TITLE:
What Causes the Difference in PM2.5 Emissions among Regions: The Perspective of Social Economic Factors
AUTHORS:
Ya Wu, Qinglong Hu
KEYWORDS:
PM2.5, Region Difference, LMDI, Energy Consumption
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.10 No.11,
November
28,
2019
ABSTRACT: With the rapid development of China’s economy, the
differences in economic levels among regions
have been increasing. it directly affects the demand for terminal fossil
energy among regions. The discharge of a large amount of particulate matter in
the process of energy consumption which brings great pressure to the control of
regional pollution. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical
significance to study the affecting factors of the difference of PM2.5 emissions caused by fossil energy consumption in various regions of China. By
2010-2016 National Energy Balance Sheet data terminal sector energy consumption
estimated the PM2.5 emissions of energy consumption and confirmed PM2.5 emissions mainly from coal consumption, thus further analyzed each region PM2.5 emission efficiency and status. On this basis, through the constructed LMDI
model, the factors which influence PM2.5 emissions measured in this
paper are decomposed into eight factors: industrial emission intensity,
industrial structure, economic scale, population size, etc. The results show
that: 1) Economic growth is the decisive factor. The difference between PM2.5 emissions among regions has a high single trend with economic development. Each
region should improve the quality of economic development and achieve Pareto
optimality for economic development and environmental governance. 2) Compared
with the eastern region, the central and western regions have lower technical
level, which means higher marginal PM2.5 emission reduction
potential. Based on the above conclusions, it is necessary to focus on the
sub-regions to reduce emissions and control the pollutant while fully
reflecting the characteristics of regional emission reduction.