Quantifying Baseline Emission Factors of Air Pollutants in China’s Regional Power Grids

Drawing lessons from the clean development mechanism (CDM), this paper developed a combined margin methodology to quantify baseline emission factors of air pollutants in China’s regional power grids. The simple average of baseline emission factors of SO₂, NO_<i>X</i>, and PM_2.5 in China’s six power grids in 2010 were respectively 1.91 kg/MWh, 1.83 kg/MWh and 0.32 kg/MWh. Several low-efficient mitigation technologies, such as low nitrogen oxide burner (LNB), were suggested to be replaced or used together with other technologies in order to virtually decrease the grid’s emission factor. The synergies between GHG and air pollution mitigation in China’s power sector was also notable. It is estimated that in 2010, that every 1% CO₂ reduction in China’s power generation sector resulted in the respective coreduction of 1.1%, 0.5%, and 0.8% of SO₂, NO_<i>X</i>, and PM_2.5. Wind is the best technology to achieve the largest amount of coabatement in most parts of China. This methodology is recommended to be used in making comprehensive air pollution control strategies and in cobenefits analysis in future CDM approval processes

Population Grid for China SSP1RCP6

Population Grid for China under SSP1RCP6 from 2010 to 210

A Facility-Level Phaseout Strategy for China’s Blast Furnaces to Address Multiple Policy Objectives

Given the urgency of addressing climate change and the declining demand for steel, it is imperative that China’s iron and steel industry begin phasing out its primary production facility, the blast furnace. While there are various studies examining the decarbonization pathways for this sector and the resulting impacts, research exploring how to design decarbonization pathways that consider economic, environmental, and regional aspects equally is lacking. Moreover, it remains unclear how the individual heterogeneity of facilities affects the effectiveness of climate policies. In this study, we address the aforementioned research gaps by proposing a novel strategy that takes into account economic, carbon, water, and health factors in determining the priority for the closure of China’s blast furnaces. We developed a bottom-up framework that incorporates a facility-level data set, a stock-driven dynamic material analysis, and retirement metrics with uncertain parameters to measure the multidimensional impacts of various phaseout pathways for China’s blast furnaces. We have identified potential pathways that can improve environmental efficiency in multiple aspects compared with the cost-minimization pathway without impeding regional equality

Short-Lived Buildings in China: Impacts on Water, Energy, and Carbon Emissions

This paper has changed the vague understanding that “the short-lived buildings have huge environmental footprints (EF)” into a concrete one. By estimating the annual floor space of buildings demolished and calibrating the average building lifetime in China, this paper compared the EF under various assumptive extended buildings’ lifetime scenarios based on time-series environmental-extended input-output model. Results show that if the average buildings’ lifetime in China can be extended from the current 23.2 years to their designed life expectancy, 50 years, in 2011, China can reduce 5.8 Gt of water withdrawal, 127.1 Mtce of energy consumption, and 426.0 Mt of carbon emissions, each of which is equivalent to the corresponding annual EF of Belgium, Mexico, and Italy. These findings will urge China to extend the lifetime of existing and new buildings, in order to reduce the EF from further urbanization. This paper also verifies that the lifetime of a product or the replacement rate of a sector is a very important factor that influences the cumulative EF. When making policies to reduce the EF, adjusting people’s behaviors to extend the lifetime of products or reduce the replacement rate of sectors may be a very simple and cost-effective option

Population Grid for China SSP4RCP6

Population Grid for China under SSP4RCP6 from 2010 to 210

Population Grid for China SSP1RCP2.6

Population Grid for China under SSP1RCP2.6 from 2010 to 210

Projected provincial urbanization rate for China

Projected provincial urbanization rate for China under SSPs from 2010 to 210

Population Grid for China SSP5RCP4.5

Population Grid for China under SSP5RCP4.5 from 2010 to 210

Population Grid for China SSP3RCP4.5

Population Grid for China under SSP3RCP4.5 from 2010 to 210

Population Grid for China SSP5RCP8.5

Population Grid for China under SSP5RCP8.5 from 2010 to 210