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‘Unfair to blame China, India alone for pollution’

A US environmental official now on a tour of duty of China has said that it would be unfair to single out China and India as being responsible for global air.

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HONG KONG: A US environmental official now on a tour of duty of China has said that it would be unfair to single out China and India as being responsible for global air pollution when in fact other countries, including the United States, were culpable.

Stephen Johnson, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday that a Financial Times article on April 11 that quoted him as saying that giant clouds of toxic mercury that were headed towards the US originated from China and India was incorrect. 

“Unfortunately, I was misquoted and taken out of context, and it’s unfair to characterise the pollution coming just from China and India,” he said, adding that other other countries, like South Korea and the US also contributed to global pollution. 

The Financial Times article, headlined Toxic Chinese mercury pollution travelling to US, had quoted Johnson as saying that the EPA had traced “high levels of ‘mercury deposition’ in the US to China and India” and that this was “the most direct impact (of China’s pollution) on the US.”

Johnson noted that 2,000 tones of mercury were released into the air every year, of which 48 tones came from the US alone. China, which spew 600 tones of mercury every year, blames the Western developmental model – and the relocation of factories into China by Western companies keen to profit from cost advantages – for the pollution.

On Monday, China and the US kicked off a joint initiative to enhance cooperation on the prevention, and management of hazardous and solid wastes in China.

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