Trends in China's anthropogenic emissions since 2010 as the consequence of clean air actions

Abstract

To tackle the problem of severe air pollution, China has implemented active clean air policies in recent years. As a consequence, the emissions of major air pollutants have decreased and the air quality has substantially improved. Here, we quantified China's anthropogenic emission trends from 2010 to 2017 and identified the major driving forces of these trends by using a combination of bottom-up emission inventory and index decomposition analysis (IDA) approaches. The relative change rates of China's anthropogenic emissions during 2010–2017 are estimated as follows: −62 % for SO₂, −17 % for NO_x, +11 % for nonmethane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), +1 % for NH₃, −27 % for CO, −38 % for PM₁₀, −35 % for PM_2.5, −27 % for BC, −35 % for OC, and +16 % for CO₂. The IDA results suggest that emission control measures are the main drivers of this reduction, in which the pollution controls on power plants and industries are the most effective mitigation measures. The emission reduction rates markedly accelerated after the year 2013, confirming the effectiveness of China's Clean Air Action that was implemented since 2013. We estimated that during 2013–2017, China's anthropogenic emissions decreased by 59 % for SO₂, 21 % for NO_x, 23 % for CO, 36 % for PM₁₀, 33 % for PM_2.5, 28 % for BC, and 32 % for OC. NMVOC emissions increased and NH₃ emissions remained stable during 2010–2017, representing the absence of effective mitigation measures for NMVOCs and NH₃ in current policies. The relative contributions of different sectors to emissions have significantly changed after several years' implementation of clean air policies, indicating that it is paramount to introduce new policies to enable further emission reductions in the future.