Climate Change and Mortality Puzzle in China

Abstract

This paper examines the historical relationship between weather fluctuations and mortality rate in China. Using panel data on provincial annually mortality rates and daily weather variables for nearly thirty years, it explores the weather-mortality relationship and documents two primary findings. First, climate change, represented by higher annual average temperatures and rises in number of extreme hot days, increases annual mortality rate substantially. Our main results show that a 1 degree Celsius rise in average temperature in a given year increases annual mortality rate by 2.2 % on average, and a 1 additional day where the daily average temperature is greater than 27(30) degree Celsius is associated with an increase in annual mortality rate by nearly 0.1(0.2) percentage points. Second, our findings from the long difference approach indicate that there is little evidence of adaptation overall when moving from short run to medium run, and we also find no heterogeneity in response or adaptation between hot and cold, and between rich and poor provinces, though several modifiers, such as residential refrigeration and air conditioning, have played an important role in mitigating the temperature-mortality relationship. These two findings indicate that climate change (global warming) since 1980s could be a potential explanation for the historical puzzle that why mortality rate in China did not decline continually and consistently under an unprecedented economic boom.