Win–Win strategies to promote air pollutant control policies and non-fossil energy target regulation in China

The rapid growth of energy consumption in China has led to increased emissions of air pollutants. As a response, in its 12th Five Year Plan the Chinese government proposed mitigation targets for SO2 and NOx emissions. In this paper, we have investigated mitigation measures taken in different sectors and their corresponding impacts on the energy system. Additionally, as non-fossil energy development has gained attention in addressing energy and environmental challenges in China, we investigated the impact of non-fossil energy development on air pollutant emissions, and explored interactions and co-benefits between these two types of policies. An extended Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) was used in this study. The extended version of GCAM includes an additional air pollutant emissions control module coupling multiple end-of-pipe (EOP) control technologies with energy technologies, as well as more detailed end-use sectors in China. We find that implementing EOP control technologies would reduce air pollution in the near future, but with little room left to implement these EOP technologies, other cleaner and more efficient technologies are also effective. These technologies would reduce final energy consumption, increase electricity’s share in final energy, and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy and electricity consumption. Increasing non-fossil energy usage at China’s proposed adoption rate would in turn also reduce SO2 and NOx emissions, however, the reductions from this policy alone still lag behind the targets for air pollutant reduction. A combination of air pollutant controls and non-fossil energy development could synergistically help realize the respective individual targets, and would result in lower costs than would addressing these issues separately.