This pollution shortens lives and, in the process, undermines the economic growth emerging economies urgently need, as I and other researchers concluded in a recent study. Comparing China’s pollution in the north — where it’s worse, because of subsidies for coal heating in the winter — with the south, we found the north experienced reductions in life spans of about five years. That means people living in northern China are losing many billions of years of life expectancy because of heavy pollution. Keep in mind that southern China also has high pollution levels, which very likely reduces life spans there, too.

Because of this pollution, Chinese citizens have called for change, speaking out online and holding protests. The government has responded with actions, perhaps most notably the declaration by Li Keqiang, China’s premier, of a "war on pollution.” The leaders have realized that cleaner air decreases rates of sickness, in turn reducing health care costs, increasing time at work and presumably making people more productive while they are there. It also increases life spans, meaning more years citizens can contribute to the economy.

The result is that China’s policies to reduce particulates air pollution for the well-being of its people has been a part of, not counter to, its economic agenda. Moving away from coal and other fossil fuels also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, which has allowed China to confront two problems at once.