Quantifying co-benefit potentials in the Chinese cement sector during 12th Five Year Plan: an analysis based on marginal abatement cost with monetized environmental effect

Increasing urbanization in China has led to growing demands for better air quality and human welfare. Global warming and local pollutants, such as SO2, NOx and PMs are the two main issues during Chinaʹs development. However, these two topics are always studied separately and the co-benefits of mitigation measures are always ignored. Therefore, the interaction between carbon mitigation and local pollutant reduction measures should receive more attention. This paper presents a case study of co-benefits in the cement sector, which is the main building materials sector during urbanization. Different with the ExternE methodology based on dose–response functions, a simplified method built upon benefit transfer is introduced to evaluate the co-benefits of mitigation measures and their impact on marginal abatement cost during 12th Five Year Plan period (2011–2015). The result shows that the co-benefits of 18 main carbon mitigation technologies are significant when considering the environmental effect. The range of co-benefit varies from −3 RMB/tCO2 to 267 RMB/tCO2, with Co-control technologies in the upstream of the production chain have better co-benefits than downstream technologies, and energy conservation is the most critical issue in increasing co-benefits. Co-benefits should be integrated into project evaluation through various modes in order to promote the most cost-effective mitigation technologies.