CHINA:YELLOW-TINGED smog obscured the spectacular new Olympic buildings in Beijing yesterday, but with less than a month to go until the games, the government says key pollution indicators are falling.
Levels of sulphur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand, fell significantly last year, according to China's environmental watchdog, which hailed the news as a sign the struggle with pollution is being won ahead of the games.
Sulphur dioxide emissions, which belch out of factory chimneys and cause acid rain, fell by 4.7 per cent last year, while chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, dropped by 3.2 per cent in 2007, the environmental watchdog's official publication reported.
Anecdotal and unofficial evidence suggests otherwise - the air in Beijing was appalling yesterday and one rare sunny day on Sunday was the first that anyone can remember for weeks. The sight of a massive, stinking algae bloom in sailing venue Qingdao have highlighted China's environmental concerns as we enter the closing stretch before the games.
The BBC used a hand-held detector to test for airborne particles known as PM10 and found that Beijing's air quality failed to meet the World Health Organisation's guidelines for PM10 on six days out of seven, a cheeky manoeuvre that is sure to anger the Beijing organisers, who tightly control pollution monitoring.
China failed to meet pollution-busting targets in 2006, but promises the air will be fine by the time the athletes come to Beijing for the games, which start on August 8th.
The watchdog described the result as "heartening" but said: "The environmental situation is still grim. We are still under enormous pressure to meet the targets in the plan."
The host city has already spent 120 billion yuan (€11.2 billion) on environmental programmes to combat pollution, and city officials say that more efforts are planned.
On July 20th an odd/even licence plate system will start taking 1.3 million of the city's three million cars off the roads for the duration of the games, and 300,000 cars with high emissions will be taken out of circulation.
Beijing has also demanded factories in surrounding provinces stop work or cut production to clean the city's air, which has caused health concerns for a number of athletes.
Coal-burning furnaces are being converted to natural gas in the city centre; millions of trees are being planted and dust clouds from building sites kept under control.
In an embarrassing statement last year, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge warned that some Olympic events may need to be postponed.
Fearful of this the government has pushed ahead with the building of urban rail lines and has cut bus fares to discourage driving.