Coal burning

Excessive greenhouse gas emissions [Shanghai Daily]

China relies on burning coal for 75-80 percent of its energy production and reducing use of coal and finding alternatives is a major goal of environmental campaigners.

One of them is Liu Shang from Beijing. Liu is on the staff of an international environmental organization and visited open-pit and underground coal mines in Shanxi Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region last summer.

She describes ravaged land, filthy air and choking residents, who also must shift houses as the underground tunnels undermine their housing.

"The price of coal consumption in China today is much less than the real cost," says Liu, "and the low cost is a major reason China is so reliant on coal for energy."

International environmental groups, including the World Wildlife Fund, last year issued a report, "The Real Cost of Coal" in China. It recommends the government set market prices for coal and impose an environment tax and energy tax on coal production to curb pollution.

The report drew national attention to coal mining in China and the National Development and Reform Commission agreed to consider its findings and recommendations as China battles climate change, says Liu.

In December, environmentalists converged on the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, near one of the world's biggest coal mines. Liu and other Chinese campaigners, Yuan Weijian, 23, and Zhang Hanchu, 21, both from Beijing, visited the vast open-pit mine where environmentalists demonstrated for a month against its expansion - to no avail.

The environmental damage caused by coal mining and burning in Poland shocked Yuan, the Beijing activist.

"It is desolated," says Yuan of the mine in Poland where 90 percent of the electricity comes from coal. "There's nothing at all within a radius of 5km except for the rumbling machines."

Yuan says he used to worship technology and machines as positive and necessary for human progress. But it was hard to support the destructive excesses of modern industry when he saw a huge discharge pool from a heating plant where huge rusting pipes continuously vomited black polluted water.

"And the picture in China is not optimistic because 70 percent of our electricity comes from coal," says Liu. "What Poland is facing today is what we are going to confront soon."

An old Polish couple whose family has lived in Poznan for four generations told Yuan that the earth is dead, dust fills the air and all the rain is yellow.

"They told us to guard against flowery and deceptive words of coal companies. Don't let them ruin our lives," says Yuan. "We should stand up to protect nature," says Yuan.

(Shanghai Daily January 6, 2009)