School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, U.K.
Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, BirminghamB15 2TT, U.K.
Environ Sci Technol. 2023 Nov 21;57(46):17707-17717. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c06800. Epub 2023 Feb 1.
Heating is a major source of air pollution. To improve air quality, a range of clean heating policies were implemented in China over the past decade. Here, we evaluated the impacts of winter heating and clean heating policies on air quality in China using a novel, observation-based causal inference approach. During 2015-2021, winter heating causally increased annual PM, daily maximum 8-h average O, and SO by 4.6, 2.5, and 2.3 μg m, respectively. From 2015 to 2021, the impacts of winter heating on PM in Beijing and surrounding cities (i.e., "2 + 26" cities) decreased by 5.9 μg m (41.3%), whereas that in other northern cities only decreased by 1.2 μg m (12.9%). This demonstrates the effectiveness of stricter clean heating policies on PM in "2 + 26" cities. Overall, clean heating policies caused the annual PM in mainland China to reduce by 1.9 μg m from 2015 to 2021, potentially avoiding 23,556 premature deaths in 2021.
供暖是空气污染的主要来源。为了改善空气质量，中国在过去十年中实施了一系列清洁供暖政策。在这里，我们使用一种新颖的基于观察的因果推理方法来评估冬季供暖和清洁供暖政策对中国空气质量的影响。在 2015-2021 年期间，冬季供暖导致 PM、每日最大 8 小时平均 O 和 SO 分别增加了 4.6、2.5 和 2.3 μg m。从 2015 年到 2021 年，北京及周边城市（即“2+26”城市）的冬季供暖对 PM 的影响减少了 5.9 μg m（41.3%），而其他北方城市仅减少了 1.2 μg m（12.9%）。这表明“2+26”城市更严格的清洁供暖政策对 PM 更有效。总体而言，清洁供暖政策使中国大陆 2015 年至 2021 年的年 PM 减少了 1.9 μg m，这可能避免了 2021 年 23556 例过早死亡。
