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China The Economist December 16th 2017 39

Pollution Also in this section
Awry in the sky 40 Protests over wage arrears

BEIJING
China has won battles againstits choking air, butnotthe war
TNANYAWO elementary school in He- burned in places without any alternative. Beijing, for instance, to reduce coal con-
Abei province, near Beijing, the tem- The government has also limited the out- sumption by 50% over five years and Tian-
perature in early December fell below put of iron, steel and aluminium smelters, jin to cut it by 19%. The plan banned new
freezing, both outside and in. The teachers mothballed many big construction pro- coal-burning facilities (though plants al-
tookto instructingthe six-year-old children jects—leaving cranes atop unfinished sky- readyin the workswere allowed) and sped
in the playground. At least outside it was scrapers motionless against cornflower up the use offilters and scrubbers.
sunny. The classrooms were unusable be- skies—and, in Beijing and its surroundings, The plan seems to be working. The con-
cause the local government had disman- created a new Environmental Protection centration ofpollutants with a diameter of
tled the coal-fired boilers for environmen- Agency, with tough enforcement powers. 2.5 micronsorless(PM2.5—the mostdeadly
tal reasons, but not yet installed a All countries use a mixture of carrots kind) fell from over100 microgramspercu-
replacement heating system. There have and sticks in their environmental policies. bic metre in Beijingin 2012-13, at the time of
been several such incidents this winter in China does, too (next year it is planning to the city’s notorious “airpocalypse”, to
northern China. In Linfen, in neighbouring open the world’s biggest carbon market, around 75 in 2016. That is comparable to
Shanxi province, villagers say their coal- for instance). But its sticks—that is, outright London’s clean-up after the “pea soup”
fired heaters have been taken away but the bans on polluting activities—are unusually fogs of the 1950s, but quicker. It translated,
pipes linking them to the gas system have stout. That makes it a good place to judge according to Greenpeace, an environmen-
not arrived. A new slogan recently ap- the impact of command-and-control mea- tal pressure group, into 160,000 avoided
peared on walls in the town: “If you burn sures to rein in pollution, as opposed to premature deaths in 2016.
coal, we’ll see you in the detention centre.” subsidies or taxes. So far the lesson seems But in 2017 the improvement in PM 2.5
The authorities in northern China have to be thatbanswork, butonlywhen condi- concentrations stopped and the level flat-
imposed emergency restrictions until mid- tions are right. tened out. This winter has seen welcome
March to control air pollution, which episodes of clear skies but also more days
spikes during the winter. Twenty-six cities Fumes, health problems, action than in 2016 of the worst, choking smog,
plus Beijing and Tianjin (which count as Beijing’s emergency measures come on when daily PM 2.5 levels rise above 300.
provinces) had promised to replace heat- top ofan even more sweeping set ofprohi- The annual average level remains about
ing systems that run on coal with ones us- bitions called the national action plan on 25% above the target set in the national ac-
ingelectricityorgasfor3m householdsthis air pollution, introduced in 2013. (China tion plan, and well above the levels that
year. But they failed to complete the work loves national action plans; it has lots.) pertain in big Western cities—hence the
on time, forcing a rare U-turn: they have al- This imposed a nationwide cap on coal emergency measures.
lowed a certain amount of coal to be use, as well as provincial caps requiring Why did bans work at first, then stum- 1