Pollution chokes China’s capital despite lockdown cuts in traffic: study

Factories were closed and cars stayed off the road but particularly fine particles persisted in the air

Researchers say the haze could be the result of higher ozone levels but more work needs to be done to find out why

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Researchers say there were lower levels of every major air pollutant in Beijing during the pandemic lockdown – except for ozone. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00am, 8 Jul 2020Updated: 8:00am, 8 Jul 2020

The coronavirus lockdown might have upended the mix of chemicals in the atmosphere and led to unexpected air pollution in the Chinese capital, according to a new study.

The Chinese government imposed strict lockdowns across the country early this year after an outbreak of a new coronavirus erupted in Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei.

Most factories were shut down, shopping malls were closed and people were told to stay at home for more than two months. The number of cars on the road dropped from between 60 to nearly 90 per cent across the country, according to various estimates.

Professor Sun Yele and colleagues with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing found that the decline in traffic and other human activities led to an overall decline in pollutant emissions for winter of about 40 per cent.

But readings of PM2.5, very fine suspended particles that are hazardous to human health, were about the same as last year, according to the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau.

“In particular, two severe haze episodes occurred ... when the emissions were expected to be the lowest compared with the same periods in previous years,” Sun and colleagues said in a peer-reviewed-paper published online in the journal Science of the Total Environment on Saturday.

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