• Energy Research

With growing health risks from climate change and a trend of increasing carbon emissions from coal, it is time for China to take action. The rising frequency and severity of extreme weather events in China, such as record-high temperatures, low rainfall, severe droughts, and floods in many regions (along with the compound and ripple effects of these events on human health) have underlined the urgent need for health-centred climate action. The rebound in the country's coal consumption observed in 2022 reflected the great challenge faced by China in terms of its coal phase-down, over-riding the country's gains in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Timely and adequate responses will not only reduce or avoid the impacts of climate-related health hazards but can also protect essential infrastructures from disruptions caused by extreme weather. Health and climate change are inextricably linked, necessitating a high prioritisation of health in adaptation and mitigation efforts. The 2023 China report of the Lancet Countdown continues to track progress on health and climate change in China, while now also attributing the health risks of climate change to human activities and providing examples of feasible and effective climate solutions. This fourth iteration of the China report was spearheaded by the Lancet Countdown regional centre in Asia, based at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Progress is monitored across 28 indicators in five domains: from climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability (section 1); to the different elements of action, including adaption (section 2) and mitigation, and their health implications (section 3); to economics and finance (section 4); and public and political engagement (section 5). This report was compiled with the contribution of 76 experts from 26 institutions both within and outside of China. The impending global stocktake at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), the UN initiative on early warning systems (which ...

Estimates of global economic damage caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can inform climate policy. The social cost of carbon (SCC) quantifies these damages by characterizing how additional CO2 emissions today impact future economic outcomes through altering the climate. Previous estimates suggest that large, warming-driven increases in energy expenditures could dominate the SCC, but they rely on models that are spatially coarse and not tightly linked to data. Here we show that the release of 1t CO2 today is projected to reduce total future energy expenditures, with most estimates valued between -$3 and -$1, depending on discount rates. Our results are based on a new architecture that integrates global data, econometrics, and climate science to estimate local dam- ages worldwide. Notably, we project that emerging economies in the tropics will dramatically increase electricity consumption due to warming, requiring critical infrastructure planning. However, heating reductions in colder countries offset this increase globally. We estimate that 2099 global electricity consumption rises ∼ 4.5 EJ/yr (7% current global consumption) while direct consumption of other fuels declines ∼ 11.3 EJ/yr (7% current consumption) per +1◦C increase in global mean temperature. Our finding of net savings contradicts previous research, because global data indicate that many populations will remain too poor for most of the 21st century to substantially increase energy consumption in response to warming. Importantly, damage estimates would differ if poorer populations were given greater weight.

A health-friendly, climate resilient, and carbon-neutral pathway would deliver major benefits to people's health and wellbeing in China, especially for older populations, while simultaneously promoting high-quality development in the long run. This report is the third China Lancet Countdown report, led by the Lancet Countdown Regional Centre based in Tsinghua University. With the contributions of 73 experts from 23 leading institutions, both within China and globally, this report tracks progress through 27 indicators in the following five domains: (1) climate change impacts, exposure, and vulnerability; (2) adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; (3) mitigation actions and health co-benefits; (4) economics and finance; and (5) public and political engagement. From 2021 to 2022, two new indicators have been added, and methods have been improved for many indicators. Specifically, one of the new indicators measures how heat affects the hours that are safe for outdoor exercise, an indicator of particular relevance given the boom in national sports triggered by the summer and winter Olympics. Findings in this report, which coincide with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) hosted in Egypt (where much attention is being focused on adaptation for clinically vulnerable populations), expose the urgency for accelerated adaptation and mitigation efforts to minimise the health impacts of the increasing climate change hazards in China.

Background: Increased attention has been paid to humid-heat extremes as they are projected to increase in both frequency and intensity. However, it remains unclear how compound extremes of heat and humidity affects morbidity when the climate is projected to continue warming in the future, in particular for a megacity with a large population.Methods: We chose the Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) index as the metric to characterize the humid-heat exposure. The historical associations between daily outpatient visits and daily mean WBGT was established using a Distributed Lag Non-linear Model (DLNM) during the warm season (June to September) from 2013 to 2015 in Shanghai, a prominent megacity of China. Future morbidity burden related to the combined effect of high temperature and humidity were projected under four greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission scenarios (SSP126, SSP245, SSP370 and SSP585).Results: The humid-heat weather was significantly associated with a higher risk of outpatient visits in Shanghai than the high-temperature conditions. Relative to the baseline period (2010–2019), the morbidity burden due to humid-heat weather was projected to increase 4.4% (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1% –10.1%) even under the strict emission control scenario (SSP126) by 2100. Under the high-GHGs emission scenario (SSP585), this burden was projected to be 25.4% (95% CI: 15.8% –38.4%), which is 10.1% (95% CI: 6.5% –15.8%) more than that due to high-temperature weather. Our results also indicate that humid-hot nights could cause large morbidity risks under high-GHGs emission scenarios particularly in heat-sensible diseases such as the respiratory and cardiovascular disease by the end of this century.Conclusions: Humid heat exposures significantly increased the all-cause morbidity risk in the megacity Shanghai, especially in humid-hot nights. Our findings suggest that the combined effect of elevated temperature and humidity is projected to have more substantial impact on health compared to high temperature alone in a warming climate.

This repository contains replication data for Carleton et al. (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2022), "Valuing the mortality consequences of climate change accounting for adaptation costs and benefits". All non-confidential data inputs are included, as well as intermediate data outputs, final data outputs, and final tables and figures for all main text and supplementary tables and figures. Some input data are confidential (e.g., mortality records in some countries); therefore, intermediate regression results files are included in the upload to ensure all later stages of the analysis are fully replicable. The full data output files resulting from Monte Carlo simulations of future climate change impacts on mortality far exceed Zenodo file size limits; therefore, key aggregates of the raw output files are included here, which allow for replication of all tables and figures in the paper. data.zip contains raw, intermediate, and final datasets outputs.zip contains output tables and figures All replication code for the paper is available on a public Github repository, accessible here.The manuscript and supplementary information are available at the QJE, here.