China Wants To Close 1,725 Coal Mines By The End Of This Year
According to Reuters, China’s energy administration announced today that the country will close 1,725 small-scale coal mines over the course of 2014.
The move is part of China’s plan to shutter older, less productive, and low-quality coal production — most of it in the east — and shift coal production to a series of “coal energy bases” in the northwest and other more remote regions of the country. “Local governments have been under orders to gradually shut all coal mines with annual production capacity of less than 90,000 [metric tons],” Reuters reported. “As well as those mines that are operating illegally and do not comply with state safety requirements.”
China’s local governments will be required to publicly release details on what coal mines they have closed in order to improve enforcement and accountability. The program also demands that they encourage mergers and technological upgrades within the coal industry in order to combat a history of poor safety standards.
The move is similar to the “name and shame” approach the Chinese government recently took to pressure cities and regions that fail to achieve their targets for air pollution reductions. An announcement from the Ministry of Environmental Protection last week revealed that only three Chinese cities out of 74 had fully complied with their pollution reduction targets for 2013.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/04/3422983/china-close-coal-mines/
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