Lobster lovers are used to adjusting to high prices, but this winter, they’re shelling out even more for the cherished crustaceans because of a lack of catch off of New England and Canada and heavy exports to China.
Winter is typically a slow season for U. S. lobster fishermen and an active one off Atlantic Canada. But catch is slow in both countries this year, in part because of bad weather, industry sources said.
And the winter months are also an important time for exports to lobster-crazy China, which celebrates its New Year holiday Jan. 28. It’s increasingly popular to celebrate the Chinese New Year with American lobster. That’s causing demand at a time when supply is low.
American consumers who were paying $9 to $11 per pound for a live lobster in September — already higher than the previous year — are now sometimes paying upward of $13 per pound. There are enough lobsters to go around, but China’s demand is likely to only grow, said Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Company of Arundel, Maine.
“They are building infrastructure to meet more demand,” Bruns said, who added that China’s middle class “hasn’t stopped growing, and they keep eating.”
American lobster exports to China have topped 12 million pounds and $85 million in value for three years in a row. The country imported a fraction of that amount as recently as 2010, when it imported less than a million pounds of the crustaceans.
Meanwhile, prices charged by wholesalers in the U. S. are rising, too. The wholesale price of a 1 ¼-pound live hard shell lobster rose about a dollar in the New England market from December to January, when it was $7.75 per pound, according to Urner Barry commodities publishing service.
The loss of fishing days due to bad weather off Canada has caused a supply issue at a busy time of the year, said market analyst John Sackton, who publishes a website called SeafoodNews.com.
“It’s become very difficult to get supply and you still have people scrambling to ship lobsters to China for Chinese New Year,” he said.
The winter pinch is happening at a time when the U. S. lobster catch, based mostly in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is booming. U. S. fishermen have caught more than 100 million pounds of lobster for seven years in a row after having never accomplished that feat previously, federal records say. Lobsters were worth a record of more than $600 million at the docks in 2015, records show.
The slow winter fishing season isn’t cause for concern in the grand scheme of things, said David Cousens, a South Thomaston lobstermen who is president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
“Guys offshore are reporting not very much. But I imagine they’ve probably got enough between Canada and here to fill that market,” he said.
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A new team of environmental police will try to reduce hazardous levels of toxic smog engulfing Beijing, the city’s acting mayor has said.
The police will look for local sources of air pollution, including open-air barbeques and dusty roads, Cai Qi says, according to Xinhua state news agency.
The mayor has also promised to reduce coal consumption by 30% this year.
Many residents have been forced to stay in their homes for days at a time to avoid breathing the poisonous air.
The public has been calling on the government to do more to address major sources of smog, including reducing China’s reliance on coal-fired power plants, the primary source of electricity in the country.
Officials say unfavourable weather conditions in the capital have prevented pollutants from dispersing.
„Open-air barbecues, garbage incineration, biomass burning, dust from roads – these acts of non-compliance with regulations are actually the result of lax supervision and weak law enforcement,“ Mr Cai was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
The city’s only coal-fired power plant will be closed after the winter, when consumption increases for heating, Mr Cai added.
Another 300,000 high-polluting old vehicles will be phased out, Xinhua says. Polluting factories will be closed and some 2,000 others will be upgraded to meet higher pollution treatment standards.
Beijing authorities had earlier announced that they would begin installing air purifiers in some of the city’s schools and kindergartens. They were already ordered to stop all outdoor activities.

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January 7, 2017
China — Chinese officials rolled out a detailed plan this week signaling a major commitment to renewable energy, even as some Chinese cities experienced historic levels of smog pollution.
Air pollution was so bad that 32 cities in China received the most severe pollution warning, while Beijing and 26 other cities were placed under the second severe smog tier, NBC News reports. Some media outlets dubbed it “ Airpocaloypse “
In the same week, the government’s energy agency said the country plans to spend at least $360 billion on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind by 2020, indicating a transition away from fossil fuels. The challenge for Beijing is balancing economic growth (largely still driven by fossil fuel powered factories) with goals for a cleaner environment. The effort seems to be taking place in fits and starts.
This most recent smog emergency has prompted government officials to shut down factories and construction, limit the number of cars on the road, and close schools while urging residents to stay indoors and avoid outdoor activities.
A time-lapse video taken by Chas Pope last Sunday captured the thick noxious clouds of smog that blanketed Beijing in 20 minutes.
A few days before Chinese cities were placed under “red” or “orange” alerts – the two most severe warnings in China’s four-tier system, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Dec. 31 that they held 2,682 local officials accountable for poor environmental protection efforts and fined smog offenders of anti-pollution laws approximately US$35 million in recent inspections, according to Xinhua.
Since 2014, some Chinese cities have been able to reduce air pollution by up to 20 percent, amid growing enforcement of environmental laws and a crackdown on corruption. But as China’s economy has slowed, in 2016 the government has incentivized factories to boost economic output, but often at the expense of air and water quality.
In a December 16 analysis, Greenpeace says an expansion of coal-fired production, following a 2016 economic stimulus package, is the reason behind a spike in the air pollution in recent months.
Against this backdrop, the nation’s National Energy Administration laid out a plan Thursday aiming to “dominate one of the world’s fastest-growing industries,” the New York Times reports.
“Renewable energy is a principle part of China’s non-fossil fuels and an important segue for China’s future energy transformation,” the agency said in a statement.
This plan expects to create more than 13 million jobs in the renewable energy sector, substantially reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, cut the amount of soot and the use of water within the next three years, the statement said.
The agency said the plan is a major push toward meeting the goal of making renewable energy 15 percent of China’s total energy consumption by 2020. The country aims to make it 20 percent by 2030.
But some environmental experts have criticized the plan.
Lauri Myllyvirta, a Greenpeace research analyst based in Beijing, told the New York Times that the plan omits any specific target to curtail coal consumption – a major source of pollution.
Coal is not only a source of generating electricity, it also powers industrial activities such as steel and cement production, and is key to meeting the China’s growing energy needs.
Other researchers are skeptical about the prospect of China’s plans to ramp up the renewable energy industry as able to put a significant dent in its air pollution. There’s no question that China is moving quickly at home and abroad on solar energy – Greenpeace estimates that in 2015 China installed an average of more than one wind turbine every hour of every day.
But in an annual report of the International Energy Agency, Heymi Bahar writes that China’s increasing electricity demand far surpasses the country’s renewable energy growth , despite its leading position in the field worldwide.

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BEIJING, Jan. 7 (UPI) — Chinese officials said they are working to improve municipal responses to severe air pollution in the wake of several days of choking smog hanging over Beijing.
The Chinese government has thus far declined to declare a red alert , the highest level of environmental alerts under the nation’s four-tiered system. Doing so would empower government officials to implement an even-odd system for vehicle use, as well as shutter pollution-producing factories until air quality improved.
Instead, an orange alert has remained in place in Beijing and surrounding areas, which only warns citizens who could be affected to limit exposure to the outdoors.
Responding to the controversy , officials said they are undertaking a review of the environmental pollution measurement and response plans in 20 of China’s largest cities. The government promised it would ensure proper testing is taking place, and that steps are created to respond when air quality becomes especially problematic.
The recent surge in smog is partially attributed to increased industrial production in the weeks leading up to the Chinese New Year, when factories must close so workers can return to rural villages to be with their families. Increased reliance on coal as a heating fuel in winter is also contributing to the problem.

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