The role of natural gas in the fight against air pollution in China

Air pollution has reached a critical state in China primarily due to its reliance on coal. The main goal of the government's plan is to reduce the use of coal and increase its energy supply, primarily clean and renewable energy. In the long term, China needs to seek new approaches to energy and environmental policies. Slowly moving away from coal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously improve air quality is based on ambitious programmes of prevention and control of air pollution. One of them is to convert large numbers of coalfired boilers to natural gas in northern China. The main purpose of this article is to show how China implements its programmes of prevention and control of air pollution. It focuses on the increasing importance of gas in China’s energy mix as well as on coal-to-gas and coal-to-electricity switch in heating.