Energy and air pollution benefits of household fuel policies in northern China

Meng, Wenjun; Zhong, Qirui; Chen, Yilin; Shen, Huizhong; Yun, Xiao; Smith, Kirk R.; Li, Bengang; Liu, Junfeng; Wang, Xilong; Ma, Jianmin; Cheng, Hefa; Zeng, Eddy Y.; Guan, Dabo; Russell, Armistead G.; Tao, Shu

doi:10.1073/pnas.1904182116

Cited by 180 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The energy substitution was capable of generating large air pollution mitigation and human health benefits. 70 , 71 However, owing to the rush for quick results and inadequate planning and implementation, some areas in Hebei faced gas shortages, and basic winter heating supplies could not be guaranteed. 72 Policy makers will have to address the social and environmental justice issues of removing coal as an energy supply option among rural households.…”

Section: A Just Transition Away From Coalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

et al. 2020

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Summary As the world's largest coal producer and consumer, China's transition from coal to cleaner energy sources is critical for achieving global decarbonization. Increasing regulations on air pollution and carbon emissions and decreasing costs of renewables drive China's transition away from coal; however, this transition also has implications for employment and social justice. Here, we assess China's current coal-transition policies, their barriers, and the potential for an accelerated transition, as well as the associated environmental, human health, and employment and social justice issues that may arise from the transition. We estimate that the most aggressive coal-transition pathway could reduce annual premature death related to coal combustion by 224,000 and reduce annual water consumption by 4.3 billion m 3 in 2050 compared with business-as-usual. We highlight knowledge gaps and conclude with policy recommendations for an integrated approach to facilitate a rapid and just transition away from coal in China.

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Section: A Just Transition Away From Coalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

et al. 2020

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“…Long-term exposure to the chemical components of PM 2.5 has not been well studied (Lepeule et al 2012), and we used the total PM 2.5 concentration to estimate premature deaths in the health impact function. The health impact model in our study has not considered indoor air pollution, which may underestimate health effects due to indoor coal combustion (Meng et al 2019). There is also less evidence for the relationship between O 3 and COPD.…”

Section: Caveatsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Air quality and health impacts from the updated industrial emission standards in China

Yang

Wei

Wang

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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To improve air quality, China has been increasing the stringency of national emission standards for industrial sectors. However, from the projected air quality and associated health impacts it is not known if the updated emission limits have been completely followed. Here, we develop emission inventories based on the emission limits at different stages and use the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model and health impact function to determine the potential air quality and health impacts for different scenarios. We found that full implementation of the special emission standards would decrease PM 2.5 concentrations by over 25% in April, July and October, and decrease O 3 concentrations in July by 10%-20%. Overall, the number of PM 2.5 -related premature deaths could be reduced by 0.15 million (95% confidence level 0.13-0.17 million) if special emission limits were met and that O 3 -related premature deaths would decrease by 18oo (95% confidence level 500-3000). However, even with these special emission limits, a greater than 25% increase in O 3 levels occurred in northern China during October, January and April, leading to an increase in O 3 -related premature deaths in northern provinces which would offset the decrease in provincial PM 2.5 -related mortality by 10%-20%. These findings indicate that emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) should be reduced to avoid increases in O 3 in VOC-limited provinces. Despite the increase in O 3 in certain provinces, improvement of industrial emission standards could greatly limit PM 2.5 pollution and reduce the associated health burden. Therefore, we suggest that government should accelerate full implementation of strict emission standards in order to improve air quality.

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“…Moreover, big cities virtually eliminated use of coal (Guan et al, 2018;, while in rural areas use of coal even increased (Meng et al, 2019). For example, a national survey showed that China's rural residential coal consumption fractions for heating increased from 19.2% to 27.2% (Tao et al, 2018).…”

Section: Effects Of Spatial Disaggregation Methods On Spatial Distribmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating China's fossil-fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from a comprehensive dataset of nine inventories

Han¹,

Zeng²,

Oda³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. China's fossil-fuel CO2 emissions (FFCO2) account for 28 % of the global total FFCO2 in 2016. An accurate estimate of China’s FFCO2 is a prerequisite for global and regional carbon budget analyses and monitoring of carbon emission reduction efforts. However, large uncertainties and discrepancies exist in China’s FFCO2 estimations due to lack of detailed traceable emission factors and multiple statistical data sources. Here, we evaluated China's FFCO2 emissions from 9 published global and regional emission datasets. These datasets show that the total emission increased from 3.4 (3.0–3.7) in 2000 to 9.8 (9.2–10.4) Gt CO2 yr−1 in 2016. The variations in their estimates were due largely to the different emission factors (0.491–0.746 for coal) and activity data. The large-scale patterns of gridded emissions showed a reasonable agreement with high emissions concentrated in major city clusters, and the standard deviation mostly ranged 10–40 % at provincial level. However, patterns beyond the provincial scale vary greatly with the top 5 % of grid-level account for 50–90 % of total emissions for these datasets. Our findings highlight the significance of using locally-measured EF for the Chinese coals. To reduce the uncertainty, we call on the enhancement of physical CO2 measurements and use them for datasets validation, key input data sharing (e.g. point sources) and finer resolution validations at various levels.

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Energy and air pollution benefits of household fuel policies in northern China

Cited by 180 publications

References 42 publications

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

Air quality and health impacts from the updated industrial emission standards in China

Evaluating China's fossil-fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from a comprehensive dataset of nine inventories

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Energy and air pollution benefits of household fuel policies in northern China

Cited by 180 publications

References 42 publications

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition away from Coal in China

Air quality and health impacts from the updated industrial emission standards in China

Evaluating China's fossil-fuel CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions from a comprehensive dataset of nine inventories

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Product

Resources

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Evaluating China's fossil-fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from a comprehensive dataset of nine inventories