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Role of emission controls in reducing the 2050 climate change penalty for PM2.5 in ChinaPrevious studies demonstrated that global warming can lead to deteriorated air quality even when anthropogenic emissions were kept constant, which has been called a climate change penalty on air quality. It is expected that anthropogenic emissions will decrease significantly in the future considering the aggressive emission control actions in China. However, the dependence of climate change penalty on the choice of emission scenario is still uncertain. To fill this gap, we conducted multiple independent model simulations to investigate the response of PM2.5 to future (2050) climate warming (RCP8.5) in China but with different emission scenarios, including the constant 2015 emissions, the 2050 CLE emissions (based on Current Legislation), and the 2050 MTFR emissions (based on Maximum Technically Feasible Reduction). For each set of emissions, we estimate climate change penalty as the difference in PM2.5 between a pair of simulations with either 2015 or 2050 meteorology. Under 2015 emissions, we find a PM2.5 climate change penalty of 1.43 μg m−3 in Eastern China, leading to an additional 35,000 PM2.5-related premature deaths [95% confidence interval (CI), 21,000-40,000] by 2050. However, the PM2.5 climate change penalty weakens to 0.24 μg m−3 with strict anthropogenic emission controls under the 2050 MTFR emissions, which decreases the associated PM2.5-related deaths to 17,000. The smaller MTFR climate change penalty contributes 14% of the total PM2.5 decrease when both emissions and meteorology are changed from 2015 to 2050, and 24% of total health benefits associated with this PM2.5 decrease in Eastern China. This finding suggests that controlling anthropogenic emissions can effectively reduce the climate change penalty on PM2.5 and its associated premature deaths, even though a climate change penalty still occurs even under MTFR. Strengthened controls on anthropogenic emissions are key to attaining air quality targets and protecting human health in the context of future global climate change.
Document ID
20210000196
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Song Liu
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Jia Xing
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Daniel Westervelt
(Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Sparkill, New York, United States)
Shuchang Liu
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Dian Ding
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Arlene M. Fiore
(Columbia University New York, New York, United States)
Patrick L Kinney
(Boston University Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Yuqiang Zhang
(Duke University Durham, North Carolina, United States)
Mike Z. He
(Columbia University New York, New York, United States)
Hongliang Zhang
(Fudan University Shanghai, Shanghai, China)
Shovan K. Sahu
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Fenfen Zhang
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Bin Zhao
(Science Systems & Applications, Inc. Hampton, VA, USA)
Shuxiao Wang
(Tsinghua University Beijing, Beijing, China)
Date Acquired
January 8, 2021
Publication Date
December 25, 2020
Publication Information
Publication: Science of the Total Environment
Publisher: Elsevier
Volume: 765
Issue Publication Date: April 15, 2021
ISSN: 0048-9697
e-ISSN: 1879-1026
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80NSSC20M0282
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Use by or on behalf of the US Gov. Permitted.
Technical Review
External Peer Committee
Keywords
Emission controls
climate change
penalty
PM2.5
China
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