The growth of china’s economy has caused pollution problems. explain why the government continues to use coal-fired power plants despite the pollution problems they cause?

Many nations use natural gas as a coal alternative.  China’s is low on producible natural gas resources.  This is a dilemma to producing new energy plants.  China claims it is currently constructing 4 approved coal-to-natural gas plants.  Yet new projects will not be approved until the end of this decade.   China finds these new projects challenging.  The factories consume a large amount of water.  Plus there are emissions into the environment as a by-product.