Abstract

A turning point has appeared in China’s environmental protection. In the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), China improved dramatically its control of SO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. At the end of 2005, only 10% of China’s coal power capacity had SO2 scrubbers. Three years later, the ratio was raised to 60%. Among the 363 GWe of SO2 scrubbers at the end of 2008, 149 GWe were retrofits. Furthermore, evidence from provinces indicates that China has effectively made many SO2 scrubbers operate normally, overturning previous failures in policy enforcement. The achievements came from China’s unprecedented attention to environmental protection and mobilizing two essential groups of decision makers: leaders of local governments and of coal power plants. This talk will first introduce how China changed. Then with the help of both official data and information from visiting China’s coal power plants, special attention will be paid to understand the active policy enforcement of local governments and especially the logic of coal power plants in running SO2 scrubbers. Though quite effective, the incentives to install and operate SO2 scrubbers were not the most efficient. How China could handle future mitigation of other air pollutants will be briefly discussed.