Abstract
Abstract. To examine the effects of China's national policies of energy conservation and emission control during 2005–2010, inter-annual emission trends of gaseous pollutants, primary aerosols, and CO2 are estimated with a bottom-up framework. The control measures led to improved energy efficiency and/or increased penetration of emission control devices at power plants and other important industrial sources, yielding reduced emission factors for all evaluated species except NOx. The national emissions of anthropogenic SO2, CO, and total primary PM (particulate matter) in 2010 are estimated to have been 89%, 108%, and 87% of those in 2005, respectively, suggesting successful emission control of those species despite fast growth of the economy and energy consumption during the period. The emissions of NOx and CO2, however, are estimated to have increased by 47% and 43%, respectively, indicating that they remain largely determined by the growth of energy use, industrial production, and vehicle populations. Based on application of a Monte-Carlo framework, estimated uncertainties of SO2 and PM emissions increased from 2005 to 2010, resulting mainly from poorly understood average SO2 removal efficiency in flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems in the power sector, and unclear changes in the penetration levels of dust collectors at industrial sources, respectively. While emission trends determined by bottom-up methods can be generally verified by observations from both ground stations and satellites, clear discrepancies exist for given regions and seasons, indicating a need for more accurate spatial and time distributions of emissions. Limitations of current emission control polices are analyzed based on the estimated emission trends. Compared with control of total PM, there are fewer gains in control of fine particles and carbonaceous aerosols, the PM components most responsible for damages to public health and effects on radiative forcing. A much faster decrease of alkaline base cations in primary PM than that of SO2 may have raised the acidification risks to ecosystems, indicating further control of acid precursors is required. Moreover, with relatively strict controls in developed urban areas, air pollution challenges have been expanding to less-developed neighboring regions. There is a great need in the future for multi-pollutant control strategies that combine recognition of diverse environmental impacts both in urban and rural areas with emission abatement of multiple species in concert.
Highlights
China suffers highly degraded air quality and related environmental impacts, mainly due to intensive fossil fuel consumption and rapid growth of the vehicle population
According to the GAINS model developed by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), China accounted for 24 %, 14 %, 25 %, and 27 % of global emissions of SO2, NOx, black carbon (BC), and organic carbon (OC) in 2000, respectively (Cofala et al, 2007; Klimont et al, 2009)
It is notable that the emissions from coal-fired power plants declined from 16.3 to 9.2 metric tons (Mt), and the sector share of total emissions from 52 % to 33 %, resulting mainly from the swift increase of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems during 2005–2010
Summary
China suffers highly degraded air quality and related environmental impacts, mainly due to intensive fossil fuel consumption and rapid growth of the vehicle population. Based on satellite observations and chemical transport models, eastern China has been found to have the highest concentrations of airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) (van Donkelaar et al, 2010) and vertical column densities (VCD) of tropospheric NO2 (Richter et al, 2005) in the world. Serious air pollution has caused huge public health damages in mega cities (Parrish and Zhu, 2009) and has threatened ecosystems. Y. Zhao et al.: Emissions of anthropogenic atmospheric pollutants and CO2 in the world has been observed in south and southwest China (Larssen et al, 2006). A number of analysts have estimated swift increases in anthropogenic emissions, the main cause of China’s severe air pollution, during the early-2000s (Ohara et al, 2007; Zhang et al, 2007; Lu et al, 2010; Lei et al, 2011a). Considerable uncertainties exist (Zhao et al, 2011a), estimates of China’s total SO2 and PM emissions are much more than those of the US or Europe (Zhao et al, 2009; 2011b)
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