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PM 2.5 emissions has become a serious issue in China with enormous regional variation in economic development, resource endowment, and consumption patterns, which leads to great variations in regional PM 2.5 emissions and embodied PM 2.5 transfer among provinces. The spatial and temporal evolution pattern of PM 2.5 and its influencing factors are important issues in the study of air pollution emissions and control, which could help policy makers allocate emission responsibilities and reduction targets. Based on the perspective of final consumption, this paper uses a multiregional input-output model to estimate PM 2.5 emissions in 30 provinces in different years in China, applies a geographically weighted regression model to analyze different driving factors, and then analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of consumption-based PM 2.5 emissions. The results show that consumption-based PM 2.5 presents a significant reduction trend, although the separation of production and consumption areas of PM 2.5 emission is further intensified. The provinces with rich energy but relatively backward economies and manufacturing industries correspond to the primary net inflow of PM 2.5 , while the provinces with strong consumption ability and the most developed economies and industries present a net outflow of PM 2.5. Moreover, the slowdown of consumption growth and the improvement of consumption quality have a positive impact on PM 2.5 emission reductions. The optimization of industrial structure has a more significant impact on pollution control and haze reduction in the western region, while the improvement of energy utilization efficiency and rational use of construction land are more conducive to the reduction of consumption-based PM 2.5 emissions in the eastern region. From the perspective of temporal and spatial changes, significant spatial differences occur between regions. Energy consumption, environmental protection investment and construction land show the trend of " high value area diffusion and low value area reduction". • Explores the spatial distribution characteristics of PM 2.5 emissions in China from the perspective of consumption. • Consider and analyze the inter-annual variation of pollutant emission transfer. • Clarifies the spatial heterogeneity characteristics of influencing factors. • Emphasizes the importance of further optimizing influencing factors to reduce haze from the consumption end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green production and pollution control matter a great deal for resource conservation and sustainable growth. Today, Chinese firms are facing the challenge of upgrading the modes of production of industries with high energy consumption and high pollution to align with green initiatives. Financial systems can be designed to intervene in modes of production to control firms' pollution emissions, but the degree of impact and design mechanism are not clearly understood up to now. Thus, evaluating the policy impact of such transactions related to firm production is indeed an important contribution to existing knowledge about these topics. Using novel firm-level data with pollution and financial variables, we exploit the causal effect of bank loans on firms' abatement performance by using a natural experimental of a green loan policy shock in China. The results show that green loan policy has the positive effect of pollution abatement by state-owned and private-owned firms. This paper also investigates how green loan policy may promote green production through strengthening financial constraint and decreasing fixed and intangible investments. Furthermore, we find that political ties transfer financial burdens from firms with strong political ties to firms with weak political ties. In closing, we articulate the implications of our study of a green financing system for sustainable growth and cleaner production. Image 1 • Green loan policy significantly decreases high polluting manufacturing firms' pollution emission. • Green loan policy significantly facilitates high polluting manufacturing firms' pollution abatement. • Green loan policy performs well in state-owned and private owned firms, but not for foreign firms. • The policy increases the financial constraints and substitutes the fixed and intangible investments. • Political tie transits financial burden to those firms with less political tie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is an important tool to analyze the relationship between environment and per capital income. But two significant issues have been overlooked: why some points are above the EKC while others are below it? And what factors caused this phenomenon? Based on the data of 30 provinces in China over 2005–2016, this paper aimed to solve the above two questions. For the first question, we take the point on EKC as the theoretical pollution emission value of the different economic development stages; and use the difference between the theoretical pollution emission and the actual pollution emission under the same per capita income as the pollution emission efficiency. The difference value is used to reflect whether the pollution emission of the corresponding economic development stage of each region exceeds the standard and by how much. The result shows that most of the provinces with low pollution emissions concentrated in the north of the Yangtze River. Great progress has been made in China's pollution reduction work during 2015–2016. Then, for the second question, through the analysis of multiple mediating effects, we find that Environmental regulation, industrial transfer, proportion of output value of heavy pollution industry, energy consumption structure and energy using efficiency are important determinants to the pollution emission efficiency in Chinese province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aluminium industry, with its traditionally high energy consumption, high emissions and high pollution, is facing increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions in China. Implementing effective policies and measures to promote carbon emissions reduction is of great importance. This study deploys the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to explore carbon emissions and CO 2 sources from aluminium manufacturing in China as well as a scenario analysis to evaluate the reduction potential and driving forces of carbon emissions in the industry. The evaluated scenarios include a new capacity allocation scheme, technological progress and energy structure optimization. The carbon emissions from the aluminium chain are mostly contributed by indirect emissions (more than 68%) from electricity generation. Significant regional discrepancies are observed in the total emissions and intensity, and a reasonable industry layout tends to transfer to the south and southwest areas from the perspective of the environmental pillar. Production output remains the dominant factors associated with total carbon emissions from manufacturing firms, such as the aluminium industry. Technological progress and the energy structure contribute to total reductions and carbon efficiency, although the former has a relatively limited scope for aluminium firms. This paper also shows that marginal carbon efficiency improvements are not very effective in lowering the total CO 2 emissions under the context of high output growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]