Spurred by Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics, China is pledging to ramp up its effort to clean the country’s air. Last year, Beijing’s air qualified for the government’s best rating, Level 1, only once — when the government shut down industries for the 50th anniversary of communist China — and a quarter of the time it reached Level 4 or Level 5, when the air is so dirty that nearby buildings are obscured and many individuals feel dizzy after a few breaths. Major revisions to the country’s air pollution law are set to take effect in September, and even some critics who say enforcement has been weak in the past believe the government plans to get serious this time. Within five years, for example, all of Beijing’s 60,000 cabs are scheduled to run on natural gas.
