The Mongolian Government has fought against Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution for almost a decade.

It is estimated that the “Fresh air” project by the Millennium Challenge foundation with support from US Government had spent 40 million US dollars to reduce Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution. Ten million US dollars has been spent on ger districts and almost 30 million spent on projects to build a wind farm and non coal fired eco-friendly stoves in the ger districts. One of the measures was a gas fired stove.

In the framework of the “Fresh air” project “Khas” and “Ulzii” eco-friendly stoves were distributed, which are worth 47 million US dollars to residents in the ger districts by introducing a discount of 25,000 from 400,000 MNT. The project distributed the stoves to some 70,000 households in the ger districts last year. The Government now plans to distribute eco-friendly stoves to some 23,000 households.

The Government has a 14 billion MNT budget for 20,000 eco-friendly stoves to be distributed in the ger districts. There are 173,000 households in the ger districts.  The Government plans for there to be 120,000 households with stoves installed. 

According to a study air pollution was reduced by 18 percent last year. The estimation was made on the total coal usage by residents in the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar.  The Government is now expecting the air pollution will be reduced by 30 percent this year. The Government has already allocated 282.2 billion in the budget to projects related to reducing air pollution. For Instance about 500 million MNT for the installation of filters in vehicles in Ulaanbaatar and 3.5 billion MNT for gas fuelled buses.

Only the City budget plans 24.6 billion for projects to reduce air pollution. But the stretching ger districts is still a problem for air pollution. The Prime Minister announced to set a normal standard on coal bag size to discount the coal price last week. The Government is taking measures to sell coal from Baganuur mine with a discounted price to the residents in the ger districts. Coal from Baganuur is widely believed to be smoky with a high uranium content in the ash.