Film renews focus on pollution before National Congress

Buildings stand shrouded in haze in Handan, Heibei province

A documentary investigating the fallout of China’s poor air quality drew millions of viewers last weekend, putting a renewed spotlight on pollution as the nation’s lawmakers prepare for their annual gathering in Beijing.
Called “Under the Dome,” the film released online by former China Central Television reporter Chai Jing cites weak enforcement of environmental laws and poor fuel standards among the causes of the smog. It was the most searched topic on search engine Baidu early yesterday, and was played 21 million times on video-sharing site Youku.com.
China’s annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, which begins March 5 in Beijing, is expected to set government policies for the year on issues ranging from economic growth to military spending and pollution. Upcoming meetings are likely to proposed new policies to address air pollution, “including the boost of new energy vehicles,” analysts at Credit Suisse Group AG wrote in a research note.
Air pollution has become a focus of public discourse in China in the past few years as thick smog has blanketed large swathes of the country. Chai says in the documentary she became afraid of pollution for the first time after her baby daughter was given an operation soon after birth to remove a benign tumour. She displays pollutant charts and footage of doctors removing blackened lymph nodes from the lungs of a patient who didn’t smoke but was diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer.
“This is a personal grievance between me and the smog,” Chai says in the film.
China’s new environment minister, Chen Jining, told reporters yesterday he had watched the documentary and sent Chai a text message to express his gratitude as she “raised public attention on the environment,” according to the official Xinhua News agency. Ninety percent of the 161 cities whose air quality was monitored in 2014 failed to meet official standards, according to a report published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics last week.
The dominance of PetroChina Co., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, was cited by the documentary as a key reason why the country has been slow to produce more clean energy. Calls to the two companies weren’t answered.
Last year, Beijing pledged 760 billion yuan (USD121 billion) to reduce pollutants, and the mayor vowed to clean up the air by 2017, according to Oriental Outlook, a magazine run by Xinhua. Neighboring Hebei province has scaled back its heavily polluting steel and coal industries, according to state media reports. Bloomberg