The shift from coal to gas for heating in the winter has left tens of thousands of rural families in North China's Hebei province shivering because of the shortage of natural gas. This fact came to light last week when some photographs showing some primary school students in Quyang county of Hebei running on the playground just to keep warm went viral online.

Although the Quyang local government promised to ensure uninterrupted gas supply to schools within two days, the gas supply in the county, as in many other places in Hebei, has been grossly inadequate, prompting the Ministry of Environmental Protection to issue an urgent notice saying people in areas where regular gas supply was uncertain could continue burning coal for heating.

Governments at various levels have set aside special funds for the costly yet meaningful undertaking, subsidizing not only the installment of new pipelines and heating facilities, but also part of the future gas bills, which will be two to three times higher than those for coal.

More importantly, the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank has approved a $250 million loan for a project intended to reduce China's coal use by about 650,000 metric tons a year by connecting about 216,750 houses in about 510 villages in Beijing to the gas distribution network, in order to facilitate the smooth progress of the coal-to-gas project.

The project offers several lessons. First, the project, implemented in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, should discard the one-size-fits-all approach. A project of such a magnitude needs to be implemented gradually. For instance, the Beijing municipal government, with its funds and the loan from the AIIB, as well as enough gas and electricity supplies, has enough provisions and reasons to implement the project this year.

Some media reports say the residents in Beijing's suburbs are happy because gas is cleaner and cheaper than coal, and keeps their houses warmer. Some experts say that an improvement in the "heat retaining property" of houses with the help of "new stoves" and "clean coal" can cut 30 percent to 40 percent of carbon emissions, and this "strategy" should be used in the preparatory stage in Hebei.

Second, the government should give the people the freedom to accept the new mode of heating or continue with the old way while providing subsidies. There is no reason to mandate every household to abandon coal burning and switch to gas for heating in the winter.

Of course, the transformation from coal to gas has to be achieved this year, but it should not be accomplished at the cost of people's suffering in places where the gas supply has not been regularized as yet. In such places, residents should be allowed to burn coal for heating.

President Xi Jinping has urged officials at all levels to indulge in "bottomline thinking" while implementing projects. Which means the officials should have a "plan B", if not a "plan C", in place in case "plan A" does not work. Even though the supply of natural gas is rarely interrupted in China, it is advisable that the officials make alternative arrangements so that people do not suffer and their interests are protected, which is the "bottom line" of all thinking.
When the Quyang local government realized it could not supply enough gas to provide heating for rural households, it should have told the residents that they could use electricity at subsidized rates for heating before banning the use of coal.

And when the "warm-up exercise" of the students went viral online, the county government should not have made empty promises just to please the people. To ensure the people do not suffer should be the top priority of local governments.

The author is a writer with China Daily. [email protected]