Abstract

Substantial quantities of air pollution and related health impacts are ultimately attributable to household consumption. However, how consumption pattern affects air pollution impacts remains unclear. Here we show, of the 1.08 (0.74–1.42) million premature deaths due to anthropogenic PM2.5 exposure in China in 2012, 20% are related to household direct emissions through fuel use and 24% are related to household indirect emissions embodied in consumption of goods and services. Income is strongly associated with air pollution-related deaths for urban residents in which health impacts are dominated by indirect emissions. Despite a larger and wealthier urban population, the number of deaths related to rural consumption is higher than that related to urban consumption, largely due to direct emissions from solid fuel combustion in rural China. Our results provide quantitative insight to consumption-based accounting of air pollution and related deaths and may inform more effective and equitable clean air policies in China.

Details

Title
Inequality of household consumption and air pollution-related deaths in China
Author
Zhao, Hongyan 1 ; Geng, Guannan 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Zhang, Qiang 3 ; Davis, Steven J 4 ; Li, Xin 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Liu, Yang 3 ; Peng, Liqun 2 ; Li, Meng 3 ; Zheng, Bo 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Huo, Hong 6 ; Zhang, Lin 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Henze, Daven K 8   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mi, Zhifu 9   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Liu, Zhu 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Guan, Dabo 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; He, Kebin 2 

 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 
 State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 
 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 
 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA 
 Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China 
 Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 
 Laboratory for Climate and Ocean-Atmosphere Studies, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China 
 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA 
 The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, University College London, London, UK 
Pages
1-9
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Sep 2019
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2297121112
Copyright
© 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.