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 the spread of the Coronavirus and human rights violations, to the growing interference in the South China Sea and diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics including other issues that have caused other countries to be majorly concerned about ways in which the authoritarian country has been trying to achieve more powers, environmental challenges is yet another issue that has been a long-standing problem for China.                                    

With only two weeks left for the Olympics to begin, China is in a soup as the country witnesses a high surge of COVID-19 and Omicron cases, as per reports. Despite strict lockdowns and a vaccination rate near 90%, the 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 ahead of the Beijing Olympics

China is also struggling to deal with a number of Environment issues that can pose a threat to fulfilling the country's targets to combat Climate Change. Earlier this month, China's President Xi Jinping had visited the capital Beijing and stressed that he wanted a 'safe, simple and green' Olympics event and further 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 the President Xi Jinping-led government to prove as apart from the 'Zero-COVID' policy hardly turning out to be true, an HK Post report stated that there are high chances that a large part of the population could be hit by the new variant of the virus as Chinese vaccines are turning useless.                  

Making matters worse is that Beijing, where the 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 the fact that it may certainly not be safe to join and be part of the event. A worrying fact is that the Beijing Olympics could give rise to a whole new crisis, and it could lead to further spread of the COVID virus and its variant Omicron.

Environmental concerns for China

The Winter Olympics will be totally dependent on artificial snow, ANI cited HK Post, adding that manufacturing big amounts of artificial snow could prove to be hazardous for the environment. As per the report, the 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 the International Snow Federation can dangerously impact the highly water-stressed area with very little natural snow.

In yet another mess for the country, China has ordered its mines to boost coal production to combat the power crisis in the country. However, this strongly goes against China's ambitions of taking necessary measures to curb carbon emissions in a bid to fight the climate crisis. In opposition to President Xi Jinping's declaration of making China carbon neutral by 2060 and his plans to curb carbon emissions, the 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 the Olympics event approaches close, people including athletes and spectators are mired in fear and uncertainty considering that the event has been a controversial topic for years and adding to it, the recent developments including environmental challenges. It remains to be seen how big a success the Beijing Olympics will really be amidst the rapidly increasing virus cases and mounting environment issues.

Image: AP, Pixabay, Representative