The public outcry over pollution offers the central government political cover for painful decisions it needs to make, for reasons having nothing to do with the environment. A Greenpeace analysis revealed why: Steel production actually increased in 2016, in spite of earlier reductions in capacity, because the central government was stimulating demand and local officials were protecting their mills ( read more about this problem). Levels of fine-particulate pollution in the Beijing region had fallen by more than 25 percent in 20, as initial cuts bore fruit, but in late 2016 and early 2017 they spiked again. Public anger about dirty air has forced the government’s hand. It said it would also cut steel production capacity by another 50 million tons. In March the national government announced the closure or cancellation of 103 coal-fired power plants, capable of generating a total of more than 50 gigawatts of power. Car emissions standards set to take effect in 2020 will be comparable to European and American ones.īut the focus remains on heavy industry. Officials have required higher-quality gasoline and diesel for vehicles. Chinese cities are pressing residents to give up coal stoves and furnaces at home. “I’m pretty convinced of that.” The Alliance, a group of think tanks and university experts, advises the government on pollution. Today, officials “are very serious” about improving air quality, says Tonny Xie, director of the secretariat at the Clean Air Alliance of China. But it has also left many of them with undrinkable water, tainted food, and toxic air. The economic rise has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty-and in Tangshan, out of utter ruin. A Time of ReckoningĬhina’s war against air pollution is part of a broader reckoning with the health and environmental catastrophe wrought by rapid industrialization over the past few decades. He might almost be talking about China’s aspirations for itself. The plant’s output “will be stronger and stronger, rather than bigger and bigger,” he predicts confidently. But he thinks his mill will survive the cutback in steel-making.
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Over the past few years, as factories in Tangshan have been shuttered or relocated, ordered to scale back production or to install expensive air scrubbers, Wang has watched colleagues get laid off. It’s dangerous work, and temperatures can soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Wang works in the mill, purifying molten steel and casting it into billets. In a little convenience store outside the gates of the Tangshan Guofeng Steel and Iron Factory, Wang Jing Bo perches on a pink plastic stool. But in Tangshan, people are also feeling the costs of the fight for cleaner air. The benefits, if it’s successful, will be felt not just in Tangshan but all over the planet: China is the world’s largest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases. To replace coal, China is rolling out the world’s biggest investment in wind and solar power. At the party congress this past March, he renewed his vow “to make our skies blue again.” Among Li’s main weapons: Reducing the production of steel and of coal-fired electricity. Three years ago, at the Communist Party’s annual congress, Premier Li Keqiang declared war on air pollution in China. Coal smoke from the region’s factories and power plants drifts toward Beijing, contributing to the capital’s infamous “airpocalypses” ( there’s one happening this week). Tangshan is ranked as the country’s sixth most polluted city-and the top five are also in Hebei. In China today, air pollution kills an estimated 1.1 million people a year.