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4 August 2008
China could significantly improve the well-being of its pollution-sick people by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by just one per cent, a world-first study by Monash University economists has found.
Professor Russell Smyth, the study's lead author, said the findings were at odds with China's official position that curbing its emissions would have mostly negative consequences for its people.
"The findings challenge China's argument that it should keep producing big amounts of greenhouse gas pollutants, despite the huge threat posed by climate change, because the Chinese people would otherwise forego some increased quality of life," Professor Smyth said.
The study, The Environment and Well-Being in Urban China, to be published in the Ecological Economics journal, is based on a survey of a total of 8890 adults living in 30 major Chinese cities, including Beijing. The study respondents ranked their well-being on a scale of one to five.
Professor Smyth said there was a strong negative correlation between peoples' well-being and their city's level of atmospheric pollution, as measured by sulphur dioxide emissions. China is the world's biggest burner of coal, a resource that accounts for 90 per cent of the country's sulphur dioxide emissions.
"We found a one per cent increase in a city's atmospheric pollution increased the probability of a respondent classifying themselves in a lower well-being category by 15 per cent," he said.
"We also found that in cities with high levels of atmospheric pollution and traffic congestion, Chinese citizens reported significantly lower levels of well-being."
Professor Smyth said the study was the first to focus on the relationship between environmental variables and well-being in China.
"The findings show that the massive pollution associated with China's rapid modernisation has left Chinese people choking on their country's economic growth," he said.
Professor Smyth said independent statistics supported the notion that Chinese people were suffering from pollution. According to the World Bank:
- China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities;
- There are up to 750,000 premature, pollution-related deaths in China each year;
- Asthma cases have more than doubled in China since 1990;
- Only one per cent of China's 560 million urban residents breathe air considered safe in the European Union; and
- The annual cost of air and water pollution in China is 5.8 per cent of GDP.
"These shocking statistics, combined with the threat posed by climate change and a better knowledge of the relationship between atmospheric pollution and well-being in urban China should be strong incentive for China to be more proactive in curbing emissions," Professor Smyth said.
For more information contact Ryan Pedler, Monash Media and Communications on +61 3 9903 4842. | 
