Co-control of CO2 emissions and local pollutants in China: the perspective of adjusting final use behaviors

Abstract

China faces multiple pressures from both global climate change and local pollution. Given that China is now taking economic growth and the improvement of people's living standards as its primary goal, it is necessary to control a variety of environmental problems synergistically to minimize adverse socio-economic impacts. Using an input–output model, this study aims to identify the important behaviors that simultaneously lead to various environmental discharges among the troika of China's economic development (consumption, investment, and exports). The results show that behaviors that have an obvious driving force behind multiple environmental discharges exist in all three final use components. Household consumption of health care, residential services and real estate; investments in construction, transport equipment, and special purpose machinery and exports of electrical machinery/equipment and electronic equipment had obvious driving effects on most of the environmental discharges examined, totally covering 25.62% (COD (chemical oxygen demand))-54.91% (soot and dust) of the corresponding environmental discharges. Household consumption of electricity and heating and investments in general purpose machinery are behaviors with obvious driving effects on CO2 emissions, air pollutants and solid waste. Household consumption of agricultural byproducts, other processed foods, wine, drinks and refined tea, textile wearing and apparel; exports of textiles, textile wearing and apparel, raw chemical materials and chemical products had obvious driving effects on water pollutants. The characteristics of these behaviors and their roles in social and economic development are then discussed. Based on the discussions, potential ways to utilize the identified behaviors are recommended: household consumption of electricity, heating, food, wine, drinks and refined tea, textile wearing and apparel should be guided toward a more conservation-oriented approach; the structure of investments in transport equipment, special and general purpose machinery, and exports of electrical machinery/equipment, textiles, textile wearing and apparel, raw chemical materials and chemical products should be adjusted toward more high-end products; the discharge intensities of the supply chain of health care, residential services, real estate and electronic equipment should be further lowered; the investment in construction should be planned more rationally, while the unnecessary waste of high-discharge-intensive construction materials should be avoided.