Shanghai announced yesterday it will cut emissions from industry by up to 90 percent over the next three years - a move that will lessen the chance of acid rain developing.

It is also a key part of the city's ambition to reduce its overall industrial emissions by 27 percent from 2006 to 2010.

This year's reduction target is two percent, double that of last year.

Details on the levels of emission reduction were published yesterday on the official Website of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau.

"Our target is to improve the city's air quality, for the sake of people's health and climate change," Su Guodong, director of the bureau's pollution control section, said.

He said local factories and power plants need to upgrade their boilers over the next three years so that emissions, such as sulfur dioxide, should be cut by up to 90 percent.

Different industries will have different emission targets - for example the nitrogen dioxide emissions of coal-fired boilers will have to be reduced by more than 50 percent.

Companies whose emissions do not meet the new standards will receive an administrative punishment or may even lose their production licenses from 2010.

Although no one knows exactly how many boilers are at work in the city's industries, environmental bureau officials say their emissions are a major pollution factor.

Boilers are essential for many industries from steel-making to power generation and since they are heated by coal, gas or oil, they all produce pollutants.

Su said the reduction of industrial emissions will lessen the possibility of acid rain - a form of air pollution created when oxides of sulfur and nitrogen combine with atmospheric moisture.

Also this year, more than one third of the local bus fleet will be upgraded to lessen their exhaust emissions - one of the major pollutants affecting respiratory health.

Several government departments, including the city's transport and environmental authorities, will work together to supervise the upgrade project and check on their effect, officials said yesterday.

Some transport business insiders have suggested that bus companies have been reluctant to pay the cost of upgrading their older buses.

(Shanghai Daily August 3, 2007)