BEIJING, April 25 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told officials to keep their "solemn promise" to the Chinese people to reduce industrial emissions and energy consumption, state media reported on Wednesday.

China aims to reduce emissions of major industrial pollutants by 10 percent and cut the amount of energy used to generate each dollar of national income by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010.

But local officials and industries chasing growth have ignored the targets and last year sulphur dioxide emissions actually grew 1.8 percent, while China's energy consumption only improved 1 percent against an official target of 4 percent.

"To reach our aims of energy savings and emission reductions, we are facing a very grave situation," state-run China Central Television quoted Wen Jiabao as saying at a State Council meeting on Wednesday.

"All regions and ministries must realise the importance and urgency of this task... This is the solemn promise our government made to the people and we must keep it," Wen said.

"The work of economic development must be based on (these) guidelines, and the government must play an important role in it," he said.

Three decades of breakneck industrial growth have fouled China's air, water and soil, and Wen has made reducing pollution and energy a pillar of government policy in 2007.

A copy of a national climate change assessment seen by Reuters last week said China faces natural disasters and falling crop production from global warming, but ultimately ruled out placing "absolute" caps on its greenhouse gas emissions.

Also last week, the International Energy Agency said China, the largest emitter of sulphur dioxide, would overtake the United States as the world's top emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

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