†Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
‡State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
Environ Sci Technol. 2015 Apr 7;49(7):4381-8. doi: 10.1021/es506121s. Epub 2015 Mar 23.
China emits a considerable amount of air pollutants when producing goods for export. Previous efforts have emphasized the magnitude of export-related emissions; however, their health consequences on the Chinese population have not been quantified. Here, we present an interdisciplinary study to estimate the health impact of export-related air pollution. The results show that export-related emissions elevated the annual mean population weighted PM2.5 by 8.3 μg/m(3) (15% of the total) in 2007, causing 157,000 deaths and accounting for 12% of the total mortality attributable to PM2.5-related air pollution. Compared to the eastern coastal provinces, the inner regions experience much larger export-related health losses relative to their economic production gains, owing to huge inter-regional disparities in export structures and technology levels. A shift away from emission-intensive production structure and export patterns, especially in inner regions, could significantly help improve national exports while alleviating the inter-regional cost-benefit inequality. Our results provide the first quantification of health consequences from air pollution related to Chinese exports. The proposed policy recommendations, based on health burden, economic production gains, and emission analysis, would be helpful to develop more sustainable and effective national and regional export strategies.
中国在生产出口商品时会排放大量的空气污染物。之前的研究强调了与出口相关的排放的规模；然而，它们对中国人口的健康影响尚未被量化。在这里，我们进行了一项跨学科的研究，以估计与出口相关的空气污染的健康影响。研究结果表明，与出口相关的排放使 2007 年每年的人口加权 PM2.5 平均增加了 8.3μg/m³（占总量的 15%），导致 15.7 万人死亡，占 PM2.5 相关空气污染总死亡人数的 12%。与东部沿海省份相比，内陆地区由于出口结构和技术水平的巨大区域间差异，与经济生产收益相比，出口相关的健康损失要大得多。从排放密集型生产结构和出口模式转移，特别是在内陆地区，将有助于显著改善国家出口，同时减轻区域间的成本效益不平等。我们的研究结果首次对与中国出口相关的空气污染的健康后果进行了量化。基于健康负担、经济生产收益和排放分析提出的政策建议，将有助于制定更可持续和有效的国家和地区出口战略。
