China's efforts to combat pollution and smog will last for more than a decade as coal and other fossil energy sources will continue to power the world's second-largest economy, experts said on Friday.

Adopting more clean energy sources to at least partially replace the fossil-dominated energy structure of the country over the next decades will be the key to eliminate the smog choking large parts of the country, said Qin Dahe, an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former director of the Chinese National Meteorological Administration.

"China burned 4.1 billion metric tons of coal last year, more than other leading economies such as the United States. The extremely large amount of chemicals emitted from coal burning and other meteorological factors have triggered the haze," Qin said.