Beijing Low-carbon Operations Strategy Research Center, School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China.
China Center for Special Economic Zone Research, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 May;27(13):15267-15277. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-07997-w. Epub 2020 Feb 19.
With its major influences on economic growth, energy consumption, and environmental quality, the iron and steel (IS) industry plays an important role in achieving green growth of the national economy. It is also the main air pollutant emitter compared with other industries. Therefore, this study first investigates the influencing factors of air pollutant emissions of the IS industry from dimensions of environmental regulation effect, pollutant generation intensity effect, energy structure effect, technological progress effect, and scale effect using the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method. Additionally, decoupling effort values are further calculated to obtain the efforts made in different historical stages to achieve decoupling between the growth of the IS industry and its pollutant emissions. Three main conclusions can be summarized based on the empirical analysis of China's IS industry from 2005 to 2015. First, environmental regulation plays a decisive role in mitigating air pollution in the IS industry. Second, environmental regulation and technological progress both exert inhibitory effects on air pollutant emissions, whereas the intensity effect of pollutant generation and scale effect promote emissions to some extent. The role of energy structural effect is unstable, yet the cumulative effect analysis shows that the effect exerts greater impacts on emission reduction during the recent period. Third, decoupling efforts of the industry gradually changed from weak to strong. In specific, the effects of environmental regulation and technological progress both promote decoupling. Conclusions are made, and suggestions are highlighted based on the research findings.
钢铁工业对经济增长、能源消耗和环境质量有重大影响，在实现国民经济绿色增长方面发挥着重要作用。与其他行业相比，它也是主要的空气污染物排放源。因此，本研究首先利用对数平均迪氏指数（LMDI）方法，从环境规制效应、污染物生成强度效应、能源结构效应、技术进步效应和规模效应等维度，考察了钢铁工业的空气污染排放影响因素。此外，进一步计算了脱钩努力值，以获得在不同历史阶段实现钢铁工业增长与污染物排放脱钩的努力程度。基于对 2005 年至 2015 年中国钢铁工业的实证分析，可以总结出三个主要结论。首先，环境规制在减轻钢铁工业的空气污染方面起着决定性的作用。其次，环境规制和技术进步都对空气污染物排放有抑制作用，而污染物生成强度效应和规模效应在一定程度上促进了排放。能源结构效应的作用不稳定，但累积效应分析表明，在近期，该效应对减排的影响更大。第三，工业的脱钩努力逐渐从弱变强。具体来说，环境规制和技术进步的作用都促进了脱钩。根据研究结果得出结论并提出建议。
