Members of Greenpeace and five marathon runners presented to Mr. Stephen Ip, Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, a mask symbolizing the grave concern of Hong Kong citizen towards our breathing air quality.

Members of Greenpeace and five marathon runners presented to Mr. Stephen Ip, Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, a mask symbolizing the grave concern of Hong Kong citizen towards our breathing air quality.

Greenpeace members collected samples of CLP fly ash in CLP’s lagoon in Lung Ku Tan and a cement factory in June and July this year. The samples were sent to an accredited laboratory in UK for analysis.

Chinese villagers have been protesting groundwater extraction by state-owned coal company Shenhua. Wulansubude (left) has been arrested three times for protesting. Her mother tried to cut her own neck in an effort to get her daughter released,...

The Shenhua coal-to-liquid project discharges creamy, white sewage directly into streams. In March 2003, the farmers and herders of Haole Baoji in Inner Mongolia began to witness the systemic destruction of their grasslands due to groundwater...

Greenpeace activists investigate a coal ash disposal site that belongs to the Yuanbaoshan Power Plant, in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia. The disposal site is located in a small valley, which the power plant has divided into more than 10 sections. One...

Ash chokes the sky above a coal ash dam owned by the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant, in Shuimotou village, Shuozhou, Shanxi province. With even the lightest wind, the tiny particles take flight, blotting out the sky like a thick sandstorm of ash.

July to August 2010. After filling each coal ash disposal site, the Yuanbaoshan Power Plant, in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, covers the ash pile with dirt and then plants crops on top. It is meant to control the dust against wind dispersal, but...

More than 25 Greenpeace activists barged in the coal ash lagoon of the CLP located in Nim Wan, Lung Kwu Tan and hammered 106 crosses in the lagoon to symbolise CLP’s 106-year coal burning operation poisoning Hong Kong people’s health and air...

Greenpeace activists investigate pollution from a coal ash disposal site belonging to the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant, Shuozhou, Shanxi province. Many of the villages around the landfill are very polluted. The villagers have reported the...

Greenpeace activists investigate pollution from a coal ash disposal site belonging to the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant, Shuozhou, Shanxi province. This disposal site does not have any safeguards – not even retaining walls – to protect against...

Zhao Picheng’s home in Shuimotou village has been ruined by the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant, Shuozhou, Shanxi province. Continued leakage from the plant’s coal ash pond has raised groundwater levels, flooding cellars in the village. Extended...

A brooding evening rainstorm partially obscures the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant, Shuozhou, Shanxi province. Its ash pond is in the foreground.

The arrival of the Shentou Number 2 Power Plant's coal ash disposal site has irrevocably changed Mayi Village, which dates back to the Tang dynasty. Leakages from ash ponds have raised the groundwater and flooded the villagers’ cellars; cattle...

The people of Mayi villager have reported the problems of coal ash pollution to the Shentou Number 2 Power Station several times, but to no avail. The power station’s only response has been to merely continue with its “ecological management” that...

The Togtoh Power Station belongs to the China Datang Corp, one of the country’s Big Five power companies, and has an installed capacity of 5.4GW. One of Asia’s biggest thermal power stations, it produces about 4.6 million tons of coal ash every...

Greenpeace campaigner Iris Cheng next to an ash lake in Konin, Poland.

Coal is responsible for 80 percent of China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, a key greenhouse gas. The major source of carbon dioxide from coal is from coal-fired power stations like this one in Beijing.

Greenpeace members protest for action to stop climate change in June 2008 outside the Hong Kong Legislative Council Building

More than 25 Greenpeace activists barged in the coal ash lagoon of the CLP located in Nim Wan, Lung Kwu Tan and hammered 106 crosses in the lagoon to symbolise CLP’s 106-year coal burning operation poisoning Hong Kong people’s health and air...

More than 25 Greenpeace activists barged in the coal ash lagoon of the CLP located in Nim Wan, Lung Kwu Tan and hammered 106 crosses in the lagoon to symbolise CLP’s 106-year coal burning operation poisoning Hong Kong people’s health and air...

More than 25 Greenpeace activists barged in the coal ash lagoon of the CLP located in Nim Wan, Lung Kwu Tan and hammered 106 crosses in the lagoon to symbolise CLP’s 106-year coal burning operation poisoning Hong Kong people’s health and air...

Greenpeace activists display a banner at CLP Power's Castle Peak in Hong Kong, one of the world's largest coal plants, to protest against their lack of investment in renewable energy.

Greenpeace activists scale down a rope to reach the floor of an open coal mine during a peaceful protest in Konin, Poland.

Coal mine

The wind blankets the air with coal ash. Yuanbaoshan Power Plant, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia

Trucks continue to dump coal ash into this valley that has already been nearly filled. The coal ash disposal site belonging to the Dawukou Power Plant, Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Trucks continue to dump coal ash into this valley that has already been nearly filled. The coal ash disposal site belonging to the Dawukou Power Plant, Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

A Greenpeace campaigner takes a sample of the air to test for toxic pollutants at Shuimotou village. Shentou, Shuozhou, Shanxi province.

A funeral for a village woman nicknamed Chen in Mayi village, near Shentou Number 2 Power Plant in Shanxi province. Chen, who married into the Jia family, died peacefully on the 27th day of the 6th month of the lunar calendar. She was 92 years...

Police arrive to break up a peaceful protest at the Jóźwin IIB open pit mine in Konin.

The coal plant in the background dumps its contaminated waste water in this lake in Konin, Poland.

Pollution from a coal power plant has turned this lake in Konin, Poland blue-green.

These 1,500-year-old carved deities in the Yunguang caves in Datong are being destroyed with an acidic mixture made from black coal dust and sulphur dioxide pollution.

Greenpeace activists exposed the “Five Environmental Sins” committed by China Light and Power, and protested outside the Legislative Council (Legco) together with their members, Emily Lau, Kwong Chi Kin, Li Wah Ming and Leung Kwok Hung, during...

Greenpeace activists exposed the “Five Environmental Sins” committed by China Light and Power, and protested outside the Legislative Council (Legco) together with their members, Emily Lau, Kwong Chi Kin, Li Wah Ming and Leung Kwok Hung, during...

Greenpeace Southeast Asia energy campaigners hold up a banner calling for a stop to the construction of a coal fired power plant on Thailand's eastern seaboard. The campaigners were part of a group of Greenpeace activists who occupied the site of...

Dust-filled air does not prevent these children from playing after school in a village near the Yuanbaoshan Power Plant's coal ash disposal site, in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.

Trucks at a coal mine

A herd of cows walk away after drinking from the contaminated water here in the coal ash disposal site of the Yuanbaoshan Power Plant. Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.

The wind blankets the air with coal ash. Yuanbaoshan Power Plant, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.

The house of villager Liu Sanhu, in Houshi'erquan Village, near the Fengzhen Power Plant's coal ash disposal site. Liu hopes that his two sons will be able to leave this place and go to college, he says the village is no longer suited for life.

The Gongwusu open-air coal mine in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia

The Gongwusu open-air coal mine, in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia

Trucks continue to dump coal ash into this valley that has already been nearly filled. The coal ash disposal site belonging to the Dawukou Power Plant, Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Flue gas desulfurization gypsum is transported from the power plant and dumped into the coal ash disposal site, in Huinong. Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.