Different Carbon Neutrality Strategies Induce Substantially Divergent Health Benefits and Distributional Impacts in...

China's 2060 carbon neutrality target is critical for mitigating air pollution and safeguarding public health. However, the potential variations in the expected benefits across different carbon neutrality strategies and the associated distributional impacts remain unclear. Here, we established three representative technological pathways toward carbon neutrality, and investigated their multifaceted health benefits in terms of improved ambient and indoor air quality in China. We found that, relative to a no-carbon-neutrality baseline, a high solar and wind scenario yields the largest reductions in ambient and additional indoor PM_2.5 concentration (6.0 and 7.0 μg m^-3) and averts 1.5 (1.2-1.8) million premature deaths in 2060; this almost quadruples avoided deaths under a high biomass energy scenario and doubles that under a high carbon capture and storage scenario. After subtraction of costs, the net benefits of the high solar and wind scenario are up to 5.9 times those of other scenarios, and are the highest across provinces with varying income levels. However, the high solar and wind scenario imposes 2-3 times the costs on low-income provinces compared to other scenarios, suggesting that distributional policies, such as interprovincial financial transfer from higher- to low-income provinces, could be implemented for a more stable transition.