Trends in China's anthropogenic emissions since 2010 as the consequence of clean air actions

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> To tackle the problem of severe air pollution, China has implemented active clean air policies in recent years. As a consequence, the emissions of major air pollutants have decreased and the air quality has substantially improved. Here, we quantified China's anthropogenic emission trends from 2010–2017 and identified the major driving forces of these trends by using a combination of bottom-up emission inventory and Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA) approaches. The relative change rates of China's anthropogenic emissions during 2010–2017 are estimated as follows: −62 % for SO<sub>2</sub>, −17 % for NO<sub>x</sub>, +11 % for NMVOC, +1 % for NH<sub>3</sub>, −27 % for CO, −38 % for PM<sub>10</sub>, −35 % for PM<sub>2.5</sub>, −27 % for BC, −35 % for OC, and +18 % for CO<sub>2</sub>. The IDA results suggest that emission control measures are the main drivers of this reduction, in which the pollution controls on power plants and industries are the most effective mitigation measures. The emission reduction rates markedly accelerated after the year 2013, confirming the effectiveness of China's Clean Air Action that was implemented in 2013. We estimated that during 2013–2017, China's anthropogenic emissions decreased by 59 % for SO<sub>2</sub>, 21 % for NO<sub>x</sub>, 23 % for CO, 36 % for PM<sub>10</sub>, 33 % for PM<sub>2.5</sub>, 28 % for BC, and 32 % for OC. NMVOC emissions increased by 11 % and NH<sub>3</sub> emissions remained stable from 2010–2017, representing the absence of effective mitigation measures for NMVOC and NH<sub>3</sub> in current policies. The relative contributions of different sectors to emissions have significantly changed after several years' implementation of clean air policies, indicating that it is paramount to introduce new policies to enable further emission reductions in the future.</p>

Substantial changes in air pollution across China during 2015–2017

“…Leung et al (2018) suggest that PM 2.5 across the NCP will decrease by 0.5 μg m −3 by the 2050s due to climate change, substantially less than the changes we report over the past 3 years. Since the trends over the period 2015-2017 are consistent with trends over the period 2007-2015, occur consistently across the country and coincide with declining Chinese anthropogenic emissions (Zheng et al 2018), we suggest that the trends are likely dominated by these emission changes. Future work needs to use air quality models to fully assess the contribution of different drivers of the trends reported here.…”

“…In response to the 2012-13 air pollution 'crisis,' where very poor air quality triggered a public outcry, the state council issued the 'Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution' that prioritised PM 2.5 reduction in megacity regions (Sheehan et al 2014, Wang et al 2018. According to the estimates made in the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China, emissions of SO 2 , NO x , PM 2.5 , PM 10 (mass of particulate matter with a diameter less than 10 μm) and carbon monoxide (CO) have decreased during 2013-2017 (Zheng et al 2018).…”

Significant climate impacts of aerosol changes driven by growth in energy use and advances in emissions control technology

“…some developing countries started to take mitigation measures. For example, Chinese SO2 emissions have shown a noticeable decline since around 2012 (Silver et al, 2018;Zheng et al, 2018). As a result, India has recently overtaken China as the largest present-day emitter of SO2 (Li et al, 2017).…”

Investigations into the Development of a Satellite-Based Aerosol Climate Data Record using ATSR-2, AATSR and AVHRR data

“…Taking China as 15 an example, recent publications show the effect of policy measures on the reduction of the most polluting trace gases SO 2 and NO 2 (van der A et al, 2017), which, as precursor gases, also affect the concentrations of aerosols. In particular, the emissions of SO 2 were reduced as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) (Zheng et al, 2018), but the emissions of NO 2 continued to increase (e.g., van der A et al, 2017) until the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). Large emission reductions were achieved after 2013 when the Clean Air Action was enacted and implemented and the NO 2 concentrations 20 decreased (Zheng et al, 2018).…”

“…In particular, the emissions of SO 2 were reduced as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) (Zheng et al, 2018), but the emissions of NO 2 continued to increase (e.g., van der A et al, 2017) until the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). Large emission reductions were achieved after 2013 when the Clean Air Action was enacted and implemented and the NO 2 concentrations 20 decreased (Zheng et al, 2018). Starting from 2011, aerosol concentrations decreased in China as shown, e.g., from satellite observations of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) , Zhao et al, 2017, Sogacheva et al, 2018b.…”