14 DAY TRIAL // By now, it is no news that China is dealing with a major air pollution crisis. The situation is so bad that high officials are considering resorting to artificial rain to at least partly solve the problem.
As state media explained earlier this month, this so-called airpocalypse is largely due to the economic boom that the country has experienced.
Ironically enough, it would appear that China now has no choice except use its newly discovered economic might to get itself out of the environmental crisis the heavily industrialized ways that greatly benefited the country financially-wise have gotten it into.
Long story short, Oil Price tells us that, according to one Wang Jinnan, i.e. the deputy head of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, the country will have to spend a hefty sum of money to clear the air hovering over it.
Speaking at the 4th Caixin Summit in Beijing, Wang Jinnan said that, according to his estimates, solving China's air pollution crisis had a price tag of $290 billion (nearly €212 billion), the same source details.
Apparently, the costs associated with improving air quality in China are higher than the gross domestic product that several countries such as Finland, Israel and Portugal reported back in 2012.
The good news is that, according to Wang Jinnan, investing said sum of money in solving China's air pollution crisis by improving on the ecological footprint of various industries, promoting the use of renewables and greening up cars driven up and down Chinese roads is totally worth it.
Interestingly enough, this is not just because public health will have a lot to gain once the country's residents stop being exposed to record-breaking concentrations of pollutants and fine particulate matter on a daily basis.
Thus, Wang Jinnan maintains that, by spending $290 billion on improving local air quality, the country would gain 2 million more job opportunities. What's more, its gross domestic product would up by almost $315 billion (about €230 billion).