Key Environmental Protection Cities Research Articles

Have government environmental auditing contributed to the green transformation of Chinese cities?

Faced with growing ecological problems, governments around the world are increasingly focusing on improving ecology and the environment. The topic of urban green transformation has attracted a great deal of research. However, not much of it has focused on the effectiveness of government environmental auditing, especially from the perspective of its role in sustainable governance. This article takes 285 cities in China from 2009 to 2020 as the research scale. It innovatively measures government environmental audits with dual indicators and uses System Gaussian Mixture Model (SGMM) to estimate that government environmental audits significantly promote urban green transformation, and the impact of "whether to implement government environmental auditing" is greater than the "intensity of government environmental auditing". The results show that government environmental audit intensity has a stronger impact on urban green transformation in eastern cities. In contrast, environmental audit coverage has a stronger impact in western cities. Moreover, the effect of government environmental auditing on green transformation is more significant in small and medium-sized cities and key environmental protection cities than in large cities and non-key environmental protection cities, respectively. Government environmental auditing could facilitate urban green transformation by restraining local government behavior, forcing green technology innovation, and promoting industrial structural upgrading. In addition, the intensity of government environmental auditing can better act on green transformation through the fore-mentioned mechanisms. It can play a crucial role in green technology innovation.

Environmental Target and Government Performance in China

When do environmental targets improve the environmental performance of local governments? Previous studies have reached inconsistent conclusions on the effectiveness of environmental targets. Drawing on the principal-agent theory, this article identifies goal divergence and information asymmetry as challenges that impede the achievement of environmental targets. We analyze two policy instruments put in place to steer implementation, namely the mandatory target system and key cities for emission reduction, as components of the national 11th Five-Year Plan. We apply the difference-in-differences (DID) method to a longitudinal dataset of Chinese cities from 2001 to 2010 to investigate the impact of the two policy instruments on air and water pollution. Combining time variations, inter-provincial differences, and inter-prefectural differences in policy intensity, we find that mandatory pollution reduction targets have a pollution-reducing impact on two targeted pollutants, and key environmental protection cities reduce emissions only for air pollutants. However, we find no evidence of a synergy between the two types of policies. Our findings contribute to the understanding of implementation problems for government agents.

Does limited decentralization of environmental enforcement power improve air quality? Quasi-experimental evidence from China

Utilizing the Comprehensive Environmental Administrative Enforcement Reform (CEAER) in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper has adopted 179 prefecture-level cities from July 2018 to December 2020 as research sample to assess whether the limited decentralization of environmental enforcement power can improve air quality through a time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) approach. Results show that CEAER can achieve better air quality improving effects, which can not only contribute to the decrease of daily mean values of Air Quality Index (AQI), but also contribute to the decrease of daily mean values of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and CO. And this promotion is mainly achieved through the micro mechanism of raising environmental penalties strength. Further examination of the heterogeneity in terms of economic factors, city rank, pollution abatement pressure, and political constraints reveals that CEAER's policy effects are mostly insignificant in cities with higher levels of economic development and administrative rank, and positively significant in poor historical air quality cities and key environmental protection cities. These results underscore the positive effects of the limited decentralization of environmental enforcement power and provide ideas for other regions to draw on for environmental management system reform.

Does the low-carbon city pilot policy achieve the synergistic effect of pollution and carbon reduction?

A scientific assessment of the synergistic effect of the low-carbon city pilot policy in reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is needed to promote carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This study applied the Spatial Durbin Model-Difference in Difference technique to investigate the synergistic effect of air pollution and carbon emission reduction through the implementation of the low-carbon city pilot policy. The main results are as follows. (1) A spatial phenomenon was observed, in which there was a coexistence of urban carbon emissions and air pollution agglomerations. The spatial characteristics of the “symbiotic” carbon emissions and air pollution agglomerations were revealed. (2) The low-carbon city policy significantly reduced CO2, SO2, and PM2.5 concentrations, and the effect of the “co-governance” of air pollution and carbon emission reduction was obvious. (3) There was a clear regional heterogeneity in the synergistic effect of air pollution and carbon emission reduction in low-carbon cities. A stronger incentive effect was apparent in central and western cities, resource-based cities, and key environmental protection cities. (4) To achieve a synergistic governance “sharing” situation, the transmission mechanism of the low-carbon city pilot policy was the reduction of total energy consumption, the promotion of industrial restructuring, the optimization of the factor endowment structure, and the continuous improvement of the urban transport structure and green innovation. Our results not only help advance the research on synergistic reduction of air pollution and carbon emissions, but also can be of interest to low-carbon city policy makers in China.

How does air pollution affect urban innovation capability? Evidence from 281 cities in China

Technological innovation may help to reduce air pollution, but existing relevant studies have not clarified whether and how air pollution affects urban innovation capability. Therefore, based on the fixed-effect model, we examine a panel of 281 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2015, and find that air pollution significantly inhibits the improvement of urban innovation capability on the whole in China. Meanwhile, affected by the “human resource loss effect”, air pollution in cities of large scale or eastern China has a significantly greater inhibitory effect on innovation capabilities. Besides, affected by the “resource crowding out effect”, the negative impact of air pollution on urban innovation capability in key environmental protection cities is far greater than that in non-key cities.

An Unintended Consequence of Raising Public Environmental Awareness: Evidence from the Release of the Environmental Documentary “Under the Dome” on Earnings Management

Raising public environmental awareness provides many benefits. However, using an exogenous shock—the unexpected release of the environmental documentary “Under the Dome” in China—we show that raising environmental awareness may have the unintended consequence of distorting firms’ financial reporting behavior. Our difference-in-differences analyses suggest that polluting firms manage earnings downwards following the release of this documentary relative to control firms. This relation is more pronounced when the treatment firms are located in areas receiving more environmental complaints, with higher indices of PM2.5, and identified as key environmental protection cities. Furthermore, the post-event downward earnings management by polluting firms is associated with higher government subsidies on environmental protection investments, a lower likelihood of receiving government sanctions over environmental violations, less severe sanctions, and a more positive tone in media coverage, all of which indicate real benefits (incentives) for polluting firms to manipulate earnings down.

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

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.

City level CO2 and local air pollutants co-control performance evaluation: A case study of 113 key environmental protection cities in China

‘Co-control’, or synergistically reducing CO2 and local air pollutant emissions, is an important strategy for cities to achieve ‘low carbon’ and ‘blue sky’ simultaneously. However, there were few studies to evaluate and compare the level of co-control of CO2 and local air pollutants in cities yet. The present study proposed qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the level of co-control of CO2 and three local air pollutant (SO2, NOx, and particulate matter PM) emissions in key environmental protection cities in China over two periods (2012–2015 and 2015–2018). Statistical analysis found that, though three local air pollutant emissions positively correlated with CO2 emission, no significantly positive correlation was found between local air pollutants emission reductions and CO2 emission reductions, indicating that co-control effects were poor in general. By using the co-control effect coordinate system, qualitative evaluation showed that less than half of the sample cities could achieve co-control of the total amount of CO2 and local air pollutants. By employing the indicator of emission reduction equivalence (EReq), quantitative evaluation showed that the co-control level of the sample cities improved in 2015–2018 compared with 2012–2015. Further regression analysis showed that, reducing coal consumption and economic development significantly enhanced the co-control performance of the observed cities. The present case study proved that the proposed methods for evaluation and comparison of the city co-control performance works well, and can be used in other countries and regions to promote global cities racing to carbon and local air pollutants co-control.

Impact of Income Inequality on Urban Air Quality: A Game Theoretical and Empirical Study in China.

Income inequality and environmental pollution are of great concern in China. It is important to better understand whether the narrowing of income inequality and environmental improvement contradict each other. The study aims to investigate the linkage between income inequality and environmental pollution. To illustrate the interplay between different income groups on environmental issues, we apply a mixed-strategy game. Based on the game-theoretic analytical result, the probability of residents supporting clean energy and environmental protection decreases as income inequality widens and increases as inequality narrows. This empirical study is based on the proportion of coal consumption and urban air pollution data from 113 key environmental protection cities and regions in China. The air quality data are from the National Environmental Air Quality Monitoring Network published in the China Statistical Yearbook from 2014–2018. Convincing results show that regions with higher income inequality suffer severe smog and related pollution and that economies with narrow income disparity experience significant improvements in smog and pollution control, with the expansion of the proportion of clean energy use. The results also provide no evidence of the impact of per capita income on pollution. We studied the relationship between individuals of different wealth levels within an economy, within a repeated-game setting. The finding suggests that the distribution of growth impacts pollution. Imposing higher taxes on air polluters while transferring the revenue to the lower-income group is suggested.

Does Public Interest Litigation Promote the Performance of Urban Environmental Governance? An Empirical Study Based on Micro-data of 287 Prefecture-level Cities

In the context of the“new normal”of China’s economy, serious environmental pollution is hindering the high-quality development of China’s economy. Environmental governance is inseparable from the protection of the rule of law, but in China’s traditional environmental governance, the administrative department and the judicial department perform their respective duties, which easily leads to environmental pollution governance as a mere formality. Promoting the effective linkage of environmental administration and environmental justice is the inherent requirement of improving the ecological environment and promoting the green and high-quality development of economy. Based on the data of 287 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2018, this paper uses the multi-period DID method to empirically test the pollution emission reduction effect of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate. First of all, we test the impact of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate on industrial emissions as a whole. The numbers of civil, administrative and criminal incidental civil cases are chosen as the dependent variables to test the implementation of the system. Secondly, we use the mediation effect model to explore the internal mechanism of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate to improve the performance of urban environmental governance. Thirdly, we test the heterogeneity of all prefecture-level cities. Finally, the parallel trend test and the placebo test are used to test the robustness of the results. The findings are as follows: Firstly, the public interest litigation system by procuratorate can effectively reduce the emissions of industrial pollutants and improve the performance of urban environmental governance. Secondly, its main mechanism is to promote the governance of urban environmental pollution through environmental supervision of procuratorial organs, judicial and administrative linkage, and enhancing the participation of citizens in environmental governance. Thirdly, the public interest litigation system by procuratorate has a better emission reduction effect in the central region. At the same time, the system has a good implementation effect in key environmental protection cities. Based on the above, this paper believes that we should strengthen the linkage between environmental administration and environmental justice from the construction of the ecological co-governance system of multiple administrative and judicial subjects, and the construction of the communication and cooperation mechanism between procuratorial organs, the public and environmental protection organizations.

Does ranking stimulate government performance? Evidence from China’s key environmental protection cities

Does ranking stimulate government performance? Evidence from China’s key environmental protection cities

Resource Endowment, Industrial Structure, and Green Development of the Yellow River Basin

The Yellow River Basin is an important energy base of China, and its green development is crucial to Chinese economic transformation. In this paper, we calculate the green total factor productivity (GTFP) to measure the green development level of the Yellow River Basin by using an Slack Based Model- Global Malmquist-Luenberger (SBM-GML) index model. On this basis, we use a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model to further analyze the impact of resource endowment and industrial structure on the green development of cities. The results show that resource endowment inhibits the green development of cities and that the resource curse is observed in the Yellow River Basin. The industrial structure advancement significantly promotes the green development of cities. The impact of industrial structure rationalization on green development varies significantly on the type of city. Specifically, it has an inhibiting effect on key environmental protection cities but a promoting effect on non-key environmental protection cities.

Can energy efficiency progress reduce PM2.5 concentration in China’s cities? Evidence from 105 key environmental protection cities in China, 2004–2015

At present, PM2.5 is still one of the most serious air pollution issues in China. By empirically testing the actual inhibitory effect of China’s total factor energy efficiency progress on PM2.5, this paper can provide a new evaluation index for energy conservation in China and help Chinese cities understand the beneficial environmental effect of total factor productivity (TFP) progress under the constraint of energy consumption to point out an effective path of energy conservation and emission reduction that is highly in line with China’s current high-quality development strategy. Based on the panel data of 105 key environmental protection cities in China, this paper evaluates total factor energy efficiency with range directional model (RDM) and global Malmquist (GM) productivity index based on data envelopment analysis (DEA); it then uses spatial econometric models to test the impact of energy efficiency progress on PM2.5 concentration. The efficiency evaluation results show that the total factor energy efficiency of 105 key environmental protection cities has increased by an average of 35.9% from 2004 to 2015, with an average annual progress rate of 2.2%. Compared with Eastern and Central China, the progress of energy efficiency in the western region during 2004–2015 is relatively lagged. The average energy efficiency progress rate of higher administrative hierarchy cities and super cities with more than 10 million permanent residents is much higher than that of other cities. The results of GM index decomposition show that technological progress is the main driving force of energy efficiency progress. The spatial econometric analysis results show that there is a significant positive spatial autocorrelation in the concentration of PM2.5 in sample cities, and the energy efficiency progress can significantly inhibit the PM2.5 pollution in local and adjacent cities. The influence of each explanatory variable on PM2.5 concentration is mainly composed of the spatial spillover effect.

The effect of environmental information disclosure on environmental quality: Evidence from Chinese cities

This paper attempts to provide a more systematic view of the relationship between environmental information disclosure (EID) and environmental consequences to reconcile the existing conceptual controversy and empirical inconclusiveness. Hence, using a panel data of 113 major Chinese key environmental protection cities from 2008 to 2018, this study adopts the estimations of dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM), quantile regression, panel threshold model, and dynamic spatial Durbin model (SDM) to investigate the effect of EID on environmental quality. The non-spatial empirical results indicate that EID exerts a positive influence on environmental quality in a particular region, and there is a double threshold for the impact of EID. This impact becomes pronounced and then strengthened when the level of economic development reaches critical threshold values. Moreover, the first-order lag effect of environmental quality and spatial autocorrelation are needed to be incorporated. In terms of spatial econometric estimation, the results show a positive direct while negative indirect relationship between EID and environmental quality, making the total effect nearly zero. These findings are evidenced in both the short-term (contemporaneous) and long-term (cumulative) span, which reveals so-called beggar-thy-neighbor as well as a zero-sum game among local governments. Overall, this study highlights the crucial role of EID in affecting environmental quality and calls for a mutually beneficial coordination between regions.

Study on the relationship between precipitation and urban atmospheric environment: Cases of 113 key environmental protection cities

Study on the relationship between precipitation and urban atmospheric environment: Cases of 113 key environmental protection cities

Does China’s Pollution Levy Standards Reform Promote Green Growth?

Estimating the impact of environmental taxes on economic output is of great theoretical value for promoting green growth in China. Using a dataset of 232 cities from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates the effect of pollution levy standards reform (PSR) on green total factor productivity (GTFP). We employ directional distance functions (DDF) computed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) to derive GTFP based on the Malmquist–Luenberger (ML) productivity index. Then, we investigate the impacts of PSR on China’s GTFP using Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimation. The results reveal that PSR has an inhibitory effect on GTFP, via the mechanism of technological change. Furthermore, PSR has heterogeneous impacts on different city types. The results indicate that PSR statistically significantly reduces GTFP in key environmental protection cities (KEPCs), large cities, and eastern cities, but that it has less impact on non-KEPCs, small/medium cities, megacities, and cities in central areas.

Environmental governance with Chinese characteristics: are environmental model cities a good example for other municipalities?

Model programs such as the ‘environmental protection model city’ have become an inherent part of China’s urban environmental governance. The role of these incentive schemes for promoting best practice, however, has been neglected so far. In this study, we show that model city programs raise the bar in terms of environmental standards. What is more, model cities have a positive impact on regional economic development. We deploy a spatial Durbin model to measure best practice diffusion among 126 key environmental protection cities between 2009 and 2012. The results suggest that environmental model cities are better performers on average. We also find evidence for a positive spillover effect. Diffusion patterns are multi-layered where economic proximity is the most important dimension, followed by physical colocation and administrative hierarchy.

The effect of environmental policy on Chinese firm's green productivity and shadow price: A metafrontier input distance function approach

In this paper, a new parametric meta-frontier estimation method, which we call the metafrontier input distance function (MIDF), is proposed to construct a new green productivity index and the shadow price for Chinese coal-fired power plants. Taking the policy heterogeneity into account, 93 Chinese coal-fired power plants are divided into two groups based on whether they are located in China's key “environmental protection cities”, a Chinese environmental protection policy. Using this method, the productivity and the shadow price of the two groups are compared. We find that the average annual growth rate of green productivity of coal-fired power plants in key environmental protection cities is 5.11% from 2005 to 2010, while in the non-key environmental protection cities it is 9.43%, suggesting that environmental regulation will damage productivity growth. Interestingly, although coal-fired power plants in key environmental protection cities face more stringent environmental regulation, their green productivity index still shows an overall upward trend, which partially supports the Porter hypothesis. For the shadow price of sulfur dioxide (SO2), the group-based shadow price of coal-fired power plants in key environmental protection cities is 5419 US dollar per ton on average, while in non-key environmental protection cities it is 1628 US dollar per ton, which also indicates that power plants facing more stringent regulation bear greater abatement costs.

Comparison And Analysis Of Air Quality In Major Cities Of Environmental Protection

As one of the most important environmental problems, air quality has always been highly valued by the government and society. The analysis of air quality in key cities can provide a basis for how to evaluate air quality and how to classify air quality levels and from what aspects it is helpful to improve air quality. The air quality of 51 key cities of environmental protection in China is analyzed and evaluated by selecting 7 indicators of air quality as the original variables. Cluster analysis was used to classify the key environmental protection cities preliminarily, and it was found that the air quality of the cities with fast development level was relatively poor, and the air quality of coastal cities was similar. It is found that the air quality of northern cities is generally worse than that of southern cities, and that of inland cities is generally worse than that of coastal cities. At last, according to the research results, some reasonable conclusions and suggestions are given.

Assessment of Urban Air Pollution and Spatial Spillover Effects in China: Cases of 113 Key Environmental Protection Cities

Abstract: With rapid urbanization and energy consumption, environmental pollution and degradation have become increasingly serious problems in China. At the beginning of 2013, China implemented new ambient air quality standards (GB 3095-2012) in which the concentration of six pollutants including PM2.5, ozone, carbon monoxide, PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide were monitored. This study gathered annual air pollutant concentration data for the six pollutants in 113 key environmental protection cites throughout China in 2014 and 2015 to explain spatial patterns of urban air pollution. Based on the Kernel density estimation method, spatial hotspots of air pollution were illustrated through which spatial cluster of each pollutants could be plotted. By employing an entropy evaluation system, urban air quality was assessed in terms of the six atmospheric pollutants. We conclude that, in general, CO and SO2 were two important pollutants in most Chinese cities, but this varied greatly among cities. The as...