Spatially differentiated effects of socioeconomic factors on China's NOx generation from energy consumption: implications for mitigation policy

Junfeng Wang; Yupei Ma; Ye Qiu; Lingxuan Liu; Zhanfeng Dong

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109417

Spatially differentiated effects of socioeconomic factors on China's NO_x generation from energy consumption: implications for mitigation policy

J Environ Manage. 2019 Nov 15:250:109417. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109417. Epub 2019 Sep 12.

Authors

Junfeng Wang¹, Yupei Ma², Ye Qiu², Lingxuan Liu³, Zhanfeng Dong⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300500, China; Research Center for Resource, Energy and Environmental Policy, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300500, China. Electronic address: jfwangnk@126.com.
² College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300500, China; Research Center for Resource, Energy and Environmental Policy, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300500, China.
³ Management School, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Electronic address: lingxuan.liu@lancaster.ac.uk.
⁴ Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing, 100012, China.

PMID: 31521926
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109417

Abstract

Nitrogen oxides (NO_x) has become the priority of China's air pollution control, but the regional socio-economic factors responsible for NO_x generation are embedded with spatial disparities, which leads to different effects of air quality policy at the local level. This study applied a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to investigate the drivers of NO_x generation from energy consumption (NGEC) in China's 30 provinces, to explore nonstationary spatial effects of NGEC. The results showed that population size has always been the dominant factor in spatial NGEC across all regions of China, although there is a minor north-south difference. However, the effect of per capita GDP and energy intensity leads to a significant north-south difference when they are influencing NGEC, which shows a minor west-east difference from thermal power generation (TE). We also found that in Northern and Northeast China, the transition towards cleaner energy structure based on natural gas has started correlating significantly with NO_x generation through a weakly negative effect in 2015. Our findings show alternative strategies on NO_x reduction, which include the spatially differentiated effect of regional socioeconomic factors on energy consumption.

Keywords: China; Driving factors; Geographically weighted regression; NO(x) generation from energy consumption.

MeSH terms

Air Pollution*
China
Nitrogen Oxides
Socioeconomic Factors

Substances

Nitrogen Oxides