Amid ‘hazardous’ air, China tries low-carbon path

BEIJING – For most of August, it’s been hard to imagine China leading the charge down a low-carbon path. 

On my Blackberry, headlines about how the country is seeking to ramp up development of alternative energies such as wind and solar power and rolling out electric vehicles have been competing all summer with relentless Tweets from BeijingAir telling us the obvious:  That air quality in the Chinese capital is “unhealthy” or “hazardous.” 

(BeijingAir is a Twitter feed published by the U.S. embassy in Beijing, which monitors the air in the central downtown area, on an hourly basis, using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.)  

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

BeijingAir publishes hourly tweets on the capital’s air quality.

Last weekend’s weather was so foul (BeijingAir: “very unhealthy”) that I stayed indoors, engrossed in reading a political thriller that pits the U.S. against China over climate change.

“Ultimatum,” a novel that came out earlier this year, is set in the year 2032, when a newly elected American president discovers that the effects of global warming will be far more catastrophic than anyone realized. 

With huge swathes of America’s coastline – as well as those of every other continent – destined to go under water, forcibly relocating hundreds of millions of people, the U.S. realizes any viable solution requires a coordinated effort with the world’s biggest emitter, China. And so begins a secret, high-stakes diplomatic game of cat and mouse…

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