Modeling And Application Research On Co-benefits Of Mitigating Greenhouse Gases

Climate change is a major challenge to global sustainability,and countries around the world are also taking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.If the synergistic effect of greenhouse gas emission reduction is ignored,the cost of emission reduction may be overestimated.As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and one of the most polluted countries,China is facing pressures from both the international and domestic level to reduce emissions.If separate measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gases and environmental pollutants,it may lead to excessive administration and cause unnecessary social and economic losses.Therefore,analyzing the synergistic effect of greenhouse gas emission reduction can effectively formulate emission reduction policies and promote the process of global greenhouse gas emission reduction.In the context of national major strategic requirements of tackling climate change and controlling environmental pollution,as well as the international frontiers of co-benefits research,this thesis focused on the modelling of co-benefits of greenhouse gase mitigation and their applications.Applying bibliometrics anaysis,systematic review,input-output analysis,partial equilibrium model,concentration-response function,cost of illness approach and the value of statistical life,this thesis analyzed the environmental and health co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gases.The following innovative research was achieved.(1)Based on the current literature on co-benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation,we developed a typology of co-benefit types,geographic levels,mitigation sectors and research methods,which was followed by a systematic review.The results show that the co-benefits from GHG mitigation that have received the largest attention of researchers are impacts on ecosystems,economic activity,health,air pollution,and resource efficiency.The co-benefits that have received the least attention include the impacts on conflict and disaster resilience,poverty alleviation(or exacerbation),energy security,technological spillovers and innovation,and food security.The largest number of co-benefits publications provides analysis at a global level,with relatively few studies providing local(city)level analysis or studying co-benefits in Oceanian or African contexts.Most research has investigated co-benefits from greenhouse gas mitigation in the agriculture,forestry and other land use,electricity,transport,and residential sectors,with the industrial sector being the subject of significantly less research.Finally,science and engineering methods,in contrast to economic or social science methods,are the methods most commonly employed in co-benefits papers.(2)Based on input-output model,the environmental intensity matrix was introduced.This research identified the key final use categories to co-control greenhouse gases and various environmental pollutants in China among a wide range of final use patterns.Potential ways on how to utilize the identified final use were then discussed.The results show that final use patterns that have an obvious driving force behind multiple environmental discharges exist in all three final use components.Household consumption of health care,residential services and real estate;investments in construction,transport equipment,and special purpose machinery and exports of electrical machinery/equipment and electronic equipment had obvious driving effects on most of the environmental discharges examined.Household consumption of electricity and heating and investments in general purpose machinery are final use categories with obvious driving effects on carbon dioxide emissions,air pollutants and solid waste.Household consumption of agricultural byproducts,other processed foods,wine,drinks and refined tea,textile wearing and apparel;exports of textiles,textile wearing and apparel,raw chemical materials and chemical products had obvious driving effects on water pollutants.Based on the discussions,potential ways to utilize the identified final use are recommended: household consumption of electricity,heating,food,wine,drinks and refined tea,textile wearing and apparel should be guided toward a more conservation-oriented approach;the structure of investments in special and general purpose machinery,transport equipment,and exports of electrical machinery/equipment,textiles,textile wearing and apparel,raw chemical materials and chemical products should be adjusted toward more high-end products;the discharge intensities of the supply chain of health care,residential services,real estate and electronic equipment should be further lowered;the investment in construction should be planned more rationally,while the unnecessary waste of high-discharge-intensive construction materials should be avoided.(3)By developing a partial equilibrium model,the synergistic reduction effect of carbon dioxide,sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides was evaluated when existing resource tax and consumption tax are levied on fossil fuels.Then,the results were compared with the synergistic reduction effect of carbon tax,sulfur tax and nitrogen tax under various tax scenarios.By comparision,sulfur tax is the environmental tax which has the best synergistic reduction effect.The results indicate that explicit environmental taxes have better synergistic reduction effects compared with the current implicit environmental taxes.The emission reductions of carbon dioxide,sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides under explicit environmental tax are nearly 3 times,10 times and 1.5 times as large as that under implicit environmental tax,respectively.For the three explicit environmental taxes,sulfur tax has the best reduction effects on carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions.Although the explicit nitrogen tax has the best reduction effect on nitrogen oxide emissions,it shows little difference compared with that of explicit sulfur tax.Therefore,explicit sulfur tax is the environmental tax with the best synergistic reduction effects on carbon dioxide,sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions among these taxes.Thus,the explicit sulfur tax can be implemented with a priority,and the following is explicit carbon tax and explicit nitrogen tax.(4)Different from most of the existing studies which focused on one province or several large regions in China while reducing greenhouse gases in the electricity sector,the potential health benefits are estimated when the concentration of paticulate matter is reduced to the guideline value based on a provincial analysis.Besides,this research compared the environmental and health benefits of replacing one unit of coal-fired electricity by renewables and the resource richness of renewable energy in each province.The provinces having the largest health benefits which are larger than one billion RMB include Jiangsu,Guangdong,Henan,Shandong,Sichuan,Hunan,Zhejiang and Hebei.The provinces having the smallest health benefits which are smaller than one hundred million RMB include Xinjiang,Hainan,Ningxia and Qinghai.Fujian is the province with the most abundant wind resource,and the capacity factor is 3 times the value of Xinjiang,where the wind resource is the poorest.Jilin is the province with the most abundant solar resource,and the capacity factor is 5 times the value of Anhui,where the solar resource is the poorest.Sichuan has the largest social benefit which is 151 times the value of Gansu,where the social benefits is the smallest.If the goal of renewable energy is to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and reduce economic losses to human health,the provinces with the richest wind or solar resource is often not necessarily the best location to install wind and solar power plants.The assessment of climate and health benefits in different provinces may enhance the competitiveness of wind and solar energy in some areas.