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The current nationally determined contributions, pledged by the countries under the Paris Agreement, are far from limiting climate change to below 2 ∘C temperature increase by the end of the century. The necessary ratcheting up of climate policy is projected to come with a wide array of additional benefits, in particular a reduction of today's 4.5 million annual premature deaths due to poor air quality. This paper therefore addresses the question how climate policy and air pollution–related health impacts interplay until 2050 by developing a comprehensive global modeling framework along the cause and effect chain of air pollution–induced social costs. We find that ratcheting up climate policy to a 2 ∘ compliant pathway results in welfare benefits through reduced air pollution that are larger than mitigation costs, even with avoided climate change damages neglected. The regional analysis demonstrates that the 2 ∘C pathway is therefore, from a social cost perspective, a "no-regret option" in the global aggregate, but in particular for China and India due to high air quality benefits, and also for developed regions due to net negative mitigation costs. Energy and resource exporting regions, on the other hand, face higher mitigation cost than benefits. Our analysis further shows that the result of higher health benefits than mitigation costs is robust across various air pollution control scenarios. However, although climate mitigation results in substantial air pollution emission reductions overall, we find significant remaining emissions in the transport and industry sectors even in a 2 ∘C world. We therefore call for further research in how to optimally exploit climate policy and air pollution control, deriving climate change mitigation pathways that maximize co-benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world gets ready to begin the second decade of the twenty-first century, global climate change has been recognized as a real threat to civilization as we know it. The rapid and successful economic growth of developing nations, particularly China and India, is contributing to climate change. The route to initial economic success in China followed that of the developed nations through the development of industries. Unfortunately, China''s environmental protection efforts have not been the same as in developed countries because China is vastly different culturally, socially, economically and, especially, politically from developed nations. When China started to deal with environmental concerns in the late 1970s, it took advantage of the experiences of other countries in establishing environmental standards and regulations, but it did not have a model to follow when it came to implementing these standards and regulations because of the abovementioned differences. Economically, China is transitioning from an agricultural base into an industrial base; however, even now, 60% of the population remains farmers. China has been and still is heavily dependent upon coal for energy, resulting in serious atmospheric particulate pollution. While growing efforts have been expended on the environment, at this juncture of its economic development, China would be well served to revisit the traditional “develop first and clean up later” approach and to find a balance between development and protecting the environment. Against this backdrop, a reflective look of the effort to manage air quality from 1949–2008 (with an emphasis on the past 30years) in China is presented in this paper. The environmental component of the 2008 Olympic Games is examined as a special example to illustrate the current measures being used to improve air quality in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]