BEIJING – Fifteen years ago, Beijing’s Liangma riverbanks would have been smog-choked and deserted in winter, but these days they are dotted with families and exercising pensioners most mornings.
The turnaround is the result of a yearslong campaign that threw China’s state power behind policies like moving factories and electrifying vehicles, to improve some of the world’s worst air quality.
Pollution levels in many Chinese cities still top the World Health Organization’s (WHO) limits, but they have fallen dramatically since the “airpocalypse” days of the past.
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