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【No countries have solved their air pollution problems in five years. China would probably do it faster than we did in the United States or than England did, but it still takes time to not just set the rules, but then to implement them, to enforce them, and to make sure everybody is in compliance with the rules.】
Reporter: You are in charge of HEI, which studies health effects of air pollution. With the development of medical treatment, does the effect of air pollution on health still matter that much today?
Dan Greenbaum: Very much so. What we are finding is that as people live longer while they develop many symptoms of heart disease. If they are exposed to air pollution, they could die several years earlier than they would otherwise die because of the severity of the heart disease. The other issue is that although we have treatments for asthma, people with asthma have very hard time on days when there’s higher pollution. If somebody is particularly sensitive, even the best treatments will not prevent them from having a serious asthma attack.
Reporter: What do you think of Chinese government’s role in environmental protection so far? What more do you think China needs to do?
Dan Greenbaum: I think the Chinese government in the last five years has taken a number of important actions to move in the right direction. The establishment of standards for fine particles like PM2.5, the establishment of a monitoring system to measure that in many cities, the process of making net data and information public are all very good first steps in better air quality management. The second thing Chinese government has done is to require big cities like Beijing, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta to take very aggressive steps between now and even in the next five years to reduce the existing pollution. Thirdly, there is now a commitment to improve the quality of gasoline and the diesel fuel, and that will allow much cleaner vehicles to be sold in China.
And I think there are a couple of things that China can do. First of all, you should remember that no countries have solved their air pollution problems in five years. China would probably do it faster than we did in the United States or than England did, but it still takes time to not just set the rules, but then to implement them, to enforce them, and to make sure everybody is in compliance with the rules. The second thing is that there is still more to be done. For example, the next generation’s controls for coal fire power plants. The 11th 5-year plan and the 12th 5-year plan have made steps to control power plants, but there’s more that can be done.
Reporter: What benefits could international cooperation in this field bring?
Dan Greenbaum: I think it’s very important right now that there are already substantial amounts of cooperation. For example, the people at the US Environmental Protection Agency have a lot of experience in developing monitoring systems. The “Air Now” system that is now in place in Shanghai was instituted jointly with the US EPA, which tells people every day how bad the air pollution is and whether they should stay indoors and other things. And then, I think there are many government officials and private companies who have experience with technologies that are necessary to clean the air, and there are many opportunities for Chinese companies to learn from that and do joint ventures with these companies, and then eventually make their own new control technologies in China, which would be a good thing.
Reporter: Besides the technological companies, what can other enterprises do about it?
Dan Greenbaum: Well, I think one of the challenges is that usually when a government goes to make more rules to require improvements, many industries and companies will resist the rules. They would put political pressure on to say, no, this would cost too much. But sometimes the companies see that it is actually to their advantage to implement cleaner technologies.
Reporter: What if there are interest conflicts between companies and the government?
Dan Greenbaum: Well there are always interest conflicts. It’s always difficult to do this. The best example is that--and this is not unique to China—the oil industry, whether they are government owned oil companies like Sinopec or companies in Indonesia and Mexico, or the international oil companies. You really have to get them to agree to change their refining system and to make cleaner fuel. If you don’t do that, then you can’t do other improvements. And even in the United States, there was a very big battle for over twenty years to get change. The good news in China is that recently the Chinese oil companies have agreed to substantially improve the quality of their fuel by 2017, which is quite soon.
Reporter: Paris Climate Conference will be held in 2015. What changes do you expect it will make?
Dan Greenbaum: I think the climate has been a difficult area because China and other rapidly developing countries have the reaction that the US hasn’t taken substantial efforts, because we have not until recently taken any action. That’s changing in United States now. We have tough standards in greenhouse gas emission from vehicles, and for the first time the US is preparing to take hard and enforceable actions for power plant emissions. So I think hopefully that will mean that countries like China and India and Indonesia and others will say okay, maybe we should think about taking actions, too. More in a sense of cooperation than competition.
Reporter: What do you think fosters the change in US?
Dan Greenbaum: In US, I think there are three things. The science has gotten stronger; the weather has gotten much more unclean, so people are more worried about climate change now than they were; and also right now there is political leadership in US to say that we must do something about the climate change.
Reporter: What roles do you think NGOs and social enterprises can play in the process of environmental protection?
Dan Greenbaum: I think they can play a very important role. They can be a continual reminder to the government decision makers that they need to take action. NGO activities in China are a little different from in other countries, but I know that some NGOs in China, they are not just educating; they are actually doing some very detailed analysis of the most cost effective action that the government could take on air pollution and climate change and other things. And then they are putting that analysis forward to the government agencies. Sometimes the outside groups and universities can do that kind of analysis the way that government officials can’t as they are more limited. So sometimes it’s scientists in Fudan or Tsinghua or other places that are actually doing the analysis and make a difference.
Reporter: Also we find it hard to arouse public awareness in environmental protection. What can we do to inform and educate people?
Dan Greenbaum: Well, I think one of things that happens now is that the available air quality report, for example, tells people right away that the air pollution is bad and it helps spark people’s concern. Frankly, some of the reasons that the government here has taken the actions over the last five years is because of the very high and very visible pollution. And there is civil concern, not organized by NGOs, but just because many people are very upset about this. But the challenge is that air pollution isn’t bad every day, and I think keeping people’s attention to it continually is the harder part. The second thing is that you get people aware if there are groups of people in China, for example, people with asthma, who suffer particularly badly in those days -- to make sure their story is being told in the press and social media and other things. A child who can’t go out and play but has to go to the hospital can get more concerns and have more impact than statistics sometimes.
Reporter: It’s ironic sometimes that we pollute the air while we complain about the air pollution, and it’s not that everyone has asthma. So what can we do to make people realize that they have to do something for themselves?
Dan Greenbaum: Right. First of all, you know there’s a possibility that sometimes people will have more diseases or illnesses because of the air pollution even if they don’t have asthma. There can be any number of things. In some cases in the United States, people became aware of the problem of older diesel buses because they constantly had to clean their clothes, their windows and everything else. And I think people initially think they have to do something because it is good for the economy so that they have a job, but as people get more money, they would be more willing to say, wait, isn’t this a way to do this better?
Reporter: Do you think that for China, there exist a sustainable and eco-friendly way of economic development that can be explored in the near future?
Dan Greenbaum: I certainly think so, once you start setting clear signals that you want to do this. If the government takes specific actions and says okay we want all the certain kinds of factories to be cleaner by a certain date, there becomes a sense in the industry to start investing in the most cost effective ways to meet that rule. And so you get new technology development, innovation and new ideas. There was a point where people wanted to get cars to be cleaner and there were catalyst converters in these cars, these control devices. But when you first started the car in the morning, the device didn’t work so well. It hasn’t warmed up. So the rules they were suggesting is that if somehow they can warm up the catalyst sooner, and many manufactures said that we can’t do that; we have to add electric heaters to the catalyst and it’s very complicated and expensive. And one company, Honda, said wait, if we design a catalyst, so we can move it closer to the engine in the system, they will heat up faster; they will cost almost nothing more. Once they came out and said they can do that, many other manufactures were saying that oh, if they can do that, they are going to be saving money and we are going to lose business, so we better do that as well. So sometimes when the government sets up the clear rules, then the most effective and efficient way of controlling pollution will come from the private sector. Pollution is waste; it’s things that are being thrown away. And efficiency is preventing waste and using these things for power, for products and other things. So, smart companies will find ways to be more efficient in their whole operation instead of just putting control at the end of the pipe.
Dan Greenbaum:
President and CEO of Health Effects Institute
