it shines a flashing red light on the environmental catastrophe that has been building in the Communist nation for decades.
And the red alert was issued just in time for the Paris climate deal, which was reached this Saturday.
The 31-page document details a landmark agreement that “could be a turning point in the struggle to contain global warming,” according to the New York Times.
World leaders from 195 countries struck an accord, committing “to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help” ward off climate change.
The agreement calls for participating countries to “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions” as soon as possible, according to the New York Times.
This vague language is questionable, but they agreed to return with plans for tougher policies every five years after the year 2020. Countries must report how they are reducing their emissions in comparison with their targets by verifying, monitoring and publicly reporting those levels.
However, even if everyone plays nice, the goals set at the Paris agreement might not be enough to prevent the “catastrophic effects of climate change,” according to the Washington Post. Forces might already be set in motion, according to new science, that might be irreversible.
Though previous climate agreements required developed countries like the U.S. to reduce emissions, it exempted developing countries like China and India from this obligation, according to the New York Times. This new agreement has dropped this dynamic and now requires action from every country in some form.
This is a good first step.
U.S. conservatives are also not the biggest fans of policies that have been proposed to fight climate change. Instead of negotiating such policies, they block them by attempting to undermine science.
But the Editorial Board, and certainly Bill Nye the Science Guy, have grown tired of hearing problematic rhetoric from conservatives and others who don’t support efforts to combat climate change.
Even Indiana has its own reputation for pollution. Earlier this year, the Hoosier Nation was ranked the fourth worst state for overall environmental quality. We don’t have smog, but we certainly have a problem.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Chinese officials have consulted at the negotiations about how the current agreement would improve China’s air quality by limiting the amount of pollutants and carbon emissions from the country’s power plants, according to Yahoo News.
She said the deal reached in Paris will need “a strong system of emissions monitoring, reporting and verification to ensure countries meet” their commitments. And the U.S., she said, certainly still had plenty of room to broaden the scope of emission cuts beyond just vehicles and power plants.
Climate change is a global issue, and we can only hope the climate agreements reached this weekend will bring positive change and cleaner air into our earth’s atmosphere.
