Mercury pollution has become a global environmental issue. China is the largest anthropogenic emitter of atmospheric mercury. After ratifying the Minamata Convention on Mercury, China faces substantial challenges on mercury emission control. Coal combustion is the largest atmospheric mercury emission sector as well as the key sector for fulfilling Convention obligations. In this study, researchers at Tsinghua University  developed the atmospheric mercury emission inventories for coal-fired power plants (CFPPs), coal-fired industrial boilers (CFIBs) and coal-fired residential stoves (CFRSs) in 2010 and 2012; evaluated the co-benefit of atmospheric mercury emission reduction associated with actions already required to comply with the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Air Pollution (“Ten Measures”); and predicted the atmospheric mercury emission from the coal combustion sector by 2020 and 2030 based on scenario analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of different control measures in the future. Policy recommendations to strengthen China’s mercury emission standards are also provided. 

(The document is available in Chinese only.)