Families living in northern China are having a difficult winter, and the government's plans for air pollution prevention and control appear to have come unstuck.
A blanket ban on residential coal use and an over-ambitious attempted roll-out of gas-fired boilers has led to a 14% nationwide leap in gas demand and severe shortages. As temperatures fall below already low seasonal norms, many families have been left without sufficient gas or even a gas boiler. The combination with the coal ban, they have been effectively forbidden from heating their homes.
