In the morning, we had a lecture given by Professor Xing Jia about air pollution in general. His class is very understandable and interesting by using cartoons and game metaphor. He explains the difference between meteorology cause and anthropocentric cause of current air pollution in spatial distribution and temporal variation. The meteorology (external cause) may cause large impact in short period, for example the Donora case happened in PA, USA on Oct. 26, 1948 has caused 700 people dead. However, overall impact of anthropocentric cause like industry emission, transportation exhaust emission is greater and more significant globally.
Professor Xing graduated from South Carolina University and had working experience in US EPA in analyzing greenhouse gas emission from satellite observing data and running model to predict future air pollution.In his research, he found that GHG in US has reduced dramatically from 1950-2015 as SO2 decreases 60%, NOx decreases 48%, VOC decreases 50%, PM2.5 decreases 34% due to advanced technology on reduction and nationwide change from coal to renewable energy. In comparison, China has also achieved milestone on GHG emission reduction, especially in Beijing with the establishment of the strictest environmental regulation. The result of Air Quality Index dropped to 67 on average in Beijing is convincing that the 5 Year Plan of Air Quality Control in China is working. However, central government is pushing to more ambitious goal that PM should drop from 60 to 30 by 2030. The air quality control policy has been successful in mega cities from the "bottom-up" data. It's also my first time learning about the separation of area such as JJJ, YRD and PRD where my home city located. I understand the reason of dividing China into many region of air quality control is definitely in need, because it is unreasonable of sacrificing one region's air quality in compensating of another region. For example, the new "2+26 cities plan" put Hebei Province, Tianjin Special District in the same importance as Beijing City in terms of emission reduction. It not only benefits the air quality in Beijing, but also help improve the surrounding area’s air quality.
I am very interested about Professor Xing’s research application in air pollution regulation process. There are two models that he and his team create for government official to look at the hypothesis of future air pollution.Another model is called, ABACASE which is a cost-efficient tool for Chinese government to make appropriate policy to reduce air pollution. Despite shutting down all the factories that emits GHG, the government can change the industry structure to cope with the national carbon reduction goal and future planning of local economy.
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