Inequality of household consumption and air pollution-related deaths in China

Hongyan Zhao, Guannan Geng, Qiang Zhang (), Steven J. Davis, Xin Li, Yang Liu, Liqun Peng, Meng Li, Bo Zheng, Hong Huo, Lin Zhang, Daven K. Henze, Zhifu Mi, Zhu Liu, Dabo Guan and Kebin He
Additional contact information
Hongyan Zhao: Tsinghua University
Guannan Geng: Tsinghua University
Qiang Zhang: Tsinghua University
Steven J. Davis: Tsinghua University
Xin Li: Beijing Technology and Business University
Yang Liu: Tsinghua University
Liqun Peng: Tsinghua University
Meng Li: Tsinghua University
Bo Zheng: Tsinghua University
Hong Huo: Tsinghua University
Lin Zhang: Peking University
Daven K. Henze: University of Colorado Boulder
Zhu Liu: Tsinghua University
Dabo Guan: Tsinghua University
Kebin He: Tsinghua University

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Substantial quantities of air pollution and related health impacts are ultimately attributable to household consumption. However, how consumption pattern affects air pollution impacts remains unclear. Here we show, of the 1.08 (0.74–1.42) million premature deaths due to anthropogenic PM2.5 exposure in China in 2012, 20% are related to household direct emissions through fuel use and 24% are related to household indirect emissions embodied in consumption of goods and services. Income is strongly associated with air pollution-related deaths for urban residents in which health impacts are dominated by indirect emissions. Despite a larger and wealthier urban population, the number of deaths related to rural consumption is higher than that related to urban consumption, largely due to direct emissions from solid fuel combustion in rural China. Our results provide quantitative insight to consumption-based accounting of air pollution and related deaths and may inform more effective and equitable clean air policies in China.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12254-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-12254-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12254-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().