Can Beijing Really Pull Off a Green Olympics?

Amidst the controversy, media attention and calls for boycotts, Beijing continues to try to convince the world that the 2008 Summer Olympics will earn the title, the “Green Olympics.” According to the Seattle Time’s Daniel Beekman who is Blogging Beijing:

A slew of ambitious ‘green’ campaigns have indisputably transformed the city and garnered international attention.

In 2005, BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad) signed a UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) agreement – pledging to curb air, water and noise pollution.

Since then, the city has scrapped coal-burning furnaces, rolled out ‘green’ buses, booted dirty factories and capped auto emissions.

Beekman continues, though, to note that despite these efforts, Beijing still has a lot of environmental issues to contend with:

About 1,200 new cars hit the street here each week – Beijing claims 3.5 million vehicles today, up a million from a few years ago. The city contains thousands of construction sites – all sources of particle pollution.

Various Olympic athletes have questioned Beijing’s air quality. Concerned that the city’s pollution could affect their performance and/or health, a handful may pull out of the 2008 Games entirely.

Global Voices pointed me to another article at China Dialogue which warns about China’s fragile water supply, which is not only scarce but polluted by toilets, fertilisers and industrial waste.

And then there’s the Olympic Torch itself – supposed to be the symbol for international sportsmanship and goodwill. Instead, it’s travels this year (in its own private jet) have prompted Slate to rename the upcoming games the Carbon Olympics:

in the long run, the torch could generate more pollution than political dissent. Its journey across the world (and back again) is leaving a historic trail of CO₂ emissions.

I won’t go into the math here, because Chadwick Matlin does it for us in his Slate article. He summarizes:

To put this in perspective, the average American leaves an annual carbon footprint of 42,000 to 44,000 pounds of CO₂ emissions, according to the United Nations. That means the Olympic torch will spew as much greenhouse gas during its international travels as 153 Americans do a year. Put another way, the four-month torch relay puts twice as much carbon in the atmosphere as you will over the course of your entire life.

But back to Beekman, who quotes some young eco-activists in the city which now has the focus of the world upon it:

“If Beijing wants to remain a global city and China’s cultural-political capital, the condition of its environment must improve,” said Fei Xiaojing, who heads the volunteer group Green Student Forum (GSF). “Olympics or no – this is necessary. However, the Games have given our government a push.”

“The government has instituted a number of concrete environmental measures to ensure a clean Olympics,” Michael Zhao, Beijing coordinator of the International Fund for China’s Environment (IFCE) said. “But the Games’ most beneficial results are less tangible – common people here are thinking about the environment because they want the Olympics to be successful.”

So, it is obvious that Beijing is far from its goal of a Green Olympics, but it is trying. Does it get an “A” for effort, or a “D” for definitely not enough? What do you think?

Image: Newscom