Fight poverty to reduce pollution

Environment | Bjorn Lomborg

Economic growth leads to huge drops in deadly indoor air contamination

In the past three decades, China's development has pulled a staggering 680 million people out of poverty. It did so through a dramatic increase in access to modern energy, mostly powered by coal, which has led to terrible outdoor air pollution in Chinese cities, not to mention making China the world's premier carbon dioxide emitter. That is why many environmentalists say that China's rise has come at substantial environmental costs.