Substantial air quality and climate co-benefits achievable now with sectoral mitigation strategies in China
Wei Peng a,1, Junnan Yang a, Fabian Wagner a,b,2, Denise L. Mauzerall a,c,*
a Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
b Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
c Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
Abstract
China is the world's top carbon emitter and suffers from severe air pollution. We examine near-term air quality and CO2 co-benefits of various current sector-based policies in China. Using a 2015 base case, we evaluate the po- tential benefits of four sectoral mitigation strategies. All scenarios include a 20% increase in conventional air pol- lution controls as well as the following sector-specific fuel switching or technology upgrade strategies. Power sector (POW): 80% replacement of small coal power plants with larger more efficient ones; Industry sector (IND): 10% improvement in energy efficiency; Transport sector (TRA): replacement of high emitters with average vehicle fleet emissions; and Residential sector (RES): replacement of 20% of coal-based stoves with stoves using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Conducting an integrated assessment using the regional air pollution model WRF- Chem, we find that the IND scenario reduces national air-pollution-related deaths the most of the four scenarios examined (27,000, 24,000, 13,000 and 23,000 deaths reduced annually in IND, POW, TRA and RES, respectively). In addition, the IND scenario reduces CO2 emissions more than 8 times as much as any other scenario (440, 53, 0 and 52 Mt CO2 reduced in IND, POW, TRA and RES, respectively). We also examine the benefits of an industrial efficiency improvement of just 5%. We find the resulting air quality and health benefits are still among the largest of the sectoral scenarios, while the carbon mitigation benefits remain more than 3 times larger than any other scenario. Our analysis hence highlights the importance of even modest industrial energy efficiency improve- ments and air pollution control technology upgrades for air quality, health and climate benefits in China.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Corresponding author at:WoodrowWilson School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States.
E-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (D.L. Mauzerall).
1 Now at Environment and Natural Resources Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, J.F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
2 Now at Air Quality and Greenhouse Gases Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.287
0048-9697/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
