Health Benefits of Emission Reduction under 1.5 °C Pathways Far Outweigh Climate-Related Variations in China.

Abstract

The 1.5 °C pathways initially promoted by the challenges presented by climate change could bring substantial air quality-related benefits. However, since there is a lack of comprehensive assessment on emissions of air pollutants, meteorology, air quality, and heatwave occurrences under different climate goals, how significant the clean air cobenefits compared with the direct climate-related impact is uncertain. In this study, we assess the cobenefits of 1.5 °C pathways for air quality in China by linking multiple shared socioeconomic pathways, ensembling simulations of regional climate-air quality dynamic downscaling and an air pollution and climate-related health assessment model, and compare different kinds of benefits: the health benefits from direct slowing climate (reduced heatwaves) versus the health cobenefits from air quality improvement (the improved air quality from reduced air pollutants versus meteorological changes). The benefit of reduced air pollution emissions associated with sustainable development under 1.5 °C pathways dominated the overall impact, which could avoid 1 589 000 PM2.5-related and 526 000 O3-related deaths in 2050. Correspondingly, the impact of changed meteorology on air quality would avoid additional 8000 PM2.5-related deaths in 2050 under 1.5 °C pathways yet would lead to 22 000 O3-related deaths. Also, the heatwave-related deaths could be avoided by 7000. The substantial anthropogenic emission reduction cobenefits of 1.5 °C pathways in improving air quality significantly exceed the direct climate (heatwave-related) benefits and completely offset the impact of meteorological changes' impact on air pollution under climate change.