Can China’s Green Revolution Be Replicated?

Around 2010, when I was a university student in Beijing, I began each morning with the same ritual: pulling back the dormitory curtains to check the color of the sky and consulting the US Embassy Twitter feed for the daily pollution readings. The embassy provided the only reliable public air quality data, which helped me decide what to do with my day and whether to wear a mask.

The so-called Olympic Blue — the fleeting clear skies achieved while the international spotlight was on the 2008 Beijing Games — had already regressed to oppressive shades of grey. Over the following decade, I witnessed more swings in Beijing’s air quality as authorities shut down coal-fired power plants ahead of political meetings or high-profile events, only for the smog to return within days. I still remember winters when the pollution was so thick you couldn’t see the face of the person standing across a ping-pong table in the park. I had at least four air purifiers running at home, and always wore a tightly sealed N95 mask outside. Yet I was still regularly afflicted with severe rhinitis.