Within 20 years acid rain will devastate the ecology of a large chunk of Asia, due to China’s extensive use of dirty coal. As the world’s largest producer of this dirty coal, China has a long way to go along the polluting curve of industrial progress. The air quality in nine out of ten Chinese cities is below the nation’s minimum standard, which in itself is the lowest level approved by the World Health Organisation. “The Economists’” Pollution in China article stated that China is the world’s greatest environmental timebomb, which is just waiting to go off. Another problem is that local party bosses ignore any indications from the central government that conflict with their desire to make money, however dirtily. It has been ranked that the levels of suspended particulates and sulphur dioxide in Chinese cities are among the highest in the world. The World Bank did a study on eleven Chinese cities and found that particulates from coal burning cause more than 50 000 premature deaths and 400 000 cases of chronic bronchi

By investing approximately 1 percent of China’s annual GDP in reducing pollution over the next 25 years, this major problem could be greatly reduced. China should introduce stricter maintenance programs for vehicles, lower sulphur content of fuel, use liquefied petroleum gas instead of fuel, use cleaner coal and rely more on gas. China should also offer tax concessions for investment in pollution control and introduce the ‘polluter pays’ principal. Various treatments to lesson the amount of sulphur and ash being emitted into the air are needed. Easily attainable and measurable targets should be set and those who miss these targets should be punished in terms of a fine. The international community needs to put more pressure on China to clean up their act. These recommended techniques are necessary to solve the problem, quicken the process of controlling China’s rapidly increasing air pollution and ease the effect of acid rain.

In the future all coal-fired power plants should have sufficient state-of-the-art scrubbers that mop up sulphur dioxide. Also all small power stations over 25 years old should be shut down. It has been estimated that by cutting air pollution annual asthma attacks will be reduced by 75 million and approximately 180 000 deaths a year would be saved. If urban air pollution continues to grow at current rates the number of premature deaths in China will increase from 218 000 to 850 000 a year. By 2020 cases of chronic bronchitis will increase from 2 million to 7.4 million and bouts of respiratory symptoms from 6 bil

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