Loraine Cho of EcoWatch reports: “Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced plans for a major reforestation project: Growing 6.66 Million hectares of new forests this year, an area roughly the size of Ireland.
“To achieve this goal, China reassigned more than 60,000 soldiers to plant the trees. According to the Asia Times, a large regiment from the People’s Liberation Army, along with some of the nation’s armed police force, have been withdrawn from their posts near the northern border to work on the task.
“The majority of the troops will be dispatched in the heavily-polluted industrial province of Hebei, which has pledged to raise total forest coverage to 35% by the end of 2020.
“China’s State Forestry Administration aims to increase the whole country’s forest coverage rate to 23% from 21.7% by the end of the decade. Then from 2020 to 2035, China plans to further boost the percentage of forest coverage to 26%.
“China is the world’s largest emitter and remains heavily dependent on coal, but has been cleaning up its act in recent years due to concerns over the impacts of air pollution and climate change. The country is investing heavily in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric cars.
“China is seeing signs of success in its fight against smog as pollution levels slump dramatically in the capital region of Beijing.
“Concentrations of PM2.5, the tiny particles that pose the greatest health risks plunged 33% from a year earlier in the fourth quarter across Beijing, Tianjin, and 26 surrounding cities, Greenpeace East Asia used in a report. Levels in the capital alone tumbled 54%. The drops come after government policies last year forced millions of homes and businesses to switch from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas,”Cho wrote in EcoWatch.
Dan Murtaug of Bloomberg News reports: Bluer Skies in Beijing.
“Pollution levels in China’s capital fell as the government clamped down on coal-burning.
“The bluer skies came at a price, as the widespread switching to natural gas contributed to shortages of the fuel, leaving homes frigid and factories shut. Still, improving air quality is a win for president Xi Jinping, who pledged to unleash an ‘iron hand’ against pollution, and anti-coal measures will likely continue, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
“The switch from coal to gas has dramatically reduced pollution,” Bernstein analysts including Neil Beveridge in Hong Kong wrote in a report. “While there have been problems in implementation, the plan is delivering results.”
“Replacing coal with gas for residential and industrial use is part of a series of measures to clean smoggy cities, along with closing outdated or illegal steel mills, coal mines, and aluminum smelters. Natural gas demand rose 19% through October, the latest government data shows. It will probably rise by 15% this year as Beijing sticks to its anti-coal guns and spurs development of gas infrastructure, Beveridge wrote.
“Worth It? The shift toward cleaner heating fuels proved problematic in November and December 2017, as some regions ran short of natural gas to force the government to halt factories to prioritize supplies for residential users, and in some cases let homes go back to burning coal.
“However, ‘negative effects caused by the transition from coal to gas are relatively small,” making it worthwhile for China to expand the switch and start up nuclear power plant construction,’ said Jiang Kejun, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission.
“The NDRC in December announced a Winter-heating plan for northern regions expected to cut coal use 150 Million metric tons by 2021. Natural gas, biomass, heat pumps, direct electric heating and geothermal power will replace the dirtier-burning fuel.
“Besides a reduction in household coal use, measures to cut industrial emissions and favorable weather conditions ‘contributed to the very dramatic reduction in pollution levels’ in Beijing and surrounding areas, said Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy analyst at Greenpeace in Beijing, said.
‘“Nationwide, the air-quality improvement was less dramatic, with a 4.5% decrease in PM2.5 levels during 2017,’ according to Greenpeace.
‘“We shall expect the Winter in 2018 to be even cleaner as the government carries out the campaign on coal to gas more thoroughly,’ said Tian Miao, a Beijing-based energy specialist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai Co,” Murtaug reported.
—With assistance by Feifei Shen and Sarah Chen