Sooner clean energy switch at China’s industrial parks could save thousands of lives, earn billions of dollars: study

Chinese-US team analyses 850 of more than 2,500 industrial parks in China, the world’s factory and No 1 greenhouse gas producer

Projected economic and health benefits from decarbonising support green investments and policy interventions for such parks, study finds

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Industrial parks can be a pioneer for low-carbon policies in practice, according to the lead author of the Princeton-led study with researchers at state-owned power company China Huadian Corporation and Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 22 Jun 2023

Industrial parks in China could cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 per cent and avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths if they switched to clean energy earlier than a 2030 baseline scenario, a study has found.

Decarbonising areas zoned for industrial activities would also bring “annual economic benefits” of US$30 billion to US$156 billion in 2030, the analysis of 850 industrial parks in China showed.

The world’s factory is home to more than 2,500 industrial parks, most of them powered by coal.

Economic and health benefits from decarbonising far outweighed the costs of changes in equipment and energy usage, the team of researchers in China and the United States found, supporting the investments and policy interventions for Chinese industrial parks to move towards cleaner energy.

“We estimate such a clean energy transition will result in [around] 42,000 avoided premature deaths annually due to reduced ambient PM2.5 and ozone exposure,” the team led by Princeton University in collaboration with researchers at state-owned power company China Huadian Corporation and Beijing’s Tsinghua University said.

China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, aims to achieve peak emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060.