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Based on unique firm-level microdata, this study adopts the conditional logit model to empirically evaluate the impact of the environmental tax on the siting of foreign-invested manufacturing enterprises. We also explore the trade-offs of the environmental tax by assessing its economic costs and benefits. This study finds that the environmental tax has a statistically significant and negative impact on the siting of foreign-invested enterprises, as verified by a series of robustness checks. This result implies a trade-off of the environmental tax, reducing pollutant emissions at the expense of damaging economic growth. Heterogeneous analysis finds that the siting is remarkably more sensitive for foreign-invested enterprises that are sole-venture, in high-polluting industries, small-scale, or hosted by developing countries. The other trade-off is outlined: although the environmental tax reduces the number of newly registered foreign-invested enterprises, it brings some economic benefits by making the structure of foreign investment cleaner and more advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies explore the ideal co-combustion ratios of gangue and coal and improve CFB power generation technology. Here, we use life cycle assessment to establish a model to evaluate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use efficiency (EUE) of a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) coal-fired plant with gangue and coal co-combustion technology. The life cycle includes coal mining, coal washing and power generation. The functional unit is 1 MWh electricity output. Considering the different fuel components of coal and coal gangue, we conduct six scenarios with coal mass ratio of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% in the mixed fuel, respectively. The results show that the increase in the proportion of coal will lead to the decrease in GHG emissions. The scenario with pure gangue has the highest GHG emission of 1105 kg CO2 eq/MWh, while the scenario with 50% coal has the lowest GHG emission of 956 kg CO2 eq/MWh. Among all GHGs, CO2 contributes the largest GHG emissions. The power generation is the main source of GHG emissions. Overall, the ultra-low emission of N2O ensures that CFB power generation technology has the advantage of low GHG emissions. The EUE will increase with the coal mass ratio increases. The scenario with pure gangue has the lowest EUE of 34.0%, while the scenario with 50% coal has the highest EUE of 35.5%. Fuel consumption and plant auxiliary power consumption are the main energy inputs. Finally, we provide the ideal co-combustion coal mass ratio of 20% to 30% and suggest some corresponding measures to reduce GHG emissions and improve EUE simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital inclusive finance (DIF) has been growing fast in recent years in China, and green technology innovation (GTI) is strongly promoted by the Chinese government. The coordinated development of DIF and GTI is important for China's economic transition to high-quality development. Therefore, utilizing the panel data of 288 prefecture cities from 2011 to 2020 in China, the research evaluates the coupling coordination degree between DIF and GTI (CCD-DG), analyzes spatial–temporal characteristics of CCD-DG, explores its regional disparities and finally analyzes its spatial effects. Results demonstrate that CCD-DG at the prefecture-city level showed a rise from 2011 to 2020, but the degree was only in the stage of basic coordination till 2020, which was mainly driven by the development of DIF in recent years. The regional disparities in CCD-DG remarkably existed but gradually narrowed down during the observation period, which mainly originated from the between-subregions differences as a result of the huge difference in GTI. Additionally, there was a significant spatial spillover effect of CCD-DG and its spatial distribution was roughly consistent with the spatial effect layout. Policy implications based on these results are finally proposed, including formulating policies with local characteristics to promote CCD-DG, emphasizing the discrepancies of CCD-DG between the East and the Northwest, and that within the Northwest and the South, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental protection tax (EPT) is an important environmental policy in China. However, it remains unclear whether the EPT has reduced environmental pollution effectively since its implementation in 2018. Based on the panel data of 229 prefecture-level cities in China during 2015–2019 and the difference-in-differences (DID) model, this study empirically assesses the causal effect of the EPT on environmental pollution. It is found that the EPT has a significantly negative effect on industrial sulfur dioxide (SO2) and industrial soot (dust) emissions but has no significant impact on industrial wastewater emissions. The mechanism analysis reveals that the EPT has the tax enforcement effect and energy efficiency effect, that is, the EPT reduces pollution emissions through increasing actual tax burden and improving the efficiency of energy utilization. However, the innovation effect is weak, which is only effective in reducing industrial SO2 emissions. Finally, we compare how different types of cities responded to the EPT. The results show that the EPT has limited effect on environmental pollution in large cities and southern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China and other countries, many highway projects are built in extensive and high-altitude flat areas called plateaus. However, research on how the materialisation of these projects produce a series of ecological risks in the landscape is very limited. In this research, a landscape ecological risk analysis model for high-altitude plateaus is proposed. This model is based on the pattern of land uses of the surrounding area. Our study includes buffer analysis, spatial analysis, and geostatistical analysis. We apply the model to the Qumei to Gangba highway, a highway section located in the southeast city of Shigatse at the Chinese Tibet autonomous region. Through global and local spatial autocorrelation analysis, the spatial clustering distribution of ecological risks is also explored. Overall, our study reveals the spatial heterogeneity of ecological risks and how to better mitigate them. According to a comparison of the risk changes in two stages (before and after the highway construction), the impact of highway construction on the ecological environment can be comprehensively quantified. This research will be of interest to construction practitioners seeking to minimize the impact of highway construction projects on the ecological environment. It will also inform future empirical studies in the area of environmental engineering with potential affection to the landscape in high-altitude plateaus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The per capita CO2 emissions (PCCE) of many developing countries like China have been rising faster than total CO2 emissions, and display spatial divergence. Such temporal growth and spatial divergence will have a significant influence on efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions. Given the research gap on the impact of the structural transition in population on PCCE, we constructed an econometric model using the dynamic panel method. The results reveal that the population structural transition has a significant nonlinear impact on PCCE, as the rate of population growth in China decelerates. Both demographic ageing and urban-rural migration have a stronger impact on PCCE than other factors. This effect, however, decreases beyond a certain threshold. An increase in the number of households due to urbanization and family downsizing has resulted in a positive effect on PCCE, without a threshold turning point. The research also finds that an increased share of the service sector in employment can reduce PCCE only if the sector employs more than 31.56% of the total employed population. Overall, these findings indicate that policymakers should pay attention to the prominence of the demographic structural transition for effective climate policy. Key policy insights Policymakers should address rising per capita carbon emissions (PCCE) and their spatial divergence in future climate policies, not just total CO2 emissions. The transitioning demographics of ageing and urbanization in China show a nonlinear, inverted U-shaped effect on PCCE instead of a continuously positive effect. Based on the nonlinear effect of employment structure on PCCE, policymakers should focus on the relationship between the structural transition of the economy and PCCE in future climate mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental intervention is essential to combat environmental pollution, a phenomenon classically explained as market failure, while market-based environmental policy instruments have provided cost-effective alternatives. By examining five pilot air pollution (sulfur dioxide) and water pollution (chemical oxygen demand) trading schemes in China through a market-based theoretical framework and extensive empirical analysis, this research analyzes where a state-market boundary is defined, whether the market is performing effectively, and, critically, what leads to underperformance. Constrained by policy design, policy conflicts, and excessive state intervention, the market has not played an effective and ‘decisive’ role, resulting in low market thickness for participants and transactions, market congestion on prices, and inadequate market safety for genuine emissions trading. Better emissions trading for conventional pollutants and CO2requires better market-oriented rules, improved policy coordination, and stronger implementation while minimizing state intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-compensation for watershed services (EWS), or the more general payments for ecosystem services, is an incentive-based environmental policy instrument. With official documents and first-hand data from fieldwork, we analyze China’s 17 EWS pilot schemes across 16 provinces. Major environmental crises in China can partly be caused by the inadequate incentives for local governments to forcefully implement the environmental laws and policies. EWS schemes in China mainly target local governments in upstream and downstream watersheds, rather than the private entities in normal applications elsewhere, to provide economic incentives and to encourage their enforcement activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emerging contaminants are considered as some substances of actual or potential threat to human health or environment, which include endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical, personal care products, nanoparticles, antibiotic resistance genes and chemicals used in packaging products, etc. The disposal and treatment of emerging contaminants has become a key problem in the field of water pollution control. The purpose of this review is to summarize published researches on emerging pollutants treatment in 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle Route Project(MRP) of the South-to-North Water Transfer Scheme (SNWT) in China will require a very large financial expenditure to ensure the water supply and the associated water quality to northern China. An eco-compensation mechanism between the water service source areas and its beneficiaries is essential. This paper establishes an analytic framework of ecocompensation standard for the protection of the water source area, including both the calculation of ecocompensation based on opportunity cost method (OCM) and calculation of the burden sharing of eco-compensation between the water source area and the external water reception area based on the deviation square method (DSM). Taking Shiyan City, Hubei Province in China as a case study, our results show that the eco-compensation in the first-phase of MRP for the water source area in Shiyan, Hubei Province should be 1.63×10 CNY, about four times of planned eco-construction investment budget (4.33×10 CNY). In addition, the burden sharing of eco-compensation varied greatly in terms of different methods. It would be better to integrate the results of different single-factor burden sharing methods by determining the corresponding weighting coefficient with DSM and form one unanimous consent result by the interested parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hao, C.; Ge, C.; Ren, J.; Dong, Z.; Hu, R.; Li, R.; Yan, Y.; Zhou, Q.; Peng, C., and Qu, A., 2020. Accounting of environmental protection tax on taxable air pollutants in the process of coal storage, loading and unloading at the port. In: Liu, X. and Zhao, L. (eds.), Today's Modern Coastal Society: Technical and Sociological Aspects of Coastal Research. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 111, pp. 151–155. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The Environmental Protection Tax Law of China came into force in 2018, and China has entered a new stage where tax leverage is adopted to guide pollutant discharge units to reduce emissions. It is in this context that this article discusses the current implementation and challenges with regard to tax amount formulation, tax collection and management, and the tax system. The article takes the particulate pollution caused by coal storage, loading, and unloading as an example to discuss research progress in the accounting methods for main particulate emissions at home and abroad, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing emissions accounting methods, and make proposals for improving the environmental tax system, strengthening cross department cooperation and improving the system for disclosure of self-monitoring information, so as to promote the smooth implementation of environmental protection tax policy in our country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]