Frozen for blue skies: Villagers endure winter without coal
China’s mandate to shift from coal to natural gas heating in Hebei has led to a dilemma where many rural villagers are unable to afford heating through the cold winter season. Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Yush Chau finds out what the authorities could do to mitigate the people’s hardships.
Liu Ming, 73, lives with his family in a roughly 150 square-metre bungalow in a village near Langfang city, Hebei province. He said, “It’s not easy for the children to earn money, so we try to save where we can.”
More that 5,000 RMB to feel warm
Do they turn on the heating for winter? The farmer took out his phone and showed me his latest pension payment. He revealed, “I only get 233.91 RMB (US$33.57). For an old man with no income, that’s all I have. You have to spend money on heating and electricity, right? Who can you rely on? You rely on your children.”
Temperatures reach around five degrees Celsius during the day, but the wall‑mounted gas boiler in the house is hardly ever switched on. Be it indoors or outdoors, the villagers bundle up in thick clothing. Once the temperature drops below zero at night, many households still do not dare to turn the boiler up too high. Instead, they heat traditional earthen kang beds, wrap themselves in thick quilts or rely on electric blankets to sleep.
This is not just a snapshot of Liu’s life, but also a true picture of how the many rural households in Hebei live through the harsh winter.
As subsidies for the coal‑to‑gas policy (replacing coal with natural gas) have been reduced and rolled back, along with regional differences in gas prices and the poor structure and insulation of homes in the villages, many farmers in Hebei would rather endure the cold than turn on the heating. This real-life dilemma gained widespread attention on Chinese social media at the start of 2026.
Zhang Yixing, 51... said his bungalow is less than 100 square metres. The structure is not solid while insulation is poor. Winter heating bills easily go over 5,000 RMB, whereas heating a home of a similar size in the city costs less than 2,000 RMB.
When I visited these villages on 9 January, at least six villagers interviewed complained that the cost of heating is too high, that natural gas is “unaffordable”, and that even spending 5,000 RMB on winter heating may not be enough to keep them warm.
Zhang Yixing, 51, who lives in the same village as Liu, said his bungalow is less than 100 square metres. The structure is not solid while insulation is poor. Winter heating bills easily go over 5,000 RMB, whereas heating a home of a similar size in the city costs less than 2,000 RMB.
Over-implemented policies
In order to tackle haze and improve air quality, in 2013, Chinese authorities set up a joint prevention and control mechanism for air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas, and in 2017, they launched the “battle for blue skies” campaign.
In the northern rural areas where loose coal is commonly used for winter heating, the government made a large-scale push for coal-to-gas and electric heating, encouraging every household to install wall-mounted boilers while at the same time providing subsidies for natural gas that cost several times more than loose coal when used for heating.
However, during last year’s Two Sessions, Hebei Provincial People’s Congress representative Yang Huisu pointed out that although coal-to-gas and electric heating have improved the environment, the costs lean high and some rural residents “are equipped with gas but dare not use it”. She suggested increasing financial support and enhancing the clean-heating subsidy mechanism.
Citing her research, she said that to maintain an indoor temperature of 18 degrees Celsius in a 100 square metre home, 20 to 30 cubic metres of natural gas are needed each day. Based on rural gas prices in the Shijiazhuang area starting at 3.15 RMB per cubic metre, a household would have to pay 63 to 94.5 RMB per day for gas, bringing total heating costs for the winter to between 7,560 to 11,340 RMB.
China’s overall macroeconomic situation is under pressure, and slower economic growth has reduced local government revenues, directly weakening the authorities’ ability to continue providing heating subsidies. — Associate Professor Zhan Shaohua, School of Social Sciences, NTU
Zhan Shaohua, an associate professor of sociology at the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, told Lianhe Zaobao that coal‑to‑gas was introduced at a time when the haze was at its worst, and that the original intention was good but the policy was over-implemented without sufficiently considering sustainability, which led to the related tensions blowing up in one fell swoop this year.
He analysed that China’s overall macroeconomic situation is under pressure, and slower economic growth has reduced local government revenues, directly weakening the authorities’ ability to continue providing heating subsidies.
Whoever benefits, pays
From a technical and housing conditions perspective, Ma Jun, director of the China-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, analysed when interviewed that the biggest crux of the heating dilemma in rural Hebei lies in the structural defects of a large number of rural single-storey houses with extremely bad insulation. This meant that “even if you keep burning natural gas non‑stop, it still might not be warm enough”.
Although the most pressing task now is to safeguard basic livelihoods and ensure that vulnerable groups in Hebei can keep warm through the winter, Ma stressed that the government cannot simply allow the burning of loose coal. It should instead formulate more refined, region-specific heating policies and draw up long‑term plans. In the medium-to-long term, he suggested a systematic reassessment of rural bungalows, including upgrades to key parts such as walls, windows and roofs.
There is a gradual rousing call in Chinese society: Beijing and Tianjin, as the direct beneficiaries of the “battle for blue skies”, should shoulder part of Hebei’s heating costs.
There is a gradual rousing call in Chinese society: Beijing and Tianjin, as the direct beneficiaries of the “battle for blue skies”, should shoulder part of Hebei’s heating costs. Academics interviewed also expressed agreement, arguing that air quality is a public good whose costs should be borne by society as a whole. Beijing and Tianjin could consider diverting part of their air-pollution control funds to Hebei, which would be in line with the ecological compensation principle of “whoever benefits, pays”.
However, given that local finances are generally strained, Zhan cautioned that it remains uncertain whether Beijing and Tianjin can share the load, how much they can share, and for how long.
Ma felt that it was indeed a tall task for Hebei alone to raise the funds needed to deal with such a systemic problem, and suggested incorporating it into the central government’s eco‑environmental transfer payment mechanism.
(All names of villagers are pseudonyms.)
This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “河北农民嫌暖气太贵又不保暖 学者促改房分摊“蓝天”成本”.
