China’s plan to boost railway freight falls behind target, knocking air pollution battle off track

Name: Life on Earth is breathing cleaner air as the deadly coronavirus spreads around the world
Uploaded: 2020-08-12T23:30:21.000Z
Duration: 3 min 56 s
Description: Life on Earth is breathing cleaner air as the deadly coronavirus spreads around the world

China’s plan to shift the transport of bulk cargo from dirty, diesel-burning trucks to cleaner electric-powered railcars is falling behind target

The country’s state-run railway system is plagued by inefficiency, a lack of coordination and a mismatch in market needs, an expert says

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China wants to boost transport of bulk cargo by railway to cut air pollution. Photo: Xinhua

Zhou Xin

Published: 7:30am, 13 Aug 2020Updated: 11:10pm, 13 Aug 2020

China’s ambitious three-year plan to boost railway cargo volume and reduce long-distance trucking – a key plank in Beijing’s campaign to cut air pollution – is falling behind schedule, according to official data and media reports.

Under the plan, which was introduced by the central government in 2018, China’s “transport structure” was to be improved by shifting the movement of bulk cargo such as minerals from dirty, diesel-burning trucks to cleaner electric-powered railcars.

By 2020, at least 80 per cent of industrial and mining firms with an annual bulk cargo volume above 1.5 million tonnes – an amount that would cover most mining sites and smelters – was to be connected to the railway system.

In addition, all major ports were told to move transport of iron ore and coal from trucks to ships and railways.

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Life on Earth is breathing cleaner air as the deadly coronavirus spreads around the world

However, official data shows the plan is lagging far behind schedule and there is little prospect that targets will be met by year-end.

For example, the Port of Tianjin, one of the major harbours in northern China, said railway transport accounted for only 64 per cent of iron ore moved from the entrepot in the first half of this year, though this was an improvement from 50 per cent for all of 2019.

The lack of railway cargo is forcing some key freight lines to run below designated capacity, including the Haoji Railway, which started operations last year as the world’s longest special coal transport railway, connecting the coal hub of Inner Mongolia with central and southern China.

The 1,800km rail line has a transport capacity of 200 million tonnes per year, and the state-owned China Railway Group, which operates the national railway system, said it hoped it could transport 60 million tonnes of coal this year.