Clearing the Air - The MIT Press

April 2007
7 x 9, 392 pp., 65 illus.
$53.00/£39.95 (CLOTH)
Short

ISBN-10:
0-262-08358-2
ISBN-13:
978-0-262-08358-4

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Clearing the Air
The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China
Edited by Mun S. Ho and Chris P. Nielsen
With contributions by John S. Evans, Susan L. Greco, James K. Hammitt, Jiming Hao, Mun S. Ho, Dale W. Jorgenson, Jonathan I. Levy, Ji Li, Bingjiang Liu, Yongqi Lu, Chris P. Nielsen, Shuxiao Wang and Ying Zhou

Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

China's historic economic expansion is driven by fossil fuels, which increase its emissions of both local air pollutants and greenhouse gases dramatically. Clearing the Air is an innovative, quantitative examination of the national damage caused by China's degraded air quality, conducted in a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary U.S.-China collaboration. Its damage estimates are allocated by sector, making it possible for the first time to judge whether, for instance, power generation, transportation, or an unexpected source such as cement production causes the greatest environmental harm. Such objective analyses can help China reset policy priorities.

Clearing the Air uses this information to show how appropriate "green" taxes might not only reduce emissions and health damages but even enhance China’s economic growth. It also shows to what extent these same policies could limit greenhouse gases, suggesting that wealthier nations have a responsibility to help China build environmental protection into its growth.

Clearing the Air is written for a diverse audience, providing a bridge from underlying research to policy implications, with easily accessible overviews of issues and summaries of the findings for nonspecialists and policymakers followed by more specialized, interlinked studies of primary interest to scholars. Taken together, these analyses offer a uniquely integrated assessment that supports the book's economic and policy recommendations.

About the Editors

Mun S. Ho is a fellow in the Program on Technology and Economic Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.

Chris P. Nielsen is Executive Director of the China Project and Kernan Brothers Fellow at Harvard University's Center for the Environment and its Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

"[I]mpressively integrated ... [A]ccessible ... The multidisciplinary framework ... allows for a total picture to emerge.... At a time when Beijing should be considering not only its local pollution problem, but also its global greenhouse gas emissions, Messrs. Ho and Nielsen's suggestions are a welcome addition to the debate...."
—Sam Geall, Far Eastern Economic Review

"In contrast to the World Bank report Cost of Pollution in China: economic estimates and physical damages (2007), which caught the attention of the mainstream mass media ..., this edited volume by Mun Ho and Chris Nielsen stands as a solemn, solid, and scholarly defence of the same alarming message—air pollution causes significant damage to the Chinese population and economy.... Reader-friendly ... This book is a methodological breakthrough in the research on the environment-health nexus in China."
—Fengshi Wu, Asian-Pacific Economic Literature

"The encouraging—indeed politically crucial—observation is that such 'green taxes' would yield a double dividend: reducing environmental and health damage while enhancing economic growth. That last win-win finding should be an offer that a government cannot refuse."
—Anthony J. McMichael, The Lancet

"There is no such detailed, comprehensive analysis of this topic. All in all, a commendable effort."
—Vaclav Smil, University of Manitoba

"Clearing the Air is essential for anyone seriously interested in China’s environment. Well researched and well written, the book documents what is known – and not known – about air pollution damage in China. Despite its serious theme, it optimistically concludes that it is possible to reduce air pollution at an insignificant cost to economic growth. That conclusion, and the premises on which it is based, deserve to be read and discussed widely."
—Haakon Vennemo, Director, ECON, Norway

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