China struggles to deal with environment issues, COVID ahead of Beijing Olympics: Report

Amid China facing severe criticism on a number of fronts right from spre of Coronavirus and human rights violations, to growing interference in South China Sea and diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics including or issues that have caused or countries to be majorly concerned about ways in which authoritarian country has been trying to achieve more powers, environmental challenges is yet anor issue that has been a long-standing problem for China.                                    

With only two weeks left for Olympics to begin, China is in a soup as country witnesses a high surge of COVID-19 and Omicron cases, as per reports. Despite strict lockdowns and a vaccination rate near 90%, country is seeing an alarming increase in number of COVID cases and deaths daily. Omicron cases have been reported in seven out of 31 provinces in major cities of China.    

China struggles to tackle a spate of issues ahe of Beijing Olympics

China is also struggling to deal with a number of Environment issues that can pose a threat to fulfilling country's targets to combat Climate Change. Earlier this month, China's President Xi Jinping h visited capital Beijing and stressed that he wanted a 'safe, simple and green' Olympics event and furr said ''China intends to demonstrate its superiority in every aspect of life - be it technology, sports or ability to control COVID-19.'' This may be hard for  President Xi Jinping-led government to prove as apart from 'Zero-COVID' policy hardly turning out to be true, an HK Post report stated that re are high chances that a large part of population could be hit by new variant of virus as Chinese vaccines are turning useless.                  

Making matters worse is that Beijing, where Olympics will be held on February 4, may have underreported number of infections and death rate. Owing to this, worries mount for international athletes, trainers, staff as well as spectators due to fact that it may certainly not be safe to join and be part of event. A worrying fact is that Beijing Olympics could give rise to a whole new crisis, and it could le to furr spre of COVID virus and its variant Omicron.

Environmental concerns for China

Winter Olympics will be totally dependent on artificial snow, ANI cited HK Post, ding that manufacturing big amounts of artificial snow could prove to be hazardous for environment. As per report, Alpine skiing event alone will require 1.2 million cubic metres of snow. It is to be noted that maintaining snow quality to meet strict requirements by International Snow Federation can dangerously impact highly water-stressed area with very little natural snow.

In yet anor mess for country, China has ordered its mines to boost coal production to combat power crisis in country. However, this strongly goes against China's ambitions of taking necessary measures to curb carbon emissions in a bid to fight climate crisis. In opposition to President Xi Jinping's declaration of making China carbon neutral by 2060 and his plans to curb carbon emissions, country produced a record of 4.07 billion metric tons of coal last year, 4.7% up from 2020, as per data by China's National Bureau of Statistics earlier this week, reported CNN.

As Olympics event approaches close, people including athletes and spectators are mired in fear and uncertainty considering that event has been a controversial topic for years and ding to it, recent developments including environmental challenges. It remains to be seen how big a success Beijing Olympics will really be amidst rapidly increasing virus cases and mounting environment issues.

Image: AP, Pixabay, Representative