An oxygen bar is a concept; an interesting, yet mysterious concept. It’s all about being part of mother nature, found in forests and green areas.
When you walk into an oxygen bar, you immediately feel the difference. The air is cleaner, sharper and fresh. Don’t look for a building or structure, you are advised, and there is no furniture.
These are the gifts of nature for the Chinese who prioritize conservation of the environment.
The thing is, the inland port city of Chongqing is the largest municipality in southwest China. Here, environmental conservation is almost second to nature. No one really thinks about it. It just happens. After all it starts right from childhood.
Chongqing is a modern port city at the confluence of Yangtse and Jialing Rivers and covers 82,400 square kilometers. Chongqing is China’s fourth largest municipality after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.
According to World Population Review, the city’s 2024 population is estimated at 17,773,923.
While responding to a journalist’s question on environmental conservation, Environmental Expert Yu Jun mentioned Oxygen Bars just in passing. That immediately captured my attention and I have since obsessed about it. What are Oxygen Bars? Where are they located? Can I visit one? Which is the nearest to me? Can I take pictures?
I could see that I was testing my hosts’ patience with my persistence on this subject! I already visualized these mythical Bars filled with Oxygen and I couldn’t wait to tell the story.
And with the expansive greenery across Chongqing city, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that nature would reward what must surely be some of its most faithful adherents with these mysterious Oxygen Bars.
University student George Simon Kiev who is a volunteer at the renowned 2024 Belt and Road Journalists Forum, says “Oxygen bars are all over the city”.
It takes Huang Yu, a staff member of the Western China International Communication Organization (WCICO) to explain that “you shouldn’t be looking for a structure. An Oxygen Bar is a concept!”
Huang Yu says when you walk into any of the plush greenery in Chongqing, you may experience the concept of the Oxygen Bar. “The air is clean and fresh; it just feels different”.
And it finally dawns on me! P****e literally walk into bars of all types – beer bars, wines and spirits bars, ice cream bars, milk bars. With Oxygen bars, the sheer health implications are the rewards.
The massive acreage dedicated to trees and greenery is proof enough that there are pockets of areas with such clean air they have earned the term “oxygen bar”.
Yu Jun says Chongqing is also one of China’s vegetation centers, with 55 percent forest cover. He says forest coverage in urban areas is currently at 12 percent.
Vice President of the Sales Department of Chongqing’s Yangtze River Golden Cruise company, Wang Yi says the city was initially called the Foggy Capital due to the massive industrial pollution then.
Just recently in June 2017, a thick fog h**g over Chongqing and until 2020, the city experienced heavy fog for at least 68 days a year.
While hosting locals and foreign visitors on an hour-long cruise down the Yangtze River, Wang Yi said the environmental conservation project initiated by the Chinese government served to reclaim the city of Chongqing from pollution and from a terrible reputation, thus the nickname “City of Fog”.
The Chinese government took the initiative because of the oppressive hot weather, in a city surrounded by mountains. The government which initiated pollution reduction policies sparked by the Paris Protocol, also shut down pollution producing factories.
The Paris Agreement on climate change is the first universal legally binding g****l climate agreement. It was signed by 195 countries and the European Union on 12th December, 2015. The agreement works on a five-year cycle of climate action. It became effective on 4th November, 2016.
Every five years, each country or member is expected to submit an update on a national climate action plan known as Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
The Agreement sets long-term goals to:
• Substantially reduce g****l greenhouse gas emissions to hold g****l temperature increase to below 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels
• Periodically assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of these long-term goals
• And provide financing to developing countries to mitigate climate change
China targets to eliminate carbon emissions by the year 2035 with each province as well as the national government setting their own climate change goals.
One of the measures was the introduction of electrical vehicles where China effects tax reduction to motivate manufacturers. The consumers have not been left behind as the government introduced subsidies for buyers of electric vehicles.
In Chongqing, vocational training institutions have introduced mechanical courses specially for needs of electric vehicle users.
According to Liu Rui who is staff member of the International Liaison Department of the All-China Journalists Association, the meticulous conservation of the trees is not incidental. He says, every tree has an Identification number and anyone seeking to cut down any tree, big or small must first seek approval from the government. Liu Rui says it doesn’t matter even if you planted the tree yourself and even if it is growing right on your own property, the rules are uniform for everyone.
In Kenya, destruction of the environment has also reached concerning levels. And Kenya has followed China’s example, embarking on an ambitious nationwide tree planting campaign, seeking to plant 15 billion trees by the year 2032. Spearheaded by President William Ruto, the exercise is ongoing with targets of planting at least 2 million trees per year.
In conjunction with Cabinet Secretaries and other senior government officials, the president holds regular tree planting sessions. Kenyans enjoyed an unprecedented public holiday on the first national tree planting day. And every Kenyan was encouraged to plant at least one tree, on that day or any other day thereafter, with the government offering free tree seedlings for interested persons.
With 50 million Kenyans according to the last national census, these would have been a minimum of 50 million trees for that first exercise.
Like Chongqing, Kenya is taking measures to reduce greenhouse emissions. Kenya is also seeking to stop and reverse d***********n and restore 5.1 million of deforested and degraded landscapes through the African landscape Restoration Initiative which was launched on 22nd December, 2022.
Maybe, this is the right path to take to experience the Oxygen Bars as envisioned by the Chinese.
