Here’s the NYT:
On March 4, 2014, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, told almost 3,000 delegates at the National People’s Congress and many more watching live on state television, “We will resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty.” . . .
Four years after that declaration, the data is in: China is winning, at record pace. In particular, cities have cut concentrations of fine particulates in the air by 32 percent on average, in just those four years.
Back in 2013, I was very skeptical of claims that pollution was dramatically shortening life expectancy in China. Despite the following, I’m still skeptical.
To investigate the effects on people’s lives in China, I used two of my studies (more here and here) to convert the fine particulate concentrations into their effect on life spans. . . . Applying this method to the available data from 204 prefectures, residents nationally could expect to live 2.4 years longer on average if the declines in air pollution persisted.
The roughly 20 million residents in Beijing would live an estimated 3.3 years longer, while those in Shijiazhuang would add 5.3 years, and those in Baoding 4.5 years. . . .
The U.S. Clean Air Act is widely regarded as having produced large reductions in air pollution. In the four years after its 1970 enactment, American air pollution declined by 20 percent on average. But it took about a dozen years and the 1981-1982 recession for the United States to achieve the 32 percent reduction China has achieved in just four years.
. . . Bringing all of China into compliance with its own standards would increase average life expectancies by an additional 1.7 years (as measured in the areas where data is available). Complying with the stricter World Health Organization standards instead would yield 4.1 years.
I’m still not buying these claims. Beijingers currently live to be 82. Will this reduction in pollution push their life expectancy up to 85.3? I doubt it. Would meeting the WHO standards boost life expectancy up an additional 4.1 years to 89.4? Very unlikely.
To be sure, life expectancy has been rising in Beijing, and will keep rising–perhaps to 85 or 86. But that was equally true when pollution was getting worse. The effects of pollution have been exaggerated in the press, as Andrew Gelman so ably pointed out back in 2013.
Having said all that, this news is certainly very good, and means that Chinese RGDP growth was overstated during the boom period of 1980-2012, and is currently being understated.