Department of Geography and Resource Management & Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability, The Chinese University of Hong Kong , 2nd Floor, Wong Foo Yuan Building, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong, China.
Environ Sci Technol. 2013 Sep 3;47(17):9596-603. doi: 10.1021/es4010152. Epub 2013 Aug 21.
Due to its sheer size and growth trend, no other country is facing more daunting challenges than China in reducing its pollutant emissions. A critical but inadequately addressed question is how rapidly China could feasibly achieve such mitigation. The stake is high not only about how much worse China's environmental quality could become but also about how the world can prevent catastrophic climate change. Through examining sulfur dioxide (SO2) mitigation in coal-fired power plants and wind energy development for carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation, this article proposes a comparative advantage strategy for overcoming high barriers to fast pollution mitigation. On the demand side, China could first make progress in the deployment of more pollution control facilities and then improve their operational performance. The resulting low technological market entry barriers could help to build enough industrial capacity to meet the huge demand with prices under control. The strategy in the current practice could be improved to establish not only a large supply industry but also a strong one to enable other countries to move more rapidly in pollution mitigation.
由于其规模庞大且呈增长趋势，在减少污染物排放方面，没有哪个国家比中国面临更大的挑战。一个关键但尚未得到充分解决的问题是，中国能够多快实现这种减排。不仅中国的环境质量可能会变得更糟，而且世界如何防止灾难性气候变化，这一问题的利害关系都很高。本文通过考察燃煤电厂的二氧化硫（SO2）减排和风力发电的二氧化碳（CO2）减排，提出了一种比较优势战略，以克服快速减排的高障碍。在需求方面，中国可以先在部署更多的污染控制设施方面取得进展，然后提高其运营性能。由此产生的低技术市场进入壁垒将有助于建立足够的工业能力，以控制价格满足巨大的需求。当前实践中的战略可以得到改进，不仅建立一个庞大的供应产业，而且建立一个强大的供应产业，使其他国家能够更迅速地在污染减排方面取得进展。
