Transcript International Conference on Sustainable Development

International Conference on
Sustainable Development
Beijing, March 2, 2007
Summary and Recommendations
Teresa Serra
The World Bank
Health Impacts of Air Pollution
• Mostly an urban problem, but expanding in small
cities and townships
• Exposure to suspended particles (PM10) of key
concern
• Burden of premature mortality and morbidity
estimated at about 1.2- 3.8% of GDP
– methodology has been “localized”
– based on Chinese exposure-response functions
– computed for 660 individual cities (including small and
medium-sized)
Health Impacts of Water Pollution
• 1/3 of the rural population lack piped water
• Clear association with the incidence of diarrhea
in children under 5
• Exposure to heavy metals associated with
incidence of cancers
• Burden of disease and premature death is
estimated at 1.9% of GDP
• Lack of better data on chronic exposure and
disease incidence restrict further assessment
Health Impacts Differ
Across regions
– Northern China bears a double burden
• Highest per capita exposure to air pollution
• Most severely polluted water basins (aggravating chronic
water scarcity problems)
Across income groups
– The poor are disproportionately affected
• Poor provinces are more affected by air pollution on per
capita basis
• 1/3 of households in lower income quartile rely primarily on
surface water (more vulnerable to pollution) and present
higher prevalence of diarrhea
Non-Health Impacts of Air and
Water Pollution
• Water pollution reduces effective availability of
water, chronic problem especially for the North
– puts pressure on groundwater resources
– increases future costs of extraction, risks of seawater
intrusion, and land subsidence
• Other non-health impacts of water pollution
include
– crop loss due to wastewater irrigation
– fishery loss
– material damage
• These impacts cost China about 195 billion RMB
annually (about 1.3% of GDP)
Aggregate Impacts on GDP
• Total cost of air and water pollution to the
Chinese economy in 2003:
– 2.7% using adjusted human capital approach
– 5.8% using value of a statistical life approach
• Interventions to reduce pollution are likely
to yield positive net benefits
Policy Interventions (1)
• Setting priorities based on economic analysis
– ECM can be used to evaluate the benefits of specific
pollution control policies and select cost-effective
interventions
• Targeting high-risk areas and groups
– focus on North China is essential, given double
burden from air and water pollution + significant
income disparities
– investment in increasing access to safe water to poor
is likely to have high pay-off
Policy Interventions (2)
• Responding to people’s concerns
– reducing environmental health risks is not seen as a
luxury good that can wait by people in China
– both high and low-income urban populations are
willing to pay for a clean environment
– disclosure of information, awareness-raising and
willingness-to-pay reinforce each other
• Addressing the information/knowledge gap
– data on pollution levels, health and non-health
impacts, and associated economic costs has
improved
– but more is needed to support informed decision
making
– enhance sharing of multi-sectoral data and
conducting joint analyses
Policy Interventions (3)
• Developing an environmental health action
plan
– SEPA and MOH are already working jointly
– coordination across other sectors will also be
essential
– priority should take into account mortality and
morbidity impacts
– focus on high risk geographical areas
– target the poor (least able to cope)
Xie Xie!
• SEPA and partners
– Ministry of Water Resources
Resources
– Ministry of Health
– Center for Disease Control
– Ministry of Agriculture
• Donors
– Governments of Norway and
Finland
• Peer reviewers
– Tsinghua University
– Harvard University
– World Bank
• Researchers
– China Academy for
Environmental Planning
– Policy Research Center for
Environment and Economy
– Medical College of Peking
University
– China National Monitoring
Center
– Fudan University
– Chongqing Academy of
Environmental Sciences
– ECON
– CICERO
– Resources For the Future
– Independent consultants