Coal burning reduced in Ulaanbaatar

At a special Government meeting on February 3, members discussed Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution problem, and city officials reported on their efforts to reduce it.

According to the officials, about 50,000 households in ger districts are now using low-smoke stoves provided at a reduced price with money from the Clean Air Fund. They said about 40,000 households annually migrate from the countryside to the capital and ger districts are growing annually. This increases pollution, not just from coal burning, but from vehicle exhaust as well. About 300,000 vehicles are in use in Ulaanbaatar.

A Mayor’s Office official said the low-smoke stoves have reduced raw coal burning in ger district households by 117,000 tons of coal. Research shows that poisonous smoke has been reduced by 15.6 percent. As the weather warms over the next three months, the burning of raw coal will be reduced even further.

Mayor G.Munkhbayar said 218 households in the Sukhbaatar district moved to free land for developing ger districts in 2011. He said construction of 300 temporary apartments for households that moved to the free land has begun, and construction on apartments for another 500 households will be started.

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