China’s rapid economic development has pulled the nation out of poverty and made it a leading productive powerhouse. Earlier stages of that development emphasized productive output at the expense of air-quality controls, leading to serious air pollution problems in such cities as Beijing, the nation’s capital.
But that has changed in the last decade, as new power plants have come online, vehicle emissions controls have been tightened, and construction techniques have been improved.
On a one-year time scale, average concentrations of PM2.5 in Beijing decreased 9%, reports Global Times. (PM2.5 refers to tiny particulate matter, no larger than 2.5 microns in diameter.) Over the span of a decade, the improvements are profound:
