Environmental regulation, energy consumption structure, and industrial pollution emissions

Abstract

China has become the world’s largest carbon emitter due to its high-investment, low-efficiency development model. It is urgent to reduce industrial pollution emissions. This study analyzes the impact of environmental regulation intensity and energy consumption structure on industrial SO2 pollution emissions by establishing a fixed-effect regression model based on panel data from 2009 to 2018 in China. The results show that the overall environmental regulation intensity in China has a significant negative effect on industrial pollution emissions. In other words, increasing the level of environmental regulation is conducive to reducing industrial pollution emissions. The proportion of coal consumption in the overall national energy consumption structure directly and positively correlated with the concentration of industrial pollution emissions. Due to the differences in economic development and industrial foundation, the pollution emissions effect shows significant heterogeneity in the eastern and western regions of China under the constraint of environmental regulation. Based on these conclusions, this article proposes policy recommendations from four aspects: (1) strengthen environmental regulation, and pay attention to optimize the form of environmental regulation. For example, in the West of China, the government can encourage enterprises to carry out technological innovation and develop green energy hubs by policy and financial support; (2)improve the energy consumption structure, such as encouraging green production; (3) promote industrial structure adjustment and upgrading, such as promoting the energy saving transformation of energy-intensive enterprises, developing green technologies, and reducing the carbon emissions of industrial industries; (4)improve the foreign investment access system and guiding foreign investment to invest in key environmental protection projects.

Keywords

• industrial pollution
• environmental regulation
• energy consumption structure
• heterogeneity