Beijing's State Council vows to 'wage war' against emissions from its coal-fired power plants, a senior official says.
Song Jian, director of the council's environmental protection committee, insists authorities are fighting an uphill battle to install pollution control equipment at smoke-belching power stations. They have the casualties to prove it.
Air pollution had caused at least three million urban deaths on the mainland since 1994 - a 'horrifying statistic', a federal agency said.
The World Bank puts the social cost of the urban mainland's putrid air at US$32 billion in economic losses due to sickness and death, while pollution-induced acid rain is blamed for $2.4 billion a year in damage to crops and forests.
Not one major city on the mainland can match World Health Organisation air pollution standards, due in part to emissions from primitive state-owned power plants and industrial boilers.
'The government focus is still on production, production, production,' a Western diplomat said.
