It is widely known that sixteen of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China. Financial Times is now reporting that “Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank report on pollution in China because of concerns that findings on premature deaths could provoke ’social unrest’.” Guo Xiaomin, a Chinese official who co-ordinated the Chinese research team, said 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 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 Chinese officials.
Advisers to the research team said ministries told them this information, including a detailed map showing which parts of the country suffered the most deaths, was too sensitive.
Read the complete Financial Times article: 750,000 a year killed by Chinese pollution.
Sphere: Related Content