How hard will it be for China to fulfill its end of the climate deal signed with the United States last week? The extraordinary means that the Chinese government used to reduce Beijing's air pollution in advance of and during the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit offer some sobering hints. Among other measures, city residents were given a six-day vacation, factories were shut down, traffic restrictions were imposed, even the small coal heaters that poor villagers outside of the city use to heat their beds were banned temporarily.
Yet despite these extraordinary efforts targeted at just one city, pollution remained high enough that the Chinese government took the added step of censoring the U.S. Embassy's unflattering air quality data for Beijing.
That reality should worry anyone concerned about climate change (and accurate data reporting from China). But it's not very surprising. Anti-pollution measures that require austerity on the part of Chinese consumers, businesses, and local governments will always face resistance. Fortunately, there are other ways for China to slow the rise in its carbon emissions, at least some of which require far less sacrifice from powerful and not-so-powerful interests.