Abstract:

As a result of rapid economic development, China’s energy consumption has greatly increased in last two decades. Large increases in coal and oil consumption has lead to increased emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) as well as air pollutants. These air pollutants, both those emitted directly from energy consumption and those generated from atmospheric chemical reactions, are contributing to increasingly complex regional-scale pollution problems for China’s cities.. While the government of China is making great efforts to mitigate GHG emissions and control air quality, the policy choices are made more complex by the regional nature of the air pollution. To evaluate the policies and measures taken by the government, this research develops an integrated methodology, and assesses the co-benefit effects of "Climate Change Policies" and "Air Pollutants Control Policies" on GHG mitigation as well as local and regional air quality improvement. The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system (LEAP) is applied to forecast the energy consumption and its sectoral distribution up to 2030. A gridded technology and fuel based emission inventory including SO2, NOx, BC, OC, NMVOC, CO and CO2 is then developed based on the output of LEAP and the TRACE-P emission inventory. Air quality, considering concentrations of SO2, PM10, and O3 in the future years is simulated using Models-3/CMAQ. Health benefit analysis is accomplished by applying Concentration-Response Functions and health impact valuation functions for mortality and morbidity using USEPA’s Benefit Mapping Analysis Program (BenMAP) model. Finally, the CO2 abatement, air quality improvement, and health benefit potential of the different government policies are calculated and compared. The results show that the energy policies do lead to substantial co-benefit for GHG mitigation and human health improvement through air quality improvement. Aggressive energy policies are preferred to end-of-pipe emission control policies, because they have additional ability to abate GHGs .

Presentation: http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/docs/SW11_3.ppt