Beijing Vice Major Liu Jingmin, a delegate to the five-yearly Party congress, said at a news conference that the blue skies Beijing was experiencing was due to the wind coming down from the north that cleaned the air in the host city of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He said, ‘Frankly speaking, we didn’t take any measures. It’s the weather that played the role.’ Such honesty in a politician is rare and is to be applauded.

Taking a longer view, however, the situation is improving.

In 2006, Beijing registered 240 ‘blue sky’ days, or days with fairly good air quality (the scientific definition is not clear), a rise of 64 days from the previous year. In September ‘blue sky’ days totaled 25, setting a record high in seven years.

Liu Jingmin, who is also executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games, said Beijing would materialize its promise of ‘Green Olympics’ by not only improving the city’s ecology and environment, but also adopting a ‘green’, environment-friendly, approach to the management of city affairs.

Partly this is being done by slashing bus and subway fares. Partly by doubling the tax on motorcycles, passenger cars, sedans and trucks.
Renewable energy has been widely used in the of Olympic projects. For instance, the residences of athletes in the Olympic Village will be installed with special heating and refrigerating facilities powered by energy tapped from a neighboring sewage disposal plant.
Photovoltaic technology based on solar energy is widely used in the competition venues.
The city’s first wind power plant has been set up in the north.
The city has moved 167 pollutive factories to the suburbs or remoter areas. At the same time of the removal, they have undergone technical innovations.
The city used to have 16,000 coal-consuming boilers. Now 15,000 of them have been upgraded to use clean energy forms.