How does the digital economy affect the provincial "zero-waste city" construction? Evidence from China.

The digital economy is playing a crucial effect in the field of environmental governance. Digital and intelligent management is an essential means to fully realize the "zero-waste city" construction. The present paper investigates the impact of digital economy on China's provincial "zero-waste city" construction. The results indicate that digital economy can contribute to "zero-waste city" construction. The digital economy has a positive nonlinear effect on the construction of "zero-waste city," but the marginal effect is diminishing. The digital economy can facilitate "zero-waste city" construction by improving industrial structure upgrading and green technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that digital economy contributes to the construction of "zero-waste city" in the eastern and western regions and high-level environmental regulation regions, while this impact is insignificant in the central region and low-level environmental regulation regions. The digital economy exerts the most significant positive influence on waste resource recycling followed by waste final disposal and then waste reduction at the source. These findings underscore the effect of digital economy in fostering "zero-waste city" construction and promoting sustainable waste management. The present study provides new ideas for the "zero-waste city" construction in emerging developing countries such as China.

Climate co-benefits of VOC control policies in China based on a cross-scale approach.

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) contributing to smog formation, have been an important indicator of atmospheric governance during China's "14th Five-Year Plan". VOC would be possibly incorporated into the scope of environmental protection tax, but previous studies have seldom explored impacts of VOC control policies at national and regional levels. Here, we design a national uniform VOC control policy, as well as two regionally differentiated policies based on regional disparities in PM2.5 concentrations and energy intensity by using a cross-scale dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Our analysis is to assess the impacts of these policies on VOC, CO2, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), and PM2.5 emissions, air quality and environmental equity, and to estimate health benefits, policy costs and net benefits. We find that national and regionally differentiated VOC control policies generally lead to VOC emission reductions and generate co-benefits on emission reductions in CO2, SO2, NOX and PM2.5 at national and provincial levels. However, regional emission leakage exists due to differences in the provincial costs of VOC mitigation. The regionally differentiated VOC pricing policies are found to be more effective to enhance environmental equity than the uniform policy. In particular, the regionally differentiated VOC control policy based on provincial energy efficiency is found to be superior to other policies in terms of improve air quality. Furthermore, the human health benefits associated with VOC pricing policies would partially offset policy costs at both the national and regional levels. Our results suggest that policymakers would pay attention to developing regions with low energy efficiency which have the great emission reduction potential. Advanced producing technology and further end-of-pipe control measures to reduce non-combustion PM2.5 emissions are needed. VOC policy designed based on provincial energy efficiency provides great insights for environmental policy making to accomplish 2035 goal of building a Beautiful China.

Can industrial collaborative agglomeration reduce carbon intensity? Empirical evidence based on Chinese provincial panel data.

The collaborative agglomeration of manufacturing and producer services is an essential tool for the green transformation of China's economic model. This paper explores the impact of industrial collaborative agglomeration on carbon intensity, using the spatial Durbin model (SDM) based on China's provincial panel data from 2012 to 2019. The empirical results indicate that there is an inverted N-shaped relationship between industrial collaborative agglomeration and carbon intensity, with the turning points of 2.5255 and 2.8575. Regional industrial collaborative agglomeration tends to initially reduce carbon intensity, then aggravates to carbon emission, then finally inhibits carbon intensity. There is an obvious heterogeneity in the impact of producer-service subsectors and manufacturing collaborative agglomeration on carbon intensity. When the industrial collaborative agglomeration level exceeds a certain threshold, the clustering of information transmission, software and information technology service, and financial intermediation service have the greatest emission reduction potential. Industrial collaborative agglomeration has obvious spatial spillover effect, and carbon intensity has obvious spatial convergence effect. This paper provides some novelties for research perspectives on carbon intensity reduction and theoretical references for the development and implementation of differentiated industrial collaborative agglomeration policies.

Do foreign direct investment and environmental regulation improve green technology innovation? An empirical analysis based on panel data from the Chinese manufacturing industry.

The environmental regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow have an important impact on the progress of green technology. This study analyzes the impacts of environmental regulation and FDI on green technology innovation (GTI) based on the panel data of 13 Chinese manufacturing sectors. The results of static panel regression show that the environmental regulation has a positive impact on GTI, while the FDI has a negative impact. The results of the panel threshold model reveal that the effect of environmental regulation on GTI presents a nonlinear shape. The negative effect of FDI on GTI is strengthened when the environmental regulation exceeds its threshold. Increasing FDI inflow can inhibit the effect of environmental regulation. Meanwhile, a strict environmental regulation can enhance the inhibiting effect of FDI on GTI. The FDI inflow into high-tech manufacturing sectors has a less negative impact on GTI than the FDI inflow into low-tech sectors in the case of the enhancement of environmental regulation. This study provides some implications for the formulation of environmental regulation and the FDI inflow into China to improve the GTI.

Environmental impact of national and subnational carbon policies in China based on a multi-regional dynamic CGE model.

Carbon policies are important not only for mitigating global climate change, but also for controlling local and regional air pollution. The large regional disparities in economic development and air pollution across China calls for regionally differentiated policies. Previous studies have not systematically investigated the environmental impacts of regional carbon policies in China covering different spatial scales. This study constructs a multi-regional dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model covering 30 provinces of China to assess the impacts of national and subnational carbon polices on CO2 emissions and co-emitted air pollutants from 2020 to 2050. We consider one national carbon policy which aims to achieve China's 2030 national CO2 abatement target, as well as three regional policies with the same policy stringency as the national one but only applied to eastern China (EP), the Jiangsu-Shanghai-Zhejiang area (JSZP), and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area (BTHP), respectively. We find that regional policies (EP, JSZP, and BTHP) are as effective in reducing CO2 emissions in their targeted regions as the national policy. However, they lead to an increase in CO2 emissions in untargeted regions (the so-called "emissions leakage"). The CO2 leakage rates, which depend on the policy spatial coverage, are 4%, 13%, and 65% for EP, JSZP, and BTHP, respectively, in 2050. Compared with CO2, changes in air pollutant emissions, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), exhibit a similar pattern under all policy scenarios, but the magnitude of change is significantly smaller. Transportation, thermal power, and some energy intensive industries are the three largest contributors to CO2 and air pollutant emission reductions. Our results suggest that regional carbon policy is effective in reducing CO2 and air pollutant emissions in the targeted regions, and extending the spatial coverage or increasing policy stringency can largely inhibit emissions leakage.

What factors influence PM2.5 emissions in China? An analysis of regional differences using a combined method of data envelopment analysis and logarithmic mean Divisia index.

This study uses a combined data envelopment analysis and logarithmic mean Divisia index (DEA-LMDI) method to decompose affecting factors for PM2.5 emissions into effects related to the potential emission intensity (PEI), environmental efficiency and technology, production efficiency and technology, regional economic structure, and national economic growth, and investigates differences in the effects on PM2.5 emissions, considering the diversity among different areas and periods in China. This study provides a new insight in the decomposition method, which can decompose the emissions into new effects compared with the exiting studies. This study reveals that the regional environmental-based technology (EBT) effect is the key curbing factor for PM2.5 emissions, followed by the regional PEI effect. The curbing effect of regional EBT on PM2.5 emissions is strong in East China and weak in Northeast China. The environment-oriented scale efficiency (ESE), environment-oriented management efficiency (EME), production-oriented scale efficiency (PSE), production-oriented management efficiency (PME), and production-based technology (PBT) had relatively small effects on PM2.5 emissions on the whole. The effects differ among different areas and periods in China. The emission reduction potential of these efficiency effects has not been realized. The national economic growth greatly promotes PM2.5 emissions. The regional economic structure effect slightly increases PM2.5 emissions because of the unbalanced development of regional economy. The relative policy suggestions are put forward based on the findings of this study.