Beijing scaled back its plan to convert northern cities to cleaner fuel this winter after provinces warned of gas shortages, residents struggled to keep warm and reports of freezing classrooms deepened concerns about a heating crisis. The deceleration is the first admission from the central government that its effort to switch households and factories in the country’s smoggiest cities away from coal to gas or electric heating may have been implemented too quickly, and without the critical infrastructure and domestic output to meet the resulting surge in demand. Sponsored China’s Ministry of Environment has told northern regions that have not converted to gas or electric heating they may burn coal or other fuels instead, financial magazine Caixin reported. Caixin cited […]