China's cold but cleaner skies bring an economic challenge

|
Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
Beijing’s skyline stands in smog on Oct. 15, 2018 when the air quality index was rated “very unhealthy.”

As winter’s approach brings the first days of heavy smog, thanks to coal-burning heaters, Beijing residents are donning air-filter masks or hunkering down indoors. The good news is that China’s air quality has been improving since 2013, though readings are still several times higher than what the World Health Organization recommends. Beijing has proved its war on pollution can work. Its next question is how to maintain progress toward cleaner skies with a greener economy. The current plan calls for reducing coal consumption to less than 58 percent of total energy by 2020, while raising natural gas to 10 percent, by closing and scaling down coal-fired plants and mines and creating “no-coal” residential zones. Government inspectors are turning up unannounced at factories, fining and shutting down violators until they comply. But these stringent measures can come at the cost of jobs. “For the workers, it poses some real challenges,” says Ma Jun, director of the nonprofit Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. “Big factories can offer some compensation to workers, but private companies can’t,” he says, calling for the government to assist them. Moreover, industrial curbs could hit growth at a time when leadership seeks to double China’s 2010 gross domestic product and per capita income by 2020. “We all know that we cannot sustain that type of expansion,” Mr. Ma says, “because of the cost on our resources, on our society, on public health, on the air quality itself.”

SOURCE:

Berkeley Earth, US State Department, International Energy Agency

|
Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Why We Wrote This

Giving Beijingers more breathable air means cutting coal and other pollutants. But long-term climate solutions need to account for ripple effects – something China is confronting today.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to China's cold but cleaner skies bring an economic challenge
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2018/1016/China-s-cold-but-cleaner-skies-bring-an-economic-challenge
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe