Heavy traffic and burning coal are the leading suspects, but the real culprit may be much simpler.

The Chinese government has declared a second air quality “red alert” in Beijing less than two weeks after the first.
The so-called “airpocalypse” has resulted in school closings, the enforcement of alternate driving days and the cessation of outdoor construction.
In addition, the Chinese government has mandated the suspension of production for certain manufacturers. Orient Paper recently announced that it will temporarily suspend the majority of its paper production until the end of the year.
According to the company, the same mandate also suspends textile printing and dyeing, cement production, mining and chemical manufacturing, though as yet no companies in those industries have issued statements to this effect.
It’s also worth noting that the suspension of production will not apply to Orient Paper’s tissue paper operations, since those are located in an Economic Development Zone.
Although the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection deserves credit for dispatching teams to ensure compliance with the red alert, reports on the number of industries operating in contravention of the mandate are unsettling.
China’s Air Quality Data
For Westerners interested in the current air quality in Beijing, it is as simple as consulting the United States Embassy website, which maintains a real-time air quality index (AQI).
It’s not quite as easy for Chinese citizens to get this information, but two recent technological developments have made air quality information much more accessible.
The first is a software program called Blue Map, developed by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and which provides pollution data from more than 3,000 coal, steel, cement and petrochemical plants in China. Accessible via internet browser or mobile app, Blue Map offers cartographic representations of China’s air and water pollution.
The other technological development is the ‘Laser Egg’, a personal air quality monitor with a website that makes it look like the latest gadget from Apple. The device allows users to measure the level of fine particulate matter in the air themselves, by-passing government AQI figures entirely.

In concert with various smartphone apps that enable users to upload their personal air quality data, Blue Map and Laser Egg give the Chinese public new tools for sharing that information with the world as well as each other. This could conceivably lead to increased international and domestic pressure on the Chinese government to do more to rein in the country’s worst polluters.
Who’s to Blame for Beijing’s Red Alerts?
The usual suspects are being cited by most major news outlets. Coal-burning factories are a popular target, with some pointing to the increased use of the small coal-burning furnaces scattered throughout northern China.
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection officially cited slower wind speeds and higher humidity levels as exacerbating Beijing’s air pollution.
However, critics have also pointed out that the AQI in neighbouring regions has actually been worse than in Beijing and yet none of the cities in those regions have issued mandates as sweeping as the one for China’s capital.
There have been some suggestions that the motivation behind the red alerts is political rather than environmental. Between the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and the increasing discontent amongst Chinese citizens over air quality, the government has ample reason to appear more vigilant.
Still, there may be a simpler reason for the red alerts in Beijing as well as the lack of alerts elsewhere. According to Ma Jun, founder of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Beijing recently lowered the AQI threshold for triggering a red alert.
Previously, the threshold was an AQI of 300 or more, but earlier this year it was reduced to 200.
The Red Alerts’ Impact on Chinese Industry
As indicated above, some companies appear to be taking the red alerts more seriously than others. Meanwhile, the plans laid out by China’s negotiators in Paris would see greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2030, with China’s share of renewables and nuclear energy increasing to supply 20 percent of the country’s electricity by that date.
More recently, the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB&I) was awarded a contract for designing the world’s largest single-train dehydrogenation plant by Hengli Petrochemical.
The plant will be built in Dalian, Liaoning Province, which is adjacent to Hebei Province and the Beijing Municipality. Once operational, the plant will process feedstock to produce 300,000 metric tons of propane and 600,000 metric tons of isobutane annually.
The dehydrogenation plant is not likely to be as bad a polluter as many other Chinese facilities but the construction announcement shows that Beijing’s red alerts have not yet prompted any serious long-term changes to Chinese industry.
In the short-term, at least one business is viewing Beijing’s air quality crisis as an opportunity. Jing-A Brewing Company announced that they will be discounting their Airpocalypse Double IPA in accordance with outdoor AQI.
Although they have typically capped the maximum discount at 40 percent (when AQI is over 400), they will now continue to scale the discount up by ten percent for every additional 100 AQI (as measured by the US Embassy).
That means free beer if Beijing ever hits an AQI over 1000.