Steelmakers in Tangshan, China’s biggest steel producing city, are boosting output as local officials have failed to issue precise orders on output curbs even though the city’s winter pollution restrictions took effect two weeks ago. The rising output means factories and steel plants are emitting more pollutants and Tangshan’s lack of guidance shows that the Chinese central government’s more nuanced approach to pollution curbs may not be working as intended. On Sept. 27, China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology issued new winter anti-pollution plans that allowed provinces and cities to set their own industrial output curbs as a way to limit pollution, moving away from blanket cuts ordered last year. Tangshan finalised its own winter […]