Beijing censored pollution report
By Richard McGregorin Beijing
Published: July 3 2007 03:00 | Last updated: July 3 2007 03:00
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/563054fc-28fe-11dc-af78-000b5df10621.html

Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank
report on pollution in China because of concerns that its findings on
premature deaths could provoke "social unrest".

The report, produced in co-operation with Chinese government
ministries over several years, found about 750,000 people die
prematurely in China each year, mainly from air pollution in large
cities.

China's State Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and health ministry
asked the World Bank to cut the calculations of premature deaths from
the report when a draft was finished last year, according to bank
advisers and Chineseofficials.

"The World Bank was told that it could not publish this information.
It was too sensitive and could cause social unrest," one adviser to
the study told the Financial Times.

Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, according
to previous World Bank research.

Guo Xiaomin, a retired Sepa official who co-ordinated the Chinese
research team, said some material was omitted from the pollution
report because of concerns that the methodology was unreliable. But he
also said such information on premature deaths "could cause
misunderstanding".

"We did not announce these figures. We did not want to make this
report too thick," he said in an interview.

The pared-down report, "Cost of Pollution in China", has yet to be
officially launched but a version, which can be downloaded from the
internet, was released at a conference in Beijing in March.

Missing from this report are the research project's findings that high
air pollution levels in Chinese cities are leading to the premature
deaths of 350,000-400,000 people each year. A further 300,000 people
die prematurely each year from exposure to poor air indoors, according
to advisers, but little discussion of this issue survived in the
report because it was outside the ambit of the Chinese ministries
which sponsored the research.

Another 60,000-odd premature deaths were attributable to poor-quality
water, largely in the countryside, resulting in severe diarrhoea and
stomach, liver and bladder cancers.

The mortality information was "reluctantly" excised by the World Bank
from the published report, according to advisers to the research
project.

The bank said the findings of the report were still being discussed
with the government. A spokesperson said: "The conference version of
the report did not include some of the issues still under discussion."
She said the findings of the report were due to be released as a
series of papers soon.


--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.

Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS

Celibacy in healthy human beings is a form of
insanity. -- Captain Compassion

"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.

Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net