ClimateWire article: Plans to clean up China's air may increase emissions of carbon dioxide.
ClimateWire via Scientific American
China's efforts to improve urban air quality are often viewed as a helper for fighting climate change, but a new joint China-U.S. study says otherwise.
The study—carried out by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University in Beijing—was released last week. It shows that China's strategies for cleaning up air do not necessarily lead to carbon dioxide emissions reductions. Sometimes, according to the study, the efforts could actually increase emissions.
The study came as cleaning up air climbed to near the top of China's policy priorities, especially with record air pollution levels in 2013. The smog triggered unprecedented public outcry that motivated Chinese leaders to declare a "war on pollution."
China rolled out its Air Pollution Action Plan, which calls for limiting coal to 65 percent of the primary energy mix and prohibiting any increase in coal use in three major urban regions along the coast. In addition to displacing coal, the plan also promotes the installation of desulfurization, dust-removal equipment and other pollutant treatment technologies in industrial boilers, furnaces and power plants, particularly those close to cities.
"The urgency with which Beijing is tackling air pollution is certainly positive, and these efforts will also have related benefits in curtailing carbon dioxide emissions—to a certain extent," the report said. "But it would be a mistake to view the current initiatives on air pollution, which are primarily aimed at scrubbing coal-related pollutants or reducing coal use, as perfectly aligned with carbon reduction."
That is because once low-cost opportunities to reduce coal are exhausted, the continued displacement of coal from China's energy mix will become more expensive. If the focus remains narrowly on air quality, the researchers say, Chinese power producers will likely stick with end-of-pipe solutions—such as scrubbing pollutants from the exhaust stream of coal power plants—rather than switching to use more renewable energy.
That, in turn, slows down China's green transition in energy structure. Worse yet, according to the researchers, if the pollution-scrubbing technologies are running on coal-generated electricity, the use of them could increase carbon emissions, even as air quality improves.