Search

The coal chemical sector uses coal to produce chemicals and emits substantial greenhouse gases, which are hard to abate by electrification alone. Deploying green H₂ for China’s coal chemical plants can reduce ~50% of emissions at a low cost.

China’s continuing reliance on coal in district heating risks considerable carbon lock-in and hinders decommissioning of coal-fired electricity generation. This work outlines how the government can achieve its proposal to decarbonize district heating.

Achieving a net-zero future requires that hard-to-abate sectors be addressed. Co-production offers an opportunity to mitigate chemical and steel sector emissions by extracting H₂ and CO from steelmaking off-gas and using them for chemical syntheses. The authors examine carbon mitigation and costs of co-producing chemicals and steel in China.

Rapid urbanization poses several challenges but can offer opportunities for cities to become more sustainable by, for example, reducing transport demand and its associated emissions. This study shows how this can be achieved and quantifies the co-benefits for climate, energy use, air quality and human health.

The Indian government implemented the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019 to tackle airborne particulate matter pollution. Based on monitoring data and regional model simulations, this study reveals partial achievement of NCAP targets, but highlights the critical need for additional mitigation measures to further improve air quality in India.

The development of symbiotic infrastructure systems can provide more efficient resource use than single infrastructure improvements. Carbon mitigation and freshwater conservation are possible in China by bridging coal power and wastewater treatment plants.

Atmospheric stagnation worsens PM_2.5 pollution over India. This study develops a new index that projects ~7 more winter stagnation days over the IGP by 2100. Stringent enforcement of air pollution regulations will be critical to reduce health impacts.

Heterogeneous battery strategy, with each province flexibly choosing different battery strategies, achieves the lowest power system costs. However, this non-uniform strategy only achieves the lowest CO₂ emissions at extremely high carbon prices.

Although the clean residential heating transition has been proceeding rapidly in China, the climate, air-quality and health impacts as well as the household costs of various heaters are not well known. This study analyses air-quality–health–carbon interdependencies and costs of alternative heating options at the provincial level across northern China.

Chemical regimes of atmospheric secondary inorganic aerosol formation in rural areas of the United States shifted from NH₃-sensitive to NH₃-insensitive between 2011 and 2020, according to analyses of long-term observational data on aerosol composition and gaseous precursors.

China’s coal-dominated power system is a source of carbon emissions, local air pollution and water stress. This study presents three power system development scenarios that run until 2030 in China, where coal strategies are optimized under current environmental regulations and varying prices for air pollutant emissions and water.

Air pollution and dust can reduce photovoltaic electricity generation. This study shows that, without cleaning and with precipitation-only removal, particulate matter can reduce photovoltaic generation in polluted and desert regions by more than 50%, with soiling being the major cause of reduction.

The effects of expanding electric vehicle charging stations on housing values are unknown. This study fills the gap with data for California and finds that properties near charging stations show a higher price, while traffic slightly increases and particulate matter (PM_2.5) emissions decrease.

Nitrogen use has increased food security in China but also poses environmental problems. Agricultural nitrogen management strategies are identified for China that will improve food security and public health while addressing multiple environmental challenges.

The methane emissions from natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are unclear. Here the authors report high methane emissions from heavy-duty NGVs, and by using a scenario analysis show that strictly implementing the upcoming China VI standard could reduce GHG emissions by 509 Mt CO_2eq for 2020-2030.

Focusing on China’s six natural gas sources and three end-use gas-forcoalsubstitution strategies in 2020, this study shows that, except for coal-based synthetic gas, replacement of coalwith gas usually has air–carbon–water co-benefits, although with air–water trade-offs in the magnitude ofimprovement.

Careful management of nitrogen fertilizer usage is required to ensure world food security while limiting environmental degradation; an analysis of historical nitrogen use efficiency reveals socio-economic factors and technological innovations that have influenced a range of past national trends and that suggest ways to improve global food production and environmental stewardship by 2050.