Beijing has cut coal burning by more than 2.5 million tons of this year, reducing the proportion of coal in the city's total energy consumption to around 14 percent, the municipal environmental protection bureau announced on December 5.

Beijing used around 10 million tonnes of coal this year, and the number is expected to be reduced to nine million tons by 2020, according to the bureau.

Beijing has made great efforts to replace rural coal use with cleaner fuels and civil coal-burning management this year, which is estimated to have reduced 39,000 tons of soot, 21,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 10,000 tons of nitrogen oxide from the atmosphere, according to the bureau.

Beijing has almost closed all coal-fired boilers in its six core districts as of the end of 2015, and plans to make all of its seven districts in the plain area coal-free by 2017.

In Beijing, coal is mainly used in industrial facilities and large heating boilers. The capital started to convert coal-fired boilers to clean-energy boilers from 1998.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2016)