Shanghai is experiencing unprecedented levels of pollution. Last week fine particulate levels reached almost 20 times WHO guidelines, and they are still at dangerous levels. Matthew Currell reports on China’s pollution crisis.

The huge economic and health costs of pollution are estimated to consume approximately 5% of China’s gross domestic product.
The current “airpocalypse” emergency in Shanghai – which has seen schoolchildren ordered indoors to protect them from the polluted air, flights grounded and companies ordered to cut production – comes at the end of a year in which China’s environmental crisis reached a tipping point.