Role of emission controls in reducing the 2050 climate change penalty for PM2.5 in China

Song Liu; Jia Xing; Daniel M Westervelt; Shuchang Liu; Dian Ding; Arlene M Fiore; Patrick L Kinney; Yuqiang Zhang; Mike Z He; Hongliang Zhang; Shovan K Sahu; Fenfen Zhang; Bin Zhao; Shuxiao Wang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144338

Role of emission controls in reducing the 2050 climate change penalty for PM_2.5 in China

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Apr 15:765:144338. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144338. Epub 2020 Dec 25.

Authors

Song Liu¹, Jia Xing², Daniel M Westervelt³, Shuchang Liu¹, Dian Ding¹, Arlene M Fiore⁴, Patrick L Kinney⁵, Yuqiang Zhang⁶, Mike Z He⁷, Hongliang Zhang⁸, Shovan K Sahu¹, Fenfen Zhang¹, Bin Zhao⁹, Shuxiao Wang¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing, China.
² State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing, China. Electronic address: xingjia@tsinghua.edu.cn.
³ Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York, NY, USA; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA.
⁴ Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York, NY, USA; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, Palisades, New York, NY, USA.
⁵ School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
⁷ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA.
⁸ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁹ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA.
¹⁰ State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing, China. Electronic address: shxwang@tsinghua.edu.cn.

PMID: 33401063
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144338

Abstract

Previous 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 PM_2.5 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 PM_2.5 between a pair of simulations with either 2015 or 2050 meteorology. Under 2015 emissions, we find a PM_2.5 climate change penalty of 1.43 μg m^-3 in Eastern China, leading to an additional 35,000 PM_2.5-related premature deaths [95% confidence interval (CI), 21,000-40,000] by 2050. However, the PM_2.5 climate change penalty weakens to 0.24 μg m^-3 with strict anthropogenic emission controls under the 2050 MTFR emissions, which decreases the associated PM_2.5-related deaths to 17,000. The smaller MTFR climate change penalty contributes 14% of the total PM_2.5 decrease when both emissions and meteorology are changed from 2015 to 2050, and 24% of total health benefits associated with this PM_2.5 decrease in Eastern China. This finding suggests that controlling anthropogenic emissions can effectively reduce the climate change penalty on PM_2.5 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.

Keywords: China; Climate change penalty; Downscaling; Emission scenarios; PM(2.5).