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Atmospheric pollution emissions have become a matter of public concern in recent years. However, most of the existing researches on NOx pollution are from the natural science and technology perspective, few studies have been conducted from an economic point, and regional differences have not been given adequate attention. This paper adopts provincial panel data from 2006 to 2013 and the LMDI model to analyze the key driving factors and regional dilemmas of NOx emissions. The results show that significant regional disparities still exit on NO x emissions and its reduction effect 27 provinces didn't accomplish their corresponding reduction targets. Economic development factor is the dominating driving factor of NO x emissions during the study period, while energy efficiency and technology improvement factors offset total NO x emissions in the majority of provinces. In addition, the industrial structure factor plays a more significant role in reducing the NO x emissions after 2011. Therefore, the government should consider all these factors as well as regional heterogeneity in developing appropriate pollution mitigating policies. It's necessary to change NOx emissions control attitude from original key areas control to divided-zone control, not only attaches great importance to the reduction of the original key areas, but also emphasizes the new potential hotspots with high NO x emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of energy consumption in China has led to increased emissions of air pollutants. As a response, in its 12th Five Year Plan the Chinese government proposed mitigation targets for SO 2 and NO x emissions. In this paper, we have investigated mitigation measures taken in different sectors and their corresponding impacts on the energy system. Additionally, as non-fossil energy development has gained attention in addressing energy and environmental challenges in China, we investigated the impact of non-fossil energy development on air pollutant emissions, and explored interactions and co-benefits between these two types of policies. An extended Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) was used in this study. The extended version of GCAM includes an additional air pollutant emissions control module coupling multiple end-of-pipe (EOP) control technologies with energy technologies, as well as more detailed end-use sectors in China. We find that implementing EOP control technologies would reduce air pollution in the near future, but with little room left to implement these EOP technologies, other cleaner and more efficient technologies are also effective. These technologies would reduce final energy consumption, increase electricity’s share in final energy, and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy and electricity consumption. Increasing non-fossil energy usage at China’s proposed adoption rate would in turn also reduce SO 2 and NO x emissions, however, the reductions from this policy alone still lag behind the targets for air pollutant reduction. A combination of air pollutant controls and non-fossil energy development could synergistically help realize the respective individual targets, and would result in lower costs than would addressing these issues separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study analyzes the management of air pollutant substance in Chinese industrial sectors from 1998 to 2009. Decomposition analysis applying the logarithmic mean divisia index is used to analyze changes in emissions of air pollutants with a focus on the following five factors: coal pollution intensity (CPI), end-of-pipe treatment (EOP), the energy mix (EM), productive efficiency change (EFF), and production scale changes (PSC). Three pollutants are the main focus of this study: sulfur dioxide (SO2), dust, and soot. The novelty of this paper is focusing on the impact of the elimination policy on air pollution management in China by type of industry using the scale merit effect for pollution abatement technology change. First, the increase in SO2 emissions from Chinese industrial sectors because of the increase in the production scale is demonstrated. However, the EOP equipment that induced this change and improvements in energy efficiency has prevented an increase in SO2 emissions that is commensurate with the increase in production. Second, soot emissions were successfully reduced and controlled in all industries except the steel industry between 1998 and 2009, even though the production scale expanded for these industries. This reduction was achieved through improvements in EOP technology and in energy efficiency. Dust emissions decreased by nearly 65% between 1998 and 2009 in the Chinese industrial sectors. This successful reduction in emissions was achieved by implementing EOP technology and pollution prevention activities during the production processes, especially in the cement industry. Finally, pollution prevention in the cement industry is shown to result from production technology development rather than scale merit. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The rapid growth of energy consumption in conjunction with economic development during past decades in East Asia, especially China, caused severe air pollution problems at local and regional scales. Understanding of the meteorological conditions for air pollution is essential to the understanding of the formation mechanism of air pollutants and the development of effective emission control strategies to reduce air pollution. In this paper, the Fifth Generation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)/Pennsylvania State University (PSU) Mesoscale Model (MM5) modeling system is applied to simulate meteorological fields during selected six 1-month periods in 2007/2008 over a triple-nested modeling domain covering East Asia, the eastern China, and Shandong Province at horizontal grid resolutions of 36-, 12-, and 4-km, respectively. MM5 generally reproduces well the observations in the eastern China but performs worse in the western China and northeastern China. Largest biases occur in 2-m temperatures (T2) and wind speed and wind direction at 10-m in haze months (i.e., winter) and daily mean precipitation (Precip) in non-haze months (i.e., summer), due to limitations of the model in simulating snow cover and convective precipitation. Meteorological predictions agree more closely with observations at urban sites than those at the coastal and mountain sites where the model performance deteriorates because of complex terrains, influences of urban heat island effect and land/sea breezes, and higher elevations. Model results at 12-km in Shandong Province show an overall better performance than those at 4- or 36-km while the results at 4-km show worst performance due to inaccurate land use and the model’s incapability in simulating meteorological processes at a fine scale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]