Does the "Blue Sky Defense War Policy" Paint the Sky Blue?-A Case Study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, China.

Xuan Yang,Xue Tan,Di Chen,Yue Wang,Xue Tian,Lei Shi

doi:10.3390/ijerph182312397

Xuan Yang, Xue Tan + Show 4 more

Open Access

PDF Available

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312397

Copy DOI

Export

Save

Cite

Abstract
Highlights/Summary
Full-Text PDF
Similar Papers

Abstract

Listen

Improving air quality is an urgent task for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region in China. In 2018, utilizing 365 days’ daily concentration data of six air pollutants (including PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3) at 947 air quality grid monitoring points of 13 cities in the BTH region and controlling the meteorological factors, this paper takes the implementation of the Blue Sky Defense War (BSDW) policy as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the emission reduction effect of the policy in the BTH region by applying the difference-in-difference method. Results show that the policy leads to the significant reduction of the daily average concentration of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, O3 by −1.951 μg/m3, −3.872 μg/m3, −1.902 μg/m3, −7.882 μg/m3 and CO by −0.014 mg/m3, respectively. The results of the robustness test support the aforementioned conclusions. However, this paper finds that the concentration of NO2 increases significantly (1.865 μg/m3). In winter heating seasons, the concentration of SO2, CO and O3 decrease but PM2.5, PM10 and NO2 increase significantly. Besides, resource intensive cities, non-key environmental protection cities and cities in the north of the region have great potential for air pollutant emission reduction. Finally, policy suggestions are recommended; these include setting specific goals at the city level, incorporating more cities into the list of key environmental protection cities, refining the concrete indicators of domestic solid fuel, and encouraging and enforcing clean heating diffusion.

Highlights

IntroductionSince the reform was launched in 1978, China has experienced rapid economic and social development; on average, over 9% of GDP growth has helped China become one of the biggest economies [1,2]
Based on the fact that cities should be central subjects of air pollution control, this paper aims to use high-resolution air pollution data to explore whether the effect of the Blue Sky Defense War (BSDW) policy varies in heating seasons, multiple forms of cities and cities in BTH region, so as to provide clear and constructive suggestions for the formulation of air pollution prevention policies in China in the future
The results showed that the coefficient between coal consumption and pollutant emissions was positive, while electricity consumption was negatively correlated with pollutant emissions, which indicated that “replacing coal with electricity” in BTH region had played an active role in air pollution control

Summary

Introduction

Since the reform was launched in 1978, China has experienced rapid economic and social development; on average, over 9% of GDP growth has helped China become one of the biggest economies [1,2]. Extensive developments have led to environmental predicaments [3], especially increasingly severe air pollution, which has aroused significant concerns from the public and the government [4,5]. Ambient air quality exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) Interim Target-1 (IT-1) of 35 μg/m3 [6]. In China, about 1.2 million people died prematurely due to complication associated with air pollution in 2010 [12]. In 2019, it is estimated that 12% of all deaths were attributable to outdoor and household air pollution [13]. In view of the scale of the impacts of air pollution on public health [14], urgent action is needed to improve air quality. Air pollution has become a central domain and a momentous bottleneck in realizing the sustainable development in China [15]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion