Seoul and Beijing trade blame over unhealthy levels of fine dust in Korea

published: 2017-05-27 06:19:20미세먼지 한-중 책임 공방 The skies have been blue in recent days,… but over the past few months…. Korea has been choking under unprecedented levels of fine dust. As much of it comes from China, a local environmental group even took legal action against the Chinese government. Unsurprisingly,… Beijing isn’t shouldering the blame… saying Korea should look closer to home. Park Ji-won reports. China appears to be rejecting any responsibility for the unhealthy levels of fine dust pollution that have covered the Korean peninsula over the past few months. China’s People’s Daily on Friday said that while Korea is pointing fingers at China as the source of the pollution, Korea is ignoring the fact that it relies heavily on coal power itself. The paper cited data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showing Korea’s coal consumption increased by 56 percent from 2005 to 2015. The Chinese foreign ministry also said in March that to clearly identify the correlation between the air pollution in China and any effects on its neighbors would require scientific research and analysis.

However, some Korean experts say the matter is pretty clear-cut.