Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China (Mit Press)

ISBN 10: 0262083582 ISBN 13: 9780262083584

Publisher: MIT Press, 2007

Synopsis

An interdisciplinary, quantitative assessment of the health and economic costs of air pollution in China, and of market-based policies to build environmental protection into economic development.

China's historic economic expansion is driven by fossil fuels, which increase its emissions of both local air pollutants and greenhouse gases dramatically. Clearing the Air is an innovative, quantitative examination of the national damage caused by China's degraded air quality, conducted in a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary U.S.-China collaboration. Its damage estimates are allocated by sector, making it possible for the first time to judge whether, for instance, power generation, transportation, or an unexpected source such as cement production causes the greatest environmental harm. Such objective analyses can reset policy priorities.

Clearing the Air uses this information to show how appropriate "green" taxes might not only reduce emissions and health damages but even enhance China's economic growth. It also shows to what extent these same policies could limit greenhouse gases, suggesting that wealthier nations have a responsibility to help China build environmental protection into its growth.

Clearing the Air is written for diverse readers, providing a bridge from underlying research to policy implications, with easily accessible overviews of issues and summaries of the findings for nonspecialists and policymakers followed by more specialized, interlinked studies of primary interest to scholars. Taken together, these analyses offer a uniquely integrated assessment that supports the book's economic and policy recommendations.

About this title

About the Author

Mun S. Ho is Visiting Fellow at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

Review

Clearing the Air is essential for anyone seriously interested in China's environment. Well researched and well written, the book documents what is known – and not known – about air pollution damage in China. Despite its serious theme, it optimistically concludes that it is possible to reduce air pollution at an insignificant cost to economic growth. That conclusion, and the premises on which it is based, deserve to be read and discussed widely.

―Haakon Vennemo, Director, ECON, Norway

There is no such detailed, comprehensive analysis of this topic. All in all, a commendable effort.

―Vaclav Smil, University of Manitoba

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0262083582
• ISBN 13: 9780262083584
• Binding: Product Bundle
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 387
• Editor: Ho Mun S, Nielsen Chris P