Abstract
Environmental pollution and climate change have become nontraditional global security threats. As China’s economy grows, the country faces an increasing number of challenges associated with improving atmospheric quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Based on China’s dynamic noncompetitive input–output tables and data on energy consumption and emissions from 1994 to 2016, a hybrid input–output model is constructed to identify high-energy-consuming sectors and to quantify the impact of industrial restructuring on the intensity of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions from these sectors. The empirical results indicate that the impact of industrial restructuring on the intensity of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions from high-energy-consuming sectors was nonlinear and has undergone a “promotion reduction” shift. This study also found that the impact of industrial restructuring is more significant on the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions than on the intensity of air pollutant emissions; furthermore, the reduction in greenhouse gas emission intensity achieved by industrial restructuring after 2008 began to show results. Based on the findings of this study, we make recommendations such as the need for the Chinese government to continue to promote supply-side structural reforms in the energy sector.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
The Kyoto Protocol’s specific targets for the first commitment period (2008 to 2012) included six categories of greenhouse gases, namely, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). In 2013, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol began with the addition of a seventh greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Therefore, the other six greenhouse gases are CH4, HFCs, PFCs, N2O, SF6, and NF3.
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This work was supported by the General Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of Gansu Province, China (Grant No. 20ZC18).
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This idea was given by Huiling Wang. Huiling Wang and Jiaxin Luo analyzed the data and wrote the complete paper.
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Wang, H., Luo, J. Study of the impact of industrial restructuring on the intensity of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions from high-energy-consuming sectors: empirical data from China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 7801–7812 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22735-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22735-0