Expert: China a good provider of air quality management solutions

China's success in significantly improving air quality in the past decade while sustaining economic growth, and the quite diversified air pollution control paths in a country with complicated national conditions, has made China a good air quality management solution provider for other developing nations, an expert said.

Wang Shuxiao, a professor with Tsinghua University's School of Environment, is keenly aware of the high demand from the Global South for China's wisdom on curbing air pollution.

She helped compile a United Nations Environment Programme's report — Air Pollution in Asia and the Pacific: Science-based Solutions — which was published in 2019, and has collaborated on air quality management with India, the Philippines and Thailand since 2015.

Wang has also seen many experts and officials from developing nations come to China to learn about the country's air quality management experiences.

For example, she said, many representatives from other nations came to China to participate in the training program held on the sidelines of the annual Conference on the Air Benefit and Cost and Attainment Assessment System (ABaCAS).

ABaCAS is an integrated assessment system that connects air pollution emissions control and costs with air quality benefits, health and economic impacts, and air quality attainment tests.

Wang said ABaCAS has been applied in most Chinese regions. The system also has over 2,000 international users.

They want to learn about China's experiences because "the country has seen rapid air quality improvement, and simultaneously its economy has kept growing at almost at the same pace", she said.

What makes China a comparatively ideal provider of air pollution control solutions is that, instead of following a one-size-fits-all approach, many different regions in such a large country with complicated national conditions have rolled out differentiated measures based on their local circumstances, Wang said.

She said that despite differences in national conditions, many developing countries may still be able to find air pollution control paths in China that can meet some of their actual needs.

Another thing that amazes other developing nations is that China has seen significant development of technologies for air quality management, which have provided solid support for the Chinese government in drafting air quality policies and upgrading related standards, she said.

Wang said China has led the world in developing high-resolution emission inventories and the technology for source apportionment, which is the practice of deriving information about pollution sources and the amount they contribute to ambient air pollution levels. It has also made great progress in technologies for air quality forecasting and integrated assessment modeling.

Many developing countries are interested in China's air quality management policies and technologies, she said.

While they cannot borrow Chinese policies without any changes or localization, Wang said, other developing nations always need technological support when they work on their policies for addressing air pollution.

"When communicating with researchers from some developing nations, many expressed admiration for the strong technology support Chinese government has got when it works on policies concerning air pollution control," she said.