• Beijing’s desperate measures for a greener Olympics

  • Green beijing.jpg
    Thought of renting a car on your trip to Beijing for the Olympics? Think again! Beijing is one of the world’s most polluted cities and road traffic grows by 1,200 vehicles a day. August, when the wind drops and the normally dry climate turns humid, is typically one of the worst months for smog. With the Olympics deadline approaching the city of Beijing has gone into a massive green drive to clean up the cities smoggy skies. To do this, half the city’s 3.3m cars are banned from the roads each day, depending on whether their number plates end in an odd or even digit. All construction sites and more factories in and around Beijing may be temporarily closed if the air quality deteriorates during the games. To add fuel to the fire there are chances that it may rain on the ceremonial day.


    If you think you can get by well the Chinese big brother is obviously watching thousands of number plate recognition cameras are put in place to track the wrong number plate for a given day. Officials are also hoping that the threat of a 100 Yuan ($14.48) fine will reduce vehicle emissions by more than 60%.
    Via

    Posted in Topics:Awareness and Hype, Tags: , on July 31, 2008