In China, air pollution report brings despair, humor

• Reports says pollution slashes life expectancy in north China by 5.5 years
• Some residents are hopeful that the green movement will improve air
• Coal remains China%27s main energy source%2C with the top five coal-consuming provinces located in north China

BEIJING — To tempt tourists from heavily polluted north China to visit scenic Fujian in the nation's southeast, the coastal province ran a clean-air tourism campaign earlier this year, with TV ads that concluded "Fresh Fujian, take a deep breath."

If officials dare, a new punch line is now available: "Fresh Fujian, live longer." A major study released Monday in the USA found that air pollution from burning coal has slashed 5.5 years off life expectancy in north China, compared with the less-polluted south.

Chinese citizens nationwide reacted to the report Tuesday with a mixture of despair, resignation and black humor, plus some optimism that their government is finally turning promises into concrete action to reduce China's deadly reliance on coal as its major energy source.

"To live in Beijing City in the north is true sorrow," Zhang Jiuhui, an investment adviser at Great Wall Securities, wrote Tuesday on China's Twitter equivalent, the Sina Weibo microblogging service. It was just another day in the Chinese capital when air pollution levels, as usual, far exceeded those considered safe by the World Health Organization.

"To live five more years, everybody come south to buy property," joked Sun Qi, a real estate executive in the southeastern city of Ningbo, also on Weibo. "It's time to seriously weigh up economic development and pollution," wrote Chen Yuyu, one of the study's four co-authors, and an economics expert at Peking University.

By studying mortality rates and pollution statistics in 90 Chinese cities, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Israel and China discovered that air pollution from burning coal in north China, defined as above the Huai River, with a population of around 500 million people, was 55% higher than in the south.

Their study blamed the Chairman Mao-era coal-fired free winter heating supplied for decades to all northern areas, and not to areas south of the Huai River.

The Chinese public, and its chattering classes, voice ever louder complaints at the environmental and health costs of China's rapid, no-holds-barred economic growth. Columnist Mu Zimei, a resident in the north for eight years, wrote Tuesday that her throat discomfort continued after quitting smoking.

"Especially in the past two years, I feel air pollution became worse, and foodstuffs have been polluted too," she said on Weibo.

The new study will spread awareness about the ways coal use harms public health, said Huang Wei, an energy campaigner at the Beijing office of Greenpeace. While the study was historical, China's coal use has grown in recent years, and the top five coal-consuming provinces remain in north China, she said.

"The government is taking these problems seriously, and we finally see concrete actions," Huang said. Both Beijing and northeastern Shandong province, the No. 1 coal consumer, have committed to cutting coal consumption.

"China doesn't have any technology disadvantage, as the biggest wind turbine and solar power producer, so it all depends on political will," she said.

China boasts both political will and market-based tools to set a cap on coal consumption, said Yang Fuqiang, senior adviser on climate, energy and environment at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. "If the public understands more, they will put pressure on the decision-makers, and that will continue," he said.

The public's ever louder voice is achieving impact, Yang said. The central government forced Beijing to set a bolder annual target for air pollution reduction, he said. In 15 years, Beijing can catch up with the premium air quality of Fuzhou, the easy-breathing Fujian capital, and Yang's hometown, that he visits each year to see his parents.

"That's my optimistic assumption," he said.

Liu Zhenmei, 41, a nanny in Beijing, can't wait that long. When she hits 50, Liu said, she wants out, back to rural, southern Anhui province.

"Sometimes it's hard to breathe here," said Liu, who came to Beijing in 1991. "Before, us nannies and cleaners didn't know what the problem was, just bad air, but, in the past two years, I have learned what pollution means. The air is much cleaner back home," she said.

From his stall on Changan Avenue in the heart of Beijing, newspaper vendor Zhou Guangbao said he has read China's state-run press, and witnessed a worsening environment, every day since 1986, when he moved to the capital, also from Anhui.

Zhou, 47, a father of two, sounds hopeful that at least some of the state's many green promises and plans will be fulfilled.

"My children will be fine — as long as they don't work outside like me," he said. "I just can't get into the habit of wearing a face mask."

Contributing: Sunny Yang