Australia's clean environment verses China's polluted environment

Australia's clean air and environment appeals to Chinese nationals as their own polluted air and environment continues to deteriorate.  

Australia's pristine air quality is a huge motivating factor for wealthy Chinese to migrate to Australia and no wonder after reading the following report;    

Air pollution in China's capital cities have reached record levels according to the U.S. Embassy by exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s highest grading of "hazardous" which is anything between 301-500, and far beyond the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization, which is a 25 µg/m3 mean over a 24 hour period.   

The fact that many Chinese cities, not just Beijing, suffer terrible air pollution is common knowledge. And every day there are millions of people in the country who step out their door and see a heavy blanket of smog with their own two eyes. But how do you explain why the vast majority of these same citizens walk the streets, ride their bicycles and carry on their day without protection (such as an N95 face mask)?  

It has never been easy to cloak the air pollution problem in China - unlike the host of other environmental concerns that are so easily exported out into the countryside.  But until recently that public knowledge has been skin deep. Building a detailed picture of just how severe the pollution is and the impacts it is having on the country is a critical step for those trying to amass the momentum required to push for change.   

Last month Greenpeace, along with Peking University's School of Public Health, contributed to this public understanding of the country's air pollution problem with a new study that measures the human health and economic impact on China's largest cities. It found that last year an estimated 8,572 premature deaths in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an and Beijing could be linked to PM2.5 air pollution. And in the same period these cities suffered a combined total of U.S.$1.08 billion in economic loss.    

This follows a year in which we have seen the Chinese government finally begin releasing PM2.5 data for more and more cities, and from more and more stations within these cities.  Such a long sought after change represents a significant step in the fight to solve China's air pollution problems.  Not only does particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres in diameter pose a serious health hazard, it is most prevalent in the combustion of coal - which makes up 70% of the country's energy mix, and was therefore a large chunk of data missing from the government's air quality readings.