Beijing air-quality center opens to public

China.org.cn, November 9, 2011

Beijing's air quality center opens its doors to the public for the first time since its establishment in 1974 to response public doubts about the Chinese capital's efforts to monitor air quality.

Citizen representatives?came to the city's environmental-monitoring center on Nov. 8 to see how air-quality data is collected and analyzed. [ifeng.com]

The move, announced Tuesday, is meant to allow ordinary citizens to learn by themselves how air-quality data is collected and analyzed, said Hua Lei, vice head of the municipal government's environmental protection monitoring center.

Nine "citizen representatives" and more than 10 journalists came to the city's environmental-monitoring center on Nov. 8 and it was the start of regular trips that are to take 40 visitors in two groups to the center every Tuesday.

The public's suspicion peaked after the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, using a different set of standards that measure finer particular matter than those employed by city authorities, rated the air quality as "hazardous," a scenario that warrants official warnings about outdoor activities.

"We want the public to see how we work and further convince the public of the sincerity of our efforts and improve our environmental awareness," said Wang Xiaoming, spokesman for the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau.

In response to public queries about the differences seen between air-quality data released by the US embassy and that released by the city, Wang said the bureau is confident that its numbers are trustworthy.

"Our monitoring machines are up to national standards and our engineers have been rigorous in collecting and analyzing these data," Wang said. "We can't judge the quality of others' data, but our results are all carefully processed."

Despite recent foggy days, Wang said the air-quality data collected in Beijing this year differs little from what was collected in 2010.