It All Hinges on China: Environmental Governance in the Twenty-First Century

Environmental protection is a basic public service that the government must guarantee and is closely related to public health. An important driver of environmental pollution in China is the local government’s pursuit of a rapid economic development while ignoring environmental protection under the Chinese-style fiscal decentralization system. On the basis of the principal–agent theory between the central and local governments, this study analyzes the environmental deterioration caused by the distortion of local government behavior under fiscal decentralization. In addition, using China’s prefecture-level city data from 2014 to 2018, this study empirically estimates the impact of fiscal decentralization on environmental pollution. SO2 emissions and PM2.5 concentrations are used to measure the degree of environmental pollution. Results show that Chinese-style fiscal decentralization exacerbates environmental pollution and that the impact of fiscal decentralization on environmental pollution differs in regions with varying levels of economic development and cultural penetration. Moreover, fiscal decentralization does not significantly impact environmental pollution in eastern China and in those areas influenced by Confucian culture yet aggravates the environmental pollution in central and western China and in those areas that are not affected by Confucian culture. These results offer important policy implications. Clearly dividing the power and financial power between the central and local governments, establishing an environmental governance system compatible with economic incentives, and building an environmental public finance system can alleviate the impact of Chinese-style fiscal decentralization on environmental pollution.

Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, China faces numerous environmental challenges, including air and water pollution, resource depletion, and climate change. Adopting green ICT and smart urbanization is a critical strategy to address these challenges. At the heart of this study lies the question: Do green ICT adoption and smart urbanization contribute positively to environmental pollution reduction? Therefore, this study intends to scrutinize the influence of green ICT and smart urbanization on environmental pollution in China, focusing on the period from 1996 to 2021. The most up-to-date method of structural modeling, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), was used to estimate the quantitative connection between green ICT, smart urbanization, and environmental pollution. The findings of the structural model show that only the path coefficient between smart urbanization and environmental pollution is significant and negative. Renewable energy consumption directly and negatively influences environmental pollution, whereas smart urbanization directly and positively affects renewable energy consumption and green ICT. Consequently, renewable energy consumption and green ICT negatively influence environmental pollution. Based on the findings, the study proposes targeted public policy recommendations aimed at fostering the development of green ICT and smart urbanization initiatives in China.

Exploring the driving forces of energy consumption and environmental pollution in China's cement industry at the provincial level

ObjectiveThis study investigates the nexus between household health expenditure, CO2 emissions and environmental pollution in China. We analyzed the asymmetric dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure for the period 1990 to 2019 in China.MethodsThis study adopted nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) and Granger causality following the diagnostic test. Furthermore, we applied Dickey–Fuller (ADF), PP unit root tests, Zivot and Andrews test for structural breaks in our analysis. The NARDL is the most suitable econometric technique for estimations, especially if the asymmetric relationship exists among the variables. NARDL technique is capable to explore the dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure.ResultsThe empirical results verify the asymmetric nexus between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure in the context of China. The outcomes revealed that in the short run and long run positive shocks of CO2 emissions and environmental pollution positively affecting health expenditure, while negative shocks reduce health spendings. The results also demonstrate bi-directional causality among household health spendings, CO2 emissions and environmental pollution.ConclusionOur results support many previous studies, documenting that CO2 emissions positively contribute to the amount of household health expenditure, confirming the asymmetric relationship between CO2 emissions and household health expenditure. The results also confirm the statistically significant and asymmetrically positive relationship between environmental pollution and household health expenditure. This implies that Chinese residents have to bear more household health expenditure, in the case of more CO2 emissions and a greater amount of environmental pollution.

Based on 2004-2017 Chinese interprovincial panel data, we construct the regional environmental pollution indicators, analyze the influencing factors and spillover effects of environmental pollution under the conditions of time lag, spatial lag, and spatiotemporal lag by using the STIRPAT model and dynamic spatial Durbin model, and discuss the spatiotemporal characteristics of regional environmental pollution in China. The results show that the overall regional environmental pollution in China is on the decline. Environmental pollution has strengthened the characteristics of strong in the East and weak in the West, and the characteristics of strong in the South and weak in the North began to appear. Population scale, economic growth, and industrial scale will increase environmental pollution in the region, and the environmental regulation intensity and pollution control investment will reduce environmental pollution in the region. The spillover effects of the influencing factors of regional environmental pollution in China are different. In the short term, the influencing factors have a greater impact on the neighboring areas, while in the long term, they have a greater impact on the region. Hence, the critical approach to achieving sustainable development is to give full play to the factors which can reduce environmental pollution and to effectively control the factors which will promote environmental pollution.

This paper tests the cointegration and causality between mortality rate, terrorism, economic growth, and environmental pollution in China, India, Russia, and Türkiye in the period from 1990 to 2021 by using the Fourier bootstrapping auto-regressive distributed lag (FBARDL) test and Granger causality with Fourier (FGC) test. The FBARDL test determined cointegration between the selected variables. The FGC test found the evidence of causality among the selected variables. For Russia, Türkiye, India, and China, we found evidence of unidirectional causality running from terrorism to environmental pollution. The evidence of one-way causality from economic growth to environmental pollution was determined for Türkiye and China, but, for India and Russia, we found one-way causality from environmental pollution to economic growth. We found unidirectional causality from terrorism to mortality rate for Türkiye and China. For Russia, we found evidence of none causality. In addition, we determined there was evidence of unidirectional causality from environmental pollution to morality rate.

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's economy, the coastal environment is facing large pressure. However, the coastal environment pollution has not attracted much attention as air pollution and land water pollution. Based on the data on economic development and marine ecosystem environmental pollution which collected from the National Bureau of Statistics and China's coastal marine environmental monitoring, the paper analyzes the overall coastal ecosystem environment pollution in China as well as the four sea areas the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and South China Sea. The paper finds that the coastal marine environment pollution differ in different sea areas, taking the seawater quality, over-standard pollutants, water quality of rivers entering seas and coastal marine environmental disasters, such as red tide as index. Couple of policy suggestions provided based on research findings.

As for the academics and policymakers, more attention has been given to the issue on how to reduce environmental pollution through the cooperation of environmental regulation and local officials’ promotion incentives. With the use of a city-level panel data of 266 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2016, this study preliminary explores the impacts of environmental regulations, local officials’ promotion incentives, and their interaction terms on urban environmental pollution at national and regional levels by using the spatial Durbin model. The results indicate that the impacts of environmental regulations and local officials’ promotion incentives on urban environmental pollution have achieved the desired goal with the other’s cooperation, and their interaction term’s coefficients on urban environmental pollution are significantly negative. Moreover, spatial heterogeneity is established, and the uneven development of urban environmental pollution among different regions deserves more attention. In order to effectively reduce the level of urban environmental pollution in China, the government should focus on such solutions as enhancing the implementation and supervision efficiency of environmental regulation, optimizing the performance appraisal system of local officials, improving the synergistic effects of environmental regulations and local officials’ promotion incentives, and establishing a multi-scale spatial cooperation mechanism based on both geographical and economic correlations.

Whether it is the historical experience of developed countries or the practice of most developing countries, it has been shown that in the stage of national industrialization and infrastructure construction, environmental pollution will accompany it. With the development of the country's industrialization and the improvement of people's awareness of environmental protection, the discharge of pollutants such as industrial wastewater and waste gas has caused people to pay more attention to environmental issues. This article comprehensively analyzes the impact of infrastructure construction on environmental pollution based on data from eastern China in 2009-2017. The research results show that infrastructure construction has a significant impact on environmental pollution in eastern China. Specifically, infrastructure construction has significantly increased the discharge of industrial wastewater and exhaust gas. Therefore, China needs to pay more attention to certain new pollution sources in the process of increasing infrastructure construction. All regions should strengthen cross-regional environmental protection cooperation and focus on green development.

This paper examined the relationship between the energy efficiency and the environmental pollution. By using the data of energy intensity and economic loss caused by environmental pollution (ELP) in China from 1989-2009, a simultaneous equations was developed. The result of two-stage OLS estimation suggested that the energy had exerted positive influences on the decreasing of the environmental pollutions. By enhancing the energy efficiency and adjusting the industrial structure and energy consumption structure, China is exploring a road for sustainable development in the energy conservation.

The environmental pollution and human health damages in China reached the point, when the country's policy has to change direction by developing new strategies to substantially increase the share of renewable energy sources in their energy mix and reduce environmental pollution. This research will try to identify the potential variables of the antagonistic conflict regarding the constantly growing energy consumption vs. human health damages and environmental pollution in China. The identification of variables will be carried out through the lens of Sustainable Development Theory. This paper tries to weight the interactions among variables, find the most reactive and influential ones in order to give suggestions to changes in the policy. The interaction among variables will be measured by using the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory and Cross-impact Matrix. Finally, the social vulnerability of the society will be discussed, where serious public health problems occur in case of world health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which is particularly dangerous for those groups, which suffer from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and immuno-deficiency problems.

China’s rapid economic growth has given rise to serious clashes with environment protection needs. In order to address the dilemma between environment protection and economic growth, a thorough investigation into the relationship between the two is fundamental to the formulation and implementation of environment policies. This paper uses econometric analyses of time-series data on industrial pollution and GDP per capita between 1980 and 2008, examines the long-term dynamic equilibrium and interplay between environment quality and per capita income in China, and obtains the following points. First, there is cointegration between economic growth and environment pollution in China. Second, the increase of per capita GDP has evident lag effects on environment quality. Third, the simulated structure of Generalized Impulse Response Function shows that the responses of environment quality indicators to the impulse of per capita growth rate are mostly fluctuant. Fourth, the results of variance decomposition show that the contribution of pollution indicators to the variance decomposition of GDP per capita is relatively small.

One-vote veto: The threshold effect of environmental pollution in China's economic promotion tournament

Atmospheric reactive nitrogen (Nr) has been a cause of serious environmental pollution in China. Historically, China used too little Nr in its agriculture to feed its population. However, with the rapid increase in N fertilizer use for food production and fossil fuel consumption for energy supply over the last four decades, increasing gaseous Nr species (e.g. NH3 and NOx) have been emitted to the atmosphere and then deposited as wet and dry deposition, with adverse impacts on air, water and soil quality as well as plant biodiversity and human health. This paper reviews the issues associated with this in a holistic way. The emissions, deposition, impacts, actions and regulations for the mitigation of atmospheric Nr are discussed systematically. Both NH3 and NOx make major contributions to environmental pollution but especially to the formation of secondary fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which impacts human health and light scattering (haze). In addition, atmospheric deposition of NH3 and NOx causes adverse impacts on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems due to acidification and eutrophication. Regulations and practices introduced by China that meet the urgent need to reduce Nr emissions are explained and resulting effects on emissions are discussed. Recommendations for improving future N management for achieving 'win-win' outcomes for Chinese agricultural production and food supply, and human and environmental health, are described. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Air quality, past present and future'.

Throughout the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), disagreement has existed concerning the extent to which Chinese Communism might be considered authentically Marxist. In general, most of the available literature tends to simply accept the Chinese Communist self-identification as Marxist. No binding consensus among independent Sinologists, however, is found and resistance has taken on a variety of forms throughout the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—some partisan and some genuinely analytic. The academic literature produced during the entire period of CCP rule in China has been characterized by wide differences in the acceptance of its Marxist authenticity. It has always been tacitly or explicitly accepted that the Marxism of the CCP at its founding in 1920–1921 was in a form acceptable to the Bolshevik rulers of revolutionary Russia. Having been founded directly through the influence of the Third (or Leninist) International, the CCP had to conform to the Bolshevik interpretation of Marxism. Since Lenin had taken “creative” liberties with the original doctrine, some have maintained that the Marxism of the CCP had never been truly Marxist. To add further difficulty to any analysis of the Marxism of the CCP, it is generally understood that Mao Zedong, who gradually assumed the leadership of the CCP, was not particularly well versed in any variant of Marxism. Over the years and under the pressure of circumstances, Mao delivered varied formulations of his revolutionary ideology. How much those formulations accorded with any variant of Marxism became a matter of interpretation. Some scholars hold that by the time of the “Great Leap Forward,” Mao had devised his own ideology. All of this speculation generated controversy within the CCP leadership. By the time of Mao’s demise in 1976, the doctrine of a “second revolution” animated Deng Xiaoping and his followers. It is still a matter of considerable controversy whether that post-Maoist doctrine, in any sense, is Marxist in content or aspiration.