Residential contribution to air pollution–associated health impacts is critical, but inadequately addressed because of data gaps. Here, we fully model the effects of residential energy use on emissions, outdoor and indoor PM2.5 concentrations, exposure, and premature deaths using updated energy data. We show that the residential sector contributed only 7.5% of total energy consumption but contributed 27% of primary PM2.5 emissions; 23 and 71% of the outdoor and indoor PM2.5 concentrations, respectively; 68% of PM2.5 exposure; and 67% of PM2.5-induced premature deaths in 2014 in China, with a progressive order of magnitude increase from sources to receptors. Biomass fuels and coal provided similar contributions to health impacts. These findings are particularly true for rural populations, which contribute more to emissions and face higher premature death risks than urban populations. The impacts of both residential and nonresidential emissions are interconnected, and efforts are necessary to simultaneously mitigate both emission types.

The presence of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the air is a global concern because of its severe environmental and public health impacts. Recent evidence from satellite observations shows fast changes in the spatial distribution of global SO2 emissions, but such features are generally missing in global emission inventories that use a bottom-up method due to the lack of up-to-date information, especially in developing countries.Here, we rely on the latest data available on emission activities, control measures, and emission factors to estimate global SO2 emissions for the period 1960-2014 on a 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution. We design two counterfactual scenarios to isolate the contributions of emission activity growth and control measure deployment on historical SO2 emission changes. We find that activity growth has been the major factor driving global SO2 emission changes overall, but control measure deployment is playing an increasingly important role. With effective control measures deployed in developed countries, the predominant emission contributor has shifted from developed countries in the early 1960s (61%) to developing countries at present (83%). Developing countries show divergency in mitigation strategies and thus in SO2 emission trends.Stringent controls in China are driving the recent decline in global emissions. A further reduction in SO2 emissions would come from a large number of developing nations that currently lack effective SO2 emission controls.

Residential heating using solid fuels contributes significantly to air pollution and has subsequent health impacts in China. To mitigate emissions, a clean heating campaign (CHC-1) covering 28 municipalities has been implemented. Although only a single penetration rate was initially planned by CHC-1 for all municipalities, outcomes in the different municipalities varied considerably. Recently, a second phase (CHC-2) has been launched for the remaining 128 municipalities in northern China with once again a fixed penetration rate set. Here, we quantified factors that affected the penetration rates of CHC-1, developed an intervention scheme with differentiated targets for CHC-2, and compared the environmental and health benefits of the fixedand differentiated-rate strategies. We found that the penetration rates of CHC-1 depended on per capita income, terrain slope, and population density and that such relationships could be quantified using a piecewise regression model. This model was applied to develop a differentiated-rate strategy for CHC-2. It clearly evidenced that a differentiated scheme would be more environmentally beneficial. Although the same number of rural households can achieve clean heating under both intervention scenarios, the proposed differentiated strategy can prevent 30 000 (23 000−34 000) premature deaths associated with residential heating annually compared to the 26 000 (21 000−31 000) premature deaths prevented under the fixed-rate scheme. Differences among gender and age groups and the effects of urbanization and aging are also discussed.

Accurate estimation of black carbon (BC) emissions is essential for assessing the health and climate impact of this pollutant. Past emission inventories were associated with high uncertainty due to data limitations, and recent information has provided a unique updating opportunity. Moreover, understanding the drivers that cause temporal emission changes is of research value. Here, we update the global BC emission estimates using new data on the activities and emission factors (EFs). The new inventory covers 73 detailed sources at 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution and monthly temporal resolution from 1960 to 2017. The estimated annual emissions were 32% higher than the average of several previous inventories, which was primarily due to field-measured EFs for residential stoves and differentiated EFs for motor vehicles. In addition, the updated emissions show an inverse U-shaped temporal trend, which was mainly driven by the interaction between the positive effects of population growth, per capita energy consumption, and vehicle fleet and the negative effects of residential energy switching, stove upgrading, phasing out of beehive coke ovens, and reduced EFs for vehicles and industrial processes. Urbanization caused a significant increase in urban emissions accompanied by a more significant decline in rural emissions.

Fossil fuel combustion is the dominant source of global sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. With rapid globalization, the expansion of international fuel trade may have profound impacts on SO2 emissions due to the mixing and the spatial reallocation of fuels with varied quality (e.g., sulfur contents), which has not been clearly addressed. Here, by introducing international fuel trade and three additional counterfactual scenarios, we first assessed the impacts of fuel trade on global SO2 emissions for the period 1980–2030. It was estimated that in 2014 international fuel trade caused an increase in global SO2 emissions from hard coal and oil consumption by 4% and 71%, respectively, with stronger influences found for individual countries. By changing the fuel trade choice, global SO2 emissions attributable to fuel trade would be reduced by 78%. We also showed that such effects of fuel trade on SO2 emissions continuously increased from 1980 to 2014 and will keep increasing in the foreseeable future due to more frequent fuel trading under globalization.