Nature: The Planet May Be In Trouble If China Controls It's Air Pollution.

[Ghost Dog]

4. In summary:

Air pollution is a serious environmental issue in China, where 1.3 million people die each year because of exposure to poor-quality air outdoors.

Reductions in the emissions of air pollutants are urgently required to improve air quality, but this will also affect Earth's climate.

Li et al.'s research, described in a paper published by Nature entitled "Global warming: China’s contribution to climate change" finds that the current composition of Chinese air pollution causes almost no net radiative forcing — the cooling effects of sulfate aerosols balance the warming impacts of black-carbon emissions.

So, as China cleans up its act, both these warming and cooling atmospheric pollutants will be reduced, as will emissions of CO2.

Thanks NNadir.