Effects of the joint prevention and control of atmospheric pollution policy on air pollutants-A quantitative analysis of Chinese policy texts

Synergies of air pollution control policies: A review

Air pollution control necessitates the implementation of multiple policy instruments in a coordinated manner. However, the enforcement of different policy combinations may generate complementary or offsetting synergistic effects, thereby influencing policy effectiveness. Nevertheless, the direction of synergy and the mechanisms of action among heterogeneous policies is undefined in existing academic research. This study systematically reviewed 773 articles from 1998 to 2023 and, for the first time, integrated four primary domains of air pollution control policies: policy synergy and integration, collaborative governance for pollution and carbon mitigation, joint control of multiple pollutants, and cross-regional cooperative governance. This study revealed the directions and mechanisms of air policy synergy and provided empirical evidence for cross-regional comparisons in global environmental governance, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the effectiveness of air pollution control policies. Specifically, the mechanisms underlying policy synergy suggest that the cumulative impact of policies leads to the synergistic effects of multiple policies being superior to the effects of implementing a single policy. Furthermore, due to market price signals or the characteristics of specific technologies, the concurrent application of multiple policies may occasionally yield negative synergistic outcomes. Despite these advancements, gaps remain particularly in broadening the scope of policy integration, refining the assessment of synergistic effects, developing control strategies, and enhancing stakeholder engagement. Further research is necessary to address these gaps and enhance air policy effectiveness.

Community emergency management policy in China using a policy text tool

Systematically analyzing the current status and problems of the Community Emergency Management Policy (CEMP) system in China and proposing practical suggestions that are conducive to subsequent policy formulation and improvement are important for improving community emergency management capabilities and levels and promoting sustainable community development. Based on the two-dimensional analysis framework of "policy tools-policy objectives", this paper draws from content analysis and social network analysis, quantitatively analyzing the CEMP texts at the national level from 2004 to 2024. The results show that the CEMP system in China has essentially taken shape, but there are still some problems, such as the uneven use of policy tools, the unbalanced internal structure of policy tools, the large distribution gap of policy objective elements, and the adaptability between policy tools and policy objectives, which needs to be improved. Given these results, we suggest 1) Appropriately increasing the frequency of using demand-type policy tools and effectively optimizing the internal structure of the three main types of policy tools; 2) Comprehensively deepening the reform of CEMP objectives; and 3) Reasonably improving the adaptability between policy tools and objectives.

Characterization and regional linkage analysis of PM2.5 emissions driven by energy consumption in mainland China, 2007-2017

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution poses a serious threat to public health, and there has been a recent resurgence in PM2.5 pollution levels in China. Inter-provincial trade has further complicated the allocation of responsibility for PM2.5 emissions. An in-depth analysis of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (APPCAP), a highly effective environmental policy, offers new perspectives and avenues for reflection. Using the multi-regional input-output model and structural decomposition analysis model, this study provides insights into the interlinkages of PM2.5 emissions, and their influencing mechanisms among different regions from the perspective of source emissions by quantifying the dynamics of production-related PM2.5 emissions (PEp) associated with energy consumption and the key driving socio-economic factors in the pre-and post-APPCAP phases. The results indicate that PEp initially increased and then decreased over the study period. In the pre-policy stage, only five provinces exhibited a decrease in PEp, and this number increased to 21 provinces post-policy. Manufacturing and energy utilities consistently account for significant PEp contributions, particularly in Shanghai, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi. This study finds that pre-policy, the industrial structure effect, the demographic effect, and the level of affluence effect primarily drove PEp increases. The post-policy decrease was influenced by industrial structure and consumption pattern effects. Although China's PEp remains higher than the consumption-based PM2.5 emissions (PEc), significant provincial variations exist. Notably, while changes in PEp do not always align with PM2.5 concentration changes, simultaneous reductions following policy implementation signal positive progress in pollution control. This underscores the necessity of continuously optimizing policy strategies to accommodate regional characteristics.

Intercity carbon compensation mechanism based on value-added captured responsibility allocation

Intercity trade in China generates significant embodied carbon transfers. Cross-border production can easily lead to carbon leakage, complicating the attribution and accounting of intercity emission responsibility. In both traditional methods (such as the "Production-Based Accounting" (PBA) and the "Consumption-Based Accounting" (CBA)), there are parties that benefit while others that face greater disadvantages. The shared responsibility approach could be perceived as fairer. We propose a novel "Value-Added Captured Responsibility Allocation" (VCRA) scheme that can be applied at the city level, using a multi-regional input-output model to equitably distribute emission responsibility between producers and consumers according to their ability to capture value-added along the value chain. Furthermore, we combine the emission responsibility allocation with carbon abatement cost to establish an intercity horizontal carbon compensation mechanism to mitigate carbon inequality caused by intercity trade. The results show that underdeveloped and resource-intensive cities such as Yulin (60.8%) bear a higher share of responsibility for export-related emissions. VCRA results fall between CBA and PBA, but cities like Tianjin, which exports high-value-added products, show significantly higher emission responsibility than PBA and CBA. Many underdeveloped cities have significantly higher producer responsibilities than consumer responsibilities, such as Karamay and Yulin, where producer responsibility accounts for 92.7% and 88.2% of the total, respectively. Reductions in the direct input-output coefficient increase the share of emission responsibility. The distribution of emission responsibility remains stable even when final demand fluctuates due to macroeconomic uncertainty. Economically developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are usually net payers of carbon compensation. The disparity in carbon shadow prices leads to incomplete consistency in the spatial distribution of carbon compensation amounts and values. Fair and reasonable trade-embodied carbon emission responsibility allocation and compensation mechanisms are crucial for advancing synergistic emission reductions and achieving carbon neutrality.

Dual driving forces for corporate environmental responsibility performance: The synergistic effects of government environmental regulation and market multi-agent green supervision

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference reached a series of agreements on implementing the Paris Agreement, empowering governments to independently establish emission reduction goals and encouraging market participants to invest in sustainable development. It highlighted that enhancing corporate environmental responsibility performance (CERP), driven by the collaborative efforts of government and market forces, is key to achieving global sustainability. In this context, this study is the first attempt to investigate the synergistic effects of government environmental regulation (GER) and market multi-agent green supervision (MGS) on CERP. The findings are as follows. First, GER, encompassing the multidimensional environmental responsibilities of governments, has not effectively spurred CERP. MGS, incorporating the green concerns of diverse investors and intermediaries, serves as a significant catalyst for enhancing CERP. The synergy between GER and MGS, involving multi-stakeholder collaborative governance, plays a significant motivating role in promoting CERP. Second, financing constraints and executives' attention to corporate environmental responsibility (CER) are two key channels through which the synergy between GER and MGS influences CERP. Third, firms located in regions with better economic development, those operating in non-heavily polluting industries, or non-state-owned firms exhibit heightened proactivity in improving CERP under the synergy between GER and MGS. This paper expands research on multi-agent collaborative environmental governance from the regional macro-perspective to the micro-firm level, providing a fresh perspective and theoretical basis. The novel findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and firms, especially in economies similar to China, in containing growing environmental challenges and advancing global sustainability.

Classification and Prediction of Food Safety Policy Tools in China Based on Machine Learning

Governments use policy interventions to mitigate food safety risks. Despite its crucial role, empirical studies evaluating the effectiveness of China's food safety policy tools are scarce. Drawing on a dataset encompassing 11,236 food safety policy texts from 2005 to 2021 and the incidence of problematic food products in the Eastern, Central, and Western regions of China, this study employs Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models to facilitate the classification of policy tools and forecast the effectiveness of policy combinations. The study reveals that (1) local governments have gradually become an important supplementary maker of food safety policies, and have issued an increasing number of policy tools year by year. (2) Mandatory policy tools are predominant in number and have the highest legal hierarchy and authority levels, followed successively by guiding policy and voluntary policy tools. (3) Mandatory policy tools demonstrated the most effective intervention results, followed successively by guiding policy and voluntary policy tools. (4) The forecast analysis reveals that combinations of policies within high-growth frameworks and those driven by mandatory regulations emerge as the most effective. Therefore, the balance of policy tools in terms of type, effectiveness, and quantity, as well as their applicability in different situations, should all be taken into account.

Quantifying US air pollution policy: How political and regional factors influence pollutant mitigation

Air pollution control in the United States has evolved into a comprehensive policy system spanning from the federal to the state level over time. A unified quantitative analysis of policy intensity can shed light on the policy evolution across different levels, the influence of partisan and regional factors on policy, and the relationships with emissions of major pollutants. By harnessing the policy text of the Clean Air Act (CAA) at the federal level and State Implementation Plans (SIPs) at the state governments (1955-2020), we deployed a Natural Language Processing approach to define a policy intensity index to systematically quantify the US air policy landscape. Our findings highlight that the 1970 CAA amendment carries the most vigorous intensity as it established a holistic control system for the first time. Subsequent years witnessed a general trend of partisan polarization, eventually leading to a graduate convergence between red and blue states. Blue states demonstrated a closer alignment with federal directives and a superior efficacy in pollutant reduction. Regionally, the Northeast displays the highest overall policy intensity, and the West exhibits the highest coordination with the federal benchmarks, making these regions outperform others in air pollution control. Our study not only discusses policy implications for air pollutant reductions considering partisan and regional differences but also provides a novel measurement tool to quantify policies for assessing disparities and synergies.

Impact of comprehensive air pollution control policies on six criteria air pollutants and acute myocardial infarction morbidity, Weifang, China: A quasi-experimental study

Comprehensive air pollution control policies may reduce pollutant emissions. However, the impact on disease morbidity of the change for the concentration of air pollutants following the policies has been insufficiently studied. We aim to assess the impact of comprehensive air pollution control policies on the levels of six criteria air pollutants and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) morbidity in Weifang, China. This study performed an interrupted time series analysis. The linear model with spline terms and generalized additive quasi-Poisson model were used to estimate the immediate change from 2016 to 2019 in the daily concentration of six air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3, and, CO) and AMI incident cases (Age ≥35) associated with the implementation of air pollution control policies in Weifang, respectively. After the implementation of air pollution control policies, air quality in Weifang had been improved. Specifically, the daily concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and, CO immediately decreased by 27.9 % (95 % CI: 6.6 % to 44.3 %), 32.9 % (95 % CI: 17.5 % to 45.5 %), 14.6 % (95 % CI: 0.4 % to 26.8 %), and 33.9 % (95 % CI: 22.0 % to 44.0 %), respectively. In addition, the policies implementation was also associate with the immediate decline in the AMI morbidity (-6.5 %, 95 % CI: -10.4 % to -2.3 %). And subgroup analyses indicate that the health effects of the policy intervention were only observed in female (-9.4 %, 95 % CI: -14.4 % to -4.2 %) and those aged ≥65 years (-10.5 %, 95 % CI: -14.6 % to -6.2 %). During the final 20 months of the study period, the policy intervention was estimated to prevent 1603 (95 % CI: 574 to 2587) cases of incident AMI in Weifang. Our results provide strong rationale that the policy intervention significantly reduced ambient pollutant concentrations and AMI morbidity, which highlighted the importance for a comprehensive and rigorous air pollution control policy in regions with severe air pollution.

Is air pollution joint prevention and control effective in China-evidence from "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan"

This paper examined the effect of air pollution joint prevention and control on pollution emissions in China. Specifically, based on the panel data of 290 cities from 2007 to 2021, taking the implementation of the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" as a natural experiment, the difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) model was used to explore the effect of air pollution joint prevention and control on haze pollution. Results show that air pollution joint prevention has a significant impact on pollutant emissions either as a whole or as a single pollutant. In terms of individual urban agglomeration, whether the Yangtze River Delta or the Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations, the air pollution joint prevention and control policy has a significant impact not only on the overall reduction of pollutant emissions but also on the reduction of single PM2.5 or industrial sulfur dioxide emissions alone. Environmental regulations have also achieved the effect of haze control in general and have a significant impact on the reduction of PM2.5 or industrial sulfur dioxide emissions. Environmental regulations also significantly reduced PM2.5 emissions in these three urban agglomerations. These findings provide a scientific basis and essential reference for understanding the implementation effect of regional joint prevention and control policies comprehensively and objectively.

Symbiotic integration of waste disposal capability within a city cluster: The case of the Yangtze River Delta

With the ongoing urbanization in developing regions, integrating regional waste disposal capability is challenging due to unbalanced economic development and rising environmental issues. This research proposed a multi-dimensional symbiotic integration of waste disposal capability. Applying data from the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) in China, we first explore the waste flows and interactions between cities to identify the possibility of inter-municipal collaboration based on the augmented gravity model. We then employ social network analysis to categorize the cities in the collaborative network of waste disposal into subgroups by functionalities. Finally, we proposed the top-down framework of symbiotic networks for waste disposal. Our findings indicate that YRD cities can be classified into four types according to their waste density and disposal efficiency: High-High, Low-High, Low-Low, and High-Low. We also identify three types of inter-municipal collaborative relationships: between high-density and high-efficiency cities, between high-density cities, and between high-efficiency cities. The city subgroups can be categorized into "high-efficiency clusters," "high-density clusters," and "hub clusters," which pave the way for a shared or complementary urban symbiosis in the waste recycling industry. The division of roles among subgroups enables symbiotic activities within the city cluster. This paper extends the spatial scope of industrial symbiosis literature and has practical implications for transitioning to a circular economy in waste management of developing countries.

Evaluating the effects of air pollution control policies in China using a difference-in-differences approach

Air pollution has caused wide concern in China, and many governance policies and plans have been implemented in recent years. Based on counterfactual quasi-natural experiments, we analyzed the implementation effects of autumn and winter air pollution control policies in the Jing-Jin-Ji region and surrounding areas using a difference-in-differences (DID) model. The control group was selected based on geographical and meteorological factors, and we analyzed the impact of the policies on six pollutants. The results show that the policies reduced air pollution overall, but not every pollutant. Due to the policy contribution, the concentrations of PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ in autumn and winter from 2017 to 2018 decreased by 6.9 % and 8.5 %, respectively. The numerical value of PM_2.5, PM₁₀, CO, and AQI in 2018-2019 decreased by 18.2 %, 7.2 %, 13.9 %, and 8.8 %, respectively. The role in the reduction of O₃, SO₂, and NO₂ was not obvious. This work provides a research paradigm for evaluating the effects of atmospheric environment policy which can be applied to other studies and provide references for formulating additional policies.

Evaluating environmental outcome and process-adaptivity of regional collaboration: An empirical study from China

Since the 2000s, China has enforced regional collaboration as a way of resolving cross-diffused air pollution and jurisdictional limitations. It is, however, a hotly debated issue as to whether authority-driven regional collaboration can be sustained and effective, and no consensus has been achieved by the theoretical discussion. Despite extensive empirical research on the topic, most studies judged the sustainability of collaborations by analyzing the environmental outcomes within a short period after their initiation. To provide more comprehensive empirical evidence to the open question, this paper introduces the criterion of adaptivity to determine whether collaboration is sustainable. Taking the changing collaboration in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surroundings as a quasi-natural experiment, Difference-in-Difference model and Triple Difference Model are used to verify the adaptivity from two aspects. Results show that authority-driven collaboration adjustment yields better environmental outcomes. Additionally, the better environmental outcome is observed in original collaborators, implying that local governments can learn by doing and form interdependence through repeated collaborative actions. The adaptive collaboration, however, has two limitations. First, the collaboration mechanism is formed primarily based on performance evaluation and target assessment instruments, without showing adaptivity in reducing soft control indicators of air pollution. Second, the different regulation pressure between non-collaborating and collaboration cities results in undesirable spillover effects within a range of 40-100 km. This study not only contributes to empirical and theoretical studies on regional collaboration but also provides support to the improvement of the collaboration system in practice.

The dynamic evolution of collaborative networks in sustainable development: Untying impact of environmental policy in China using network-based text analysis approach

As one of the key subjects of multi-center governance of environmental concerns, public perception is crucial in forming and implementing environmental policy. Based on data science research theory and the original theory of public perception, this study proposes a research framework to analyze environmental policy through network text analysis. The primary contents are bidirectional encoder representation from transformers-convolution neural network (BERT-CNN) sentiment tendency analysis, word frequency characteristic analysis, and semantic network analysis. The realism of the suggested framework is demonstrated by using the waste classification policy as an example. The findings indicate a substantial relationship between perceived subject participation and policy pilot areas and that perceived subject participation is repeating. On this premise, specific recommendations are made to encourage policy implementation.

Measuring the Policy Effectiveness of China’s New-Energy Vehicle Industry and Its Differential Impact on Supply and Demand Markets

To promote the precise governance of China’s new-energy vehicle (NEV) industry, this paper quantitatively analyzes 204 policy texts on the NEV industry in China since 2007 and constructs an evaluation system of policy effectiveness from three dimensions of policy attributes, policy objectives, and policy measures to reveal the effectiveness and evolutionary trends of China’s NEV industry policies. In addition, this paper explores the two-way effects of different types of policy measures on the NEV supply and demand markets through an econometric model to reveal the differential impact effectiveness of various policy instruments in China’s NEV industry. The results indicate that China’s NEV industry has changed from “government-driven” to “government-driven + market-driven”, and the multi-sectoral policy coordination needs to be further improved; the dynamic evolution over the years reveals a similar pattern of change in the total effectiveness of policy issuance as influenced by the number of policies; the quantity of patents in China is large but the quality of patents is insufficient, and an overall problem of low level of core technology is being faced; taxation and subsidy measure, technical innovation measures, social guidance measures, and environmental support measures all effectively promote the development of the supply-side market, while taxation and subsidy measures, social guidance measures and legal regulation measures can better promote the development of the demand-side market; the impact of financial support measures on both supply and demand-side markets is not significant.

Study of the Treatment of Organic Waste Gas Containing Benzene by a Low Temperature Plasma-Biological Degradation Method

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the pharmaceutical and chemical industries have been a matter of concern for some years in China. Achieving efficient degradation of chlorobenzene (CB) in waste gas is difficult because of its high volatility and molecular stability. A DBD (dielectric barrier discharge) biological method was proposed to treat chlorobenzene, aiming to control high operating costs and prevent secondary pollution. In this investigation, a DBD biological method was introduced to deal with chlorobenzene by optimization of process parameters. The results showed that the degradation efficiency of chlorobenzene was close to 80% at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 85 s when the inlet concentration was 700 mg·m−3 for the biological method. The degradation efficiency of chlorobenzene reached 80% under a discharge voltage of 7 kV, an inlet concentration of 700 mg·m−3 and an HRT of 5.5 s. The degradation efficiency of an integrated system can be increased by 15–20% compared with that of a single biological system. Therefore, this method can be used as a new way to address chlorobenzene pollution in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.