Page - 24 - in options, Volume summer 2015

asia 24 options + summer 2015 www.iiasa.ac.at regional focus Regional strategy needed to clear Beijing’s haze Particulate pollution poses a serious problem in China’s highly industrialized regions. Medical research points to such pollution exposure as a growing concern, as it increases the risk of various respiratory and pulmonary diseases. Previous studies of the issue have focused on direct emissions. However, according to IIASA research published in the journal Ecological Modelling, a substantial fraction of these emissions originate from production processes conducted in one region to meet the need of consumers in another. The study compared production- and consumption-based particulate pollution emissions in 2010 in Jing-Jin-Ji, the most heavily polluted region in China, which covers the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, and  Hebei Province. “It is widely believed that Hebei is to blame for the air pollution in the Jing-Jin-Ji area due to its thriving heavy industries” says IIASA’s Brian Fath, a co-author of the study. “In fact, our findings show that Beijing and Tianjin rely on fossil-intensive industries in Hebei, which ensures that the majority of particulate pollution emissions remain outside their boundaries. Beijing imports the finished goods while the pollution emissions generated during production remain mostly in Hebei and a much smaller amount in Tianjin.” Using multiregional input–output analysis, researchers set out to trace the sources of particulate pollution emissions in Jing-Jin-Ji. Findings reveal that 63% of the total emissions in Hebei Province were driven by outside demand, and that over 70% of emissions associated with goods consumed in Beijing and Tianjin occurred outside their boundaries. “Our findings indicate that we should concentrate on reducing both production-based and consumption-based particulate pollution emissions,” Fath  says. JO Further info Yang S, Chen B, Fath B. Trans-boundary total suspended particulate  matter (TSPM) in urban ecosystems. Ecological Modelling (published  online 15  October 2014) [doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.10.006]. Brian Fath fath@iiasa.ac.at Buddhism helps explain low  fertility in Asia Buddhism is the low-fertility religion of Asia, according to a recent investigation into religion and fertility led by Vegard  Skirbekk, Marcin Stonawski, and Raya Muttarak of IIASA. The study, which covers India, Cambodia, Nepal, Mongolia, Thailand, and Japan, finds that across these very different cultural settings, Buddhists have slightly lower fertility than other religions. Overall, the fertility of Buddhists is on a par with those who have no religious affiliation at all. Previous studies have found that religious people, for example, Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims, tend to have higher fertility than those without religious affiliation. Greater religious devotion, moreover, has been linked to higher fertility. “In contrast, we found that more devout Buddhists in Japan do not appear to have higher fertility than less devout Buddhists,” Stonawski says. Many religions have explicit rules and teachings about family issues and childbearing. On the contrary, Muttarak explains, Buddhism does not require its followers to have high fertility levels and is more ambivalent regarding procreation, contraception, and abortion than most other religions. While Buddhism, the world’s fourth largest religion, is concentrated in Asia, its following is growing elsewhere in the world, partly due to migration and conversion. “This raises the interesting question of whether an increase in the adoption of Buddhist doctrine could result in lower fertility outside the Asia-Pacific region,” Skirbekk says. “The prevalence of Buddhism in many Asian nations could represent an important reason for their low fertility, but its influence on fertility behavior in other parts of the world has yet to be explored.” JO Further info Skirbekk V, Stonawski M, Fukuda S, Spoorenberg T, Hackett C, Muttarak R (2015). Is  Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia? Demographic Research 32:1–28 [doi:10.4054/DemRes.2015.32.1]. Raya Muttarak muttarak@iiasa.ac.at©