Cost-benefit analysis of China’s Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control

China’s rapid economic growth has caused severe air pollution and public health problems.Therefore,the Chinese government launched the Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control(hereinafter referred to as the“Air Plan”)in 2013-2017 to improve air quality and safeguard public health.In this study,an analytical framework for a cost-benefit analysis applicable to China was constructed,and the costs and benefits of the implementation of the“Air Plan”in 30 cities and provinces in China from 2013 to 2017 were evaluated.Results show that the total cost of implementation of the“Air Plan”is 1.6511 trillion RMB.The benefits of air quality improvement were determined to be 2.4691 trillion RMB through the willingness-to-pay method to calculate the economic loss of premature deaths.The net benefit related to the implementation of the“Air Plan”was 818 billion RMB.The public health benefit of air quality improvement was 1.5 times the cost of the nationwide implementation of the“Air Plan”.At the provincial level,net benefits that reach 279.3 billion RMB were the highest in Guangdong,whereas the benefit-cost ratio,where the benefit was 5.5 times the cost,was the highest in Fujian.Estimations in this study can serve as a reference for China in formulating similar environmental policies and implementing the “3-year Plan to Defend the Blue Sky”.In addition,these estimations have practical significance for advancing the long-term effective mechanisms of the cost-benefit analysis of China5s environmental policies.

API-based assessment on urban air environment bearing capability in China

Given the complexity and time-consuming of the conventional environmental capacity based assessment on air environment carrying capacity; a new method for assessing urban air environment carrying capacity based on air pollution index （API） is presented. By using this new method, the air environmental beating capability of 333 cities at the prefecture level and above is assessed. The results show that of the 333 cities 9.6% is of high beating capability, 34.5% relatively high beating capability, 52.6% medium beating capability, 2.7% low capability, and 0.6% is of weak beating capability; in terms of regional distribution, the western region is of relatively high air environment bearing capability, followed by north-eastern and eastern regions, and the ambient air quality in the middle region is quite poor; among the 12 urban agglomerations in key regions, Pearl River delta, west side of Taiwan Strait and Chengdu-Chongqing agglomera- tions are of relatively high carrying capacity while other agglomerations are of medium beating capability. The assessment results imply that the existing air quality standard （GB3095-1996） is quite unsound.

The valuation of China’s environmental degradation from 2004 to 2017

This paper aims to evaluate the cost of environmental degradation by adopting the conventional environmental economic methodology in China from 2004 to 2017 and summarize the change in both the causes and costs of China’s environmental degradation.Results from this study revealed the following:i.The environmental degradation cost in China increased from 511 billion yuan to 1,892 billion yuan from 2004 to 2017,and its share in the GDP decreased from 3.05% to 2.23%;ii.The environmental degradation cost growth rate was lower than the GDP growth rate.The environmental degradation cost growth rate decreased sharply,by dropping from 10% in 2014 to 2% in 2017.The environmental benefits of industrial transformation have emerged;iii.The provinces of Shandong,Hebei,Jiangsu,Henan,and Guangdong had the highest environmental degradation costs.The annual average growth rate of the environmental degradation costs in Jiangsu,Guangdong,and Zhejiang were lower than their growth rate of the GDP respectively;iv.Consideration of environmental degradation cost in decision-making could contribute to the high-quality development of China.