China is losing 14 terawatt-hours in lost solar energy production due to its air pollution, including carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Such pollution has been taking a toll on human and environmental health amid China’s rapid industrialisation.

With a greater instance of coronary atherosclerosis amongst the population of China, this could and is likely down to the heavy air pollution across the country. It has been estimated that more than 95% of the Chinese population was exposed to higher-than-acceptable concentrations of PM2.5 nitrogen dioxide in 2015 and the implications of toxic air pollutants in China could be enormous.

China still has some of the worst pollution in the world and this is cutting the amount and generation of electricity of the solar panels by 11% to 15%. If the country were to boost the capacity, this could reach $6billion by 2030. China has had a campaign for clean air since 2013 but ‘the situation is grim and there is a long way to go.’

China’s climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions hit 12.3 billion tonnes in 2014, up 53.5% in just a decade, the environment ministry said on Monday, citing the country’s latest carbon “inventory” submitted to the United Nations. China’s carbon emissions data is notoriously opaque, but as a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Beijing is obliged to submit an official inventory to the UN on a regular basis. It has previously released figures for 2005 and 2010.

The article states that China’s appetite for travelling on cruise ships has drastically increased, with the number of Chinese tourists tripling since 2014. This has sparked concern regarding the consequential damage to the environment, due to the rise in cruise ship liners to accommodate this increasing demand.

New research has discovered that air pollution has a drastic effect on China’s citizens, leading to cardiovascular disease. This was following a study conducted on 8,867 Chinese adults aged between 25 and 92, which found that long-term exposure to pollution was associated with a build-up of plaque in the arteries.

The article states that air pollution in China is on the rise. According to a research, this is not only dramatically affecting its citizens’ health, but it is also blocking out adequate levels of sunlight from reaching the solar panels.

The article highlights that despite China making progress to fight against their pollution levels, the citizens of Wuhan are not convinced and a protesting in the streets – this is a result of several waste plants found to be giving off dangerous levels of emissions.

Having previously been leading the way on renewable energy having installed half the world’s solar panels in 2017, its transformative economic growth fuelled by coal and other fossil fuels have been so damaging to the air pollution that it has blocked the sunlight from reaching its solar panels. If China could clean up its air enough to revert back to the air quality similar to that of the 1060s, it would save billions each year.

Chinese industry players are more pessimistic than ever about when the nation will begin trading in a national carbon market, despite announcements of a limited rollout at the end of last year, according to the largest survey of market expectations.