Incorporating Health Cobenefits into Province-Driven Climate Policy: A Case of Banning New Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle Sales in China

Abstract

Incorporating health cobenefits from coabated air pollution into carbon mitigation policy making is particularly important for developing countries to boost policy efficiency. For sectors that highly depend on electrification for decarbonization, it remains unclear how the increased electricity demand and consequent health impacts from sectoral mitigation policy in one province would change the scale and the regional and sectoral distributions of the overall health impacts in the whole country. This study chooses the banning of new sales of internal combustion engine vehicles in the private vehicle sector in China as a case. The results show that, without carbon neutrality and air pollution control goals in electricity generation, 53% of CO 2 reduction and 65% of health benefits from the private vehicle sector would be offset by increased electricity demand. The regional distributions of CO 2 reduction and health benefits due to a province-driven ban policy are greatly uneven, as the top five provinces take up over one-third of the total impact in China. Health benefits per ton of carbon reduction (H/C) may vary by up to 8 times across provinces. Finally, the provinces in southeast China and the Sichuan Basin, with their stably high H/C values, are suggested to enact the province-driven ban policy first.

Co-drivers of Air Pollutant and CO2 Emissions from On-Road Transportation in China 2010–2020

“…For instance, our findings show that controlling the stock of fossil fuel vehicles can serve as a synergistic control approach, as demonstrated by the successful outcomes in co-reducing air pollutant and CO 2 emissions from passenger vehicles in Beijing (Figures –). By drawing on successful experiences in Beijing and referring to zero-carbon transportation pathways implemented by developed countries, the Chinese government could consider measures that include purchase restrictions for fossil fuel vehicles in key regions (e.g., the low emission zones) and accelerated adoption of electric vehicles (especially if served by cleaner power generation). − Despite the current co-reduction effects of such fuel structure improvement are relatively limited (Figure and Figure a), we anticipate substantial escalations of these impacts will throughout the on-road transportation sector in the coming years. The State Council has set the Electric Vehicle Target (achieving a 40% market share of EV sales by 2030) coupled with a strategic focus on the advancement of electric freight vehicles .…”

Review of Organic Rankine Cycles for Internal Combustion Engine Waste Heat Recovery: Latest Decade in Review

“…While the majority of ICE-WHR efforts continue to be based on the Rankine cycle [37], various alternative approaches consistently garner attention from researchers. Stirling cycles, for example, continue to be developed for ICE-WHR and industrial WHR [38,39], and similarly, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are considered for ICE-WHR [25,40] and other WHR [41,42]. TEGs are designed with a diverse group of materials [43,44], ultimately aiming to assuage long-standing concerns over cost and efficiency.…”

“…Regulations for internal combustion engines vary widely not only by region [24] but also across individual provinces [25] or states [26]. Furthermore, engine emissions are often regulated independently, based on their application.…”