Feast Your Eyes on Beijing's Blue Skies Now That We’ve Notched the Best Year for Clean Air on Record

As we roll into 2022 we’re proud to see that once again Beijing has set a new high water mark for clean air – the best year on record for all pollutants measured, including the #1 measurable bugbear, PM 2.5.

Beijing’s air in 2021 averaged 33 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5, microparticles that are known to be particularly bad for your average breathing being.

Granted, this is still far from the World Health Organization’s 2021 goal of 5, but that’s a goal not many capital cities have managed to achieve: out of 92 world capitals examined in IQAir’s 2020 World Air Quality Report, only 1 had reached that lofty goal (check the link to find out which one!)

Other good news to celebrate:

It ain’t just PM 2.5 that’s improving: it’s all monitored pollutants
– PM 10 hit a new low of 55 micrograms per cubic meter
– Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) hit a new low of 26 micrograms per cubic meter
– Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) hit a new low of 3 micrograms per cubic meter
– Carbon Monoxide hit a new low of 1.1 micrograms per cubic meter

Take a look at these charts from Beijing News showing this year's progress:

New Highs for Excellent Air, Lows for Heavily Polluted Days
– We set a new annual record for "Excellent" air – days rated AQI 50 or under – with 114. That narrowly beats out the previous record of excellent days in a year, set in 2020 with 109.
– There were only 8 days with serious pollution in Beijing last year. Compare that to 50 in 2013.

Superlatives
– The most horrendous month of 2021 was March, followed by February;
– The best months for air were July and August

And now, feast your eyes on more of the blue skies we enjoyed last year:

READ: Embrace Eco-Friendly Living with the Bulk House

Images: Uni You, Moon Li and JG