Smog-Fighters Target Rural China's Coal Stoves

(Beijing) – Chinese leaders looking for a new way to breathe easier plan to prohibit the use of high-sulfur coal for home heating among farmers and poor families in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Province region.

Local officials in these neighboring jurisdictions, which together form a chronically smoggy region about the size of the U.S. state of Minnesota, plan to bar small-scale use of high-sulfur coal by December 31, 2017, according to local officials. The prohibition is likely to affect some 600,000 households in the capital alone.