Different Carbon Neutrality Strategies Induce Substantially Divergent Health Benefits and Distributional Impacts in China

China's 2060 carbon neutrality target is critical for mitigating air pollution and safeguarding public health. However, the potential variations in the expected benefits across different carbon neutrality strategies and the associated distributional impacts remain unclear. Here, we established three representative technological pathways toward carbon neutrality, and investigated their multifaceted health benefits in terms of improved ambient and indoor air quality in China. We found that, relative to a no-carbon-neutrality baseline, a high solar and wind scenario yields the largest reductions in ambient and additional indoor PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentration (6.0 and 7.0 μg m<sup>-3</sup>) and averts 1.5 (1.2-1.8) million premature deaths in 2060; this almost quadruples avoided deaths under a high biomass energy scenario and doubles that under a high carbon capture and storage scenario. After subtraction of costs, the net benefits of the high solar and wind scenario are up to 5.9 times those of other scenarios, and are the highest across provinces with varying income levels. However, the high solar and wind scenario imposes 2-3 times the costs on low-income provinces compared to other scenarios, suggesting that distributional policies, such as interprovincial financial transfer from higher- to low-income provinces, could be implemented for a more stable transition.

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Publication Details

Journal
Environmental Science & Technology
Published
2025-12-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c12120
Primary Topic
Energy and Environment Impacts
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Different Carbon Neutrality Strategies Induce Substantially Divergent Health Benefits and Distributional Impacts in China

Yicong He, Yueqi Jiang, Bin Zhao, Biwu Chu et al.
Environmental Science & Technology
Energy and Environment Impacts
article

Different Carbon Neutrality Strategies Induce Substantially Divergent Health Benefits and Distributional Impacts in China

Yicong He, Yueqi Jiang, Bin Zhao, Biwu Chu, Yisheng Sun, Xiao‐Wen Zeng, Chenfei Qu, Zhe Jiang, Xiaocong Wang, Da Gao, Haotian Zheng, Dejia Yin, Yun Zhu, Xiaodan Huang, Hongrong Shi, Da Zhang, Shuxiao Wang, Xiliang Zhang, Zhongfeng Xu, Hong He, Jiewen Shen
article en

Abstract

China's 2060 carbon neutrality target is critical for mitigating air pollution and safeguarding public health. However, the potential variations in the expected benefits across different carbon neutrality strategies and the associated distributional impacts remain unclear. Here, we established three representative technological pathways toward carbon neutrality, and investigated their multifaceted health benefits in terms of improved ambient and indoor air quality in China. We found that, relative to a no-carbon-neutrality baseline, a high solar and wind scenario yields the largest reductions in ambient and additional indoor PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentration (6.0 and 7.0 μg m<sup>-3</sup>) and averts 1.5 (1.2-1.8) million premature deaths in 2060; this almost quadruples avoided deaths under a high biomass energy scenario and doubles that under a high carbon capture and storage scenario. After subtraction of costs, the net benefits of the high solar and wind scenario are up to 5.9 times those of other scenarios, and are the highest across provinces with varying income levels. However, the high solar and wind scenario imposes 2-3 times the costs on low-income provinces compared to other scenarios, suggesting that distributional policies, such as interprovincial financial transfer from higher- to low-income provinces, could be implemented for a more stable transition.

Environmental Science & TechnologyVol. 59(50)
Ministry of Economy (MK), Ministry of the Environment (JP), Sun Yat-sen University (CN), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (CN), Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (CN), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (CN), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Indiana University School of Medicine, South China University of Technology (CN), Tsinghua University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 67%
Energy and Environment Impacts
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