Pollution in Chinese cities 'extremely severe': minister

Beijing (AFP) April 23, 2009 – Air pollution in China’s cities remains very serious, state media on Thursday quoted a minister as saying, amid an ongoing battle to clean up the skies in the world’s largest coal-consuming nation. … China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal and its appetite for the cheap fuel is growing as its economy expands, according to the Energy Bulletin, a website that monitors global energy supplies. In 2006, the World Bank said that 16 out of 20 of the world’s worst polluted cities were in China. A recent report by the state Xinhua news agency, citing a survey conducted in November last year in 320 cities, said the average air quality in two out of five Chinese cities ranged from “polluted” to “hazardous”. …