Beijing into ‘battle’ against coal-fired stoves
Print Edition
Beijing will begin to remove coal-fired stoves from family homes and businesses this year, with officials blaming consumption of low-quality coal as contributing to winter smog.
The capital is launching a “large-scale battle” to replace rural coal use with cleaner fuel, officials said at a meeting on pollution control and coal management on Monday.
Authorities will comb small factories, restaurants, bath houses and hotels in rural areas to remove their stoves, said Zhong Chonglei, a chief inspector with the city’s environmental protection bureau.
He said the campaign would also include a harsher crackdown on sales of low-quality coal.
Guo Zihua, an official in charge of rural development, said coal burning will be phased out in all villages in the plain areas by 2020. So far, the plan is to urge rural families that still rely on coal stoves for heating to use quality coal.
The city had closed down all coal stoves in central Xicheng and Dongcheng districts by the end of 2015 and plans to make all of its six districts coal-free by 2017, Guo said.
Small stoves, which consume 3-4 million tons of coal each year in Beijing’s suburban and rural areas, which are not covered by the central heating system, have been blamed for worsening the city’s smoggy conditions during the winter.
Beijing has issued two “red alerts” for heavy air pollution since the start of the winter, prompting school closures and bans on outdoor construction, while another round of smog has been predicted to hit the city later this week.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection has said coal burning is the primary source of air pollution in north China during winter, followed by car exhausts, industrial emissions and construction-site dust.
Experts believe this winter’s smog was also aided by a strong El Nino effect, which brought static weather patterns that made it difficult for air-borne pollutants to disperse.
According to the city’s environmental protection monitoring center, the city had 22 days of severe air pollution in November and December, 15 days more than the same period in 2014.
During the period, average PM 2.5 density hit 239 micrograms per cubic meter.
Air quality has seen some improvement over the past year, however, with a year-on-year drop of 6.2 percent in the average PM2.5 reading, which measures fine particles that can penetrate deep into lungs and cause more harm to health.
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