China’s climate policy over the coming decades will be crucial to efforts to slow global warming. While CO2 emissions growth slowed in the 1990s, it is too early to know if this represents the beginning of a long-term downward trend in the carbon intensity of China’s economy.

Climate policymaking needs to consider the full range of economic costs and benefits of slowing greenhouse gas emissions growth. Like other developing countries, China’s medium-term preoccupation is with ensuring poverty-reducing economic growth, so climate policy must be both effective and consistent with this developmental goal.

This study of health and agricultural productivity effects of a carbon tax shows that there is considerable scope for slowing emissions growth without diminishing economic welfare. The health benefits of reduced local pollution are significant, and the welfare gains from improved agricultural productivity are almost as large. When both health and agricultural benefits of a carbon tax ...