Pollutant emission reductions deliver decreased PM<sub>2.5</sub>-caused mortality across China during 2015–2017

Silver, Ben; Conibear, Luke; Reddington, Carly L.; Knote, Christoph; Arnold, Steve R.; Spracklen, Dominick V.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11683-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11683-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11683-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 20

Research article

|

15 Oct 2020

Research article |

| 15 Oct 2020

Pollutant emission reductions deliver decreased PM_2.5-caused mortality across China during 2015–2017

Ben Silver, Luke Conibear, Carly L. Reddington, Christoph Knote, Steve R. Arnold, and Dominick V. Spracklen

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11683-2020-supplement

Data sets

Data for 'Pollutant emission reductions deliver decreased PM2.5-caused mortality across China during 2015–2017' Ben Silver, Luke Conibear, Carly L. Reddington, Christoph Knote, Steve R. Arnold, and Dominick V. Spracklen https://doi.org/10.5518/878

Air Quality Monitoring Data Environmental Protection Department of HKSAR https://cd.epic.epd.gov.hk/EPICDI/air/station/

Air quality Monitoring data Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan, R.O.C. (Taiwan) https://airtw.epa.gov.tw/CHT/Query/His_Data.aspx

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Short summary

China suffers from serious air pollution, which is thought to cause millions of early deaths each year. Measurements on the ground show that overall air quality is improving. Air quality is also affected by weather conditions, which can vary from year to year. We conduct computer simulations to show it is the reduction of the amount of pollution emitted, rather than weather conditions, which caused air quality to improve during 2015–2017. We then estimate that 150 000 fewer people die early.