Second report on environmental damage killed

At the beginning of this month China's environmental authorities got critiziced after they forced the World Bank to tone down a report, estimating the annually 750,000 Chinese would die prematurely from environmental damage. Now, according to the Los Angeles Times, an annual report on the environmental damage for the GDP, due in September, was killed.
Last year the so-called "Green GDP" said environmental damage had cost China US$ 67.7 billion or 3 percent of its GDP over 2005.

Chinese and Western experts, however, said Monday that authorities might have acted for reasons not readily apparent to casual observers. They said the reluctance to publicize the country's environmental woes might have had more to do with political relations between the central government and provincial leaders than with a fear of airing dirty laundry.

The now cancelled "Green GDP" report would also be a tool to put a price tag on the environmental damage per province, a problem for those provinces who are more focused on economic growth than on environmental protection.