Change in household fuels dominates the decrease in PM 2.5 exposure and premature mortality in China in 2005–2015

Authors: Bin Zhao, Haotian Zheng, Shuxiao Wang, Kirk R. Smith, Xi Lu, Kristin Aunan, Yu Gu, Yuan Wang, Dian Ding, Jia Xing, Xiao Fu, Xudong Yang, Kuo‐Nan Liou, Jiming Hao - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS 2018 cited by 363

Significance The Chinese government has taken efforts to tackle the nation’s severe ambient fine particle (PM 2.5 ) pollution. Our results suggest that reduced household solid-fuel consumption was the leading contributor to the rapid decrease in the integrated exposure to ambient and household PM 2.5 pollution during 2005–2015, even though there was no explicit household control policy. In contrast, the emission reductions from power plants, industry, and transportation contributed much less to the decrease of integrated exposure. Clean household heating fuels have become part of recent control policies in northern China, but such policy would be strengthened if extended to heating and cooking countrywide since shift of the remaining household solid fuels to clean fuels could additionally avoid an estimated half-million premature deaths annually.