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China's breakneck economic growth and soaring energy demand are
becoming key factors in global energy use. Louisa Lim explores the
human impact of the country's dependence on coal products, as part
of the BBC's Planet Under Pressure series.
Liu Hongkui, BBC
In pictures: Fighting pollution
With his thick smudged glasses and faltering gait, 77-year-old Liu
Hongkui makes an unlikely protest leader.
But he has become the catalyst for action among the retired workers
who live in his community in the industrial city of Tangshan, 150km
east of Beijing.
Just behind their compound is a coke plant, which belches out
noxious fumes day and night.
The residents are convinced it is poisoning them, causing
respiratory disorders, heart disease and cancer.
They are the victims of China's thirst for any energy it can lay
its hands on - with air pollution one of several resulting problems
ranging from acid rain to greenhouse gas emissions.
"Most people who die in this area die from cancer," Mr Liu says,
reeling off the names of four residents who died of cancer in one
month alone.
"Many young people have leukaemia. Many old people have lung cancer
or bowel cancer. The by-products from the factory include benzene
and phenol. All are toxic and bad for humans."
Skin disease
Mr Liu rolls up his heavy blue workers' trousers to uncover his
legs.
They are purple, covered with an itchy rash which he has suffered
for years. The doctors have told him it is incurable.
"Around 30 people have the same skin disease. In the summer when
the factory chimney pumps out steam, if you wear a short-sleeved
shirt, your arms will be covered with this rash," he says.
The residents started petitioning the government seven years ago.
Since then the provincial Environmental Protection Bureau has
acknowledged the plant to be a serious polluter.
The coke plant, BBC
The coke plant belches out fumes day and night
But despite a fine, the factory has continued to pump out
pollution, prompting the residents to launch a lawsuit.
The forces arrayed against them are more than just one factory,
however.
This coke plant is playing a part in the modernisation whirling
through China - one of the world's fastest-expanding economies with
GDP growth of more than 9% in the last year.
The plant is a small cog in the supply chain, turning coal into
coke which is then used as a key source of heat energy in the
steel-making process.
Steel, in turn, is needed for the construction of new roads,
buildings, cars and everyday home appliances for China's population
- the world's biggest at 1.3bn.
Hungry for progress
The Chinese thirst for development means that coke is becoming an
ever more valuable commodity, with one brokerage expecting Chinese
demand to push prices up 60% in the next financial year.
The coke plant, BBC
The residents estimate that 40,000 people live within 1km of the
factory
This means there is a big market for the product, as well as a
clear financial incentive to let polluting plants continue to
operate.
The residents' lawyer, air pollution expert Liu Xiang, says in his
experience these factors often influence the local government's
behaviour.
"Often these [polluting] enterprises are the main industries and
important taxpayers, so local governments don't want to see these
enterprises closed down through court judgements because that would
interfere with economic development. Sometimes the pressure [on us
lawyers] from the local government is extremely great."
Global issue
It is a dilemma which underlies China's energy crisis and has wider
global implications.
China does not have enough electricity to power its economic
boom.
It suffered a record shortage of 30 million kilowatts this year,
with many areas facing power cuts.
The International Energy Agency predicts the country will account
for more than a fifth of the growth in world energy demand in the
next 25 years - and for more than a quarter of the increase in
greenhouse gas emissions.
Some two-thirds of the country's power comes from coal and coal
products, the cheapest and dirtiest forms of energy.
This exacts a very real human toll - official figures say 400,000
Chinese citizens die a year from diseases related to air pollution,
and, according to the World Bank, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities
in the world are in China.
Cleaner technology
Klaus Toepfer, head of the United Nations Environment Programme
(Unep), says the struggle to move away from polluting forms of
energy is a global challenge.
"The need to use fossil fuel right now is unavoidable," he said.
"Globally up to 80% of energy supply comes from fossil fuel.
"What we have to do and can do is change the efficiency in fossil
fuel use so we have more energy services from the same amount of
coal.
"We have to make clean coal technology. We have to do what we can
to fight classic pollutants like sulphur dioxide and mercury, and
to capture carbon dioxide emissions."
A power station in Tangshan
China has faced power cuts as energy demand outstrips supply
When it comes to coke, new alternatives and cleaner techniques are
being developed, such as a pulverised coal injection process.
But Karen Polenske, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US,
who has been researching coke plants in rural China, says new
technologies won't necessarily mean an end to the use of
coke.
"In order to industrialise, coke is going to have to play its
important role for many years to come. A lot of people say this is
going to go away as we are going to have substitutes. But coke is
not going to go away."
Change ahead?
According to her research, the most polluting type of coke plants
in China have largely been closed down, but those factories that
have stayed open are producing much more coke than in the
past.
However, this may change, as China's Ministry of Commerce has
announced it will cut the output of coke by 20% next year in a bid
to reduce pollution.
As for the future of the Tangshan plant, all attempts to interview
the factory bosses were turned down.
Regardless of the difficulties they've been through, some of the
residents are still optimistic about the future, like 48-year-old
Zhang Shun.
Speaking under a pseudonym, he said he was now unable to work
because he had a heart condition, which he blames on pollution from
the plant.
"I still have hope," he says. "We've been in a struggle against the
coke factory for the past few years, but these problems are always
solved slowly.
"There are so many stories on environmental protection on
television and in the press. Everybody thinks it's important
nowadays, so I see a light at the end of the tunnel."
