School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China; Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Apr 10;816:151631. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151631. Epub 2021 Nov 12.
Environmental pollution in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region is largely driven by socioeconomic forces outside the region as vast majority of manufacturing products produced in the region are destined to national and international markets. Given the remarkable economic transformation of the PRD in the past decades, this study investigates the impacts of local, provincial, national, and global socio-economic drivers on PRD's pollution dynamics under the background of significant economic restructuring and upgrading from 1987 to 2017. The results indicate that changes in pollution pattern were deeply shaped by the economic transformation. The share of PRD's emissions driven by international exports expanded significantly before 2007 as a result of the fast growth of international exports. The transformation of economic growth to domestic consumption driven model since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis had resulted in an increasing contribution share to the PRD's environmental pollution from local demand and trade with Rest of China (RoC). Similarly, as final demand structure evolving towards the high value-added manufacturing and services, the share of emissions driven by low value-added manufacturing (LVM) demand had decreased by an enlarged margin, while that driven by high value-added manufacturing (HVM) demand and services demand had moved in the opposite direction. The structural decomposition analysis shows that reduction in emission intensity remains the most effective way in pollution alleviation. The contribution of changes in production input structure also shifted from a strong impetus force before 2007 to a mitigating force afterwards due to significant technological progresses in the industrial sectors since the global financial crisis. With the marginal cost of reducing emission intensity becoming prohibitively expensive, the optimization of production structure and consumption pattern is likely to play more important role in future emission mitigation.
珠江三角洲（PRD）地区的环境污染主要是由该地区以外的社会经济因素驱动的，因为该地区生产的绝大多数制造产品都销往国内和国际市场。鉴于过去几十年 PRD 显著的经济转型，本研究调查了地方、省级、国家和全球社会经济驱动因素对 1987 年至 2017 年期间 PRD 污染动态的影响，背景是该地区经济结构重大调整和升级。研究结果表明，污染模式的变化深受经济转型的影响。由于国际出口的快速增长，2007 年前，国际出口驱动的 PRD 排放量份额显著扩大。自 2007-2008 年全球金融危机以来，经济增长向国内消费驱动模式的转变导致来自本地需求和与中国其他地区（RoC）贸易的对 PRD 环境污染的贡献份额不断增加。同样，随着最终需求结构向高附加值制造业和服务业发展，低附加值制造业（LVM）需求驱动的排放量份额大幅减少，而高附加值制造业（HVM）需求和服务业需求驱动的排放量份额则呈相反方向发展。结构分解分析表明，降低排放强度仍然是减轻污染的最有效途径。由于全球金融危机以来工业部门的技术进步，生产投入结构变化的贡献也从 2007 年前的强大推动力转变为缓解力。随着降低排放强度的边际成本变得高得令人望而却步，生产结构和消费模式的优化可能在未来的减排中发挥更重要的作用。
