Assessment of the Factors Influencing Sulfur Dioxide Emissions in Shandong, China

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a serious air pollutant emitted from different sources in many developing regions worldwide, where the contribution of different potential influencing factors remains unclear. Using Shandong, a typical industrial province in China as an example, we studied the spatial distribution of SO2 and used geographical detectors to explore its influencing factors. Based on the daily average concentration in Shandong Province from 2014 to 2019, we explored the influence of the diurnal temperature range, secondary production, precipitation, wind speed, soot emission, sunshine duration, and urbanization rate on the SO2 concentration. The results showed that the diurnal temperature range had the largest impact on SO2, with q values of 0.69, followed by secondary production (0.51), precipitation (0.46), and wind speed (0.42). There was no significant difference in the SO2 distribution between pairs of sunshine durations, soot emissions, and urbanization rates. The meteorological factors of precipitation, wind speed, and diurnal temperature range were sensitive to seasonal changes. There were nonlinear enhancement relationships among those meteorological factors to the SO2 pollution. There were obvious geographical differences in the human activity factors of soot emissions, secondary production, and urbanization rates. The amount of SO2 emissions should be adjusted in different seasons considering the varied effect of meteorological factors.

Low-carbon governance, fiscal decentralization and sulfur dioxide emissions: Evidence from a quasi-experiment with Chinese heavy pollution enterprises

This paper investigates the effects of enterprise environmental governance under low-carbon pilot policies in China with a difference in differences (DID) design. In examining the development of these policies, we focus on exploring their effects on sulfur dioxide emissions of heavily polluting enterprises based on prefectural city- and firm-level data from 2003-2014. Overall, the policies significantly increased enterprise SO2 emissions, and the underlying reason being that investments in CO2 control crowded out investment in SO2 control in enterprises in low-carbon pilot regions. We also find that the implementation of low-carbon pilot policies resulted in greater SO2 emissions from state-owned enterprises and enterprises in western regions than from non-state-owned enterprises and those in eastern regions. It is further found that fiscal decentralization and the associated mediating effect of market segmentation promote enterprises' CO2 control and inhibit their SO2 control. This study helps us re-examine the overall environmental effects of low-carbon policies and has implications for the revision and improvement of environmental governance policies in developing countries.

Does Green Credit Policy Move the Industrial Firms Toward a Greener Future? Evidence From a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

How to utilize financial instrument to deal with environmental issues has been a focal topic. Taking the introduction of green credit program as a “quasi-natural experiment,” the propensity score matching and difference-in-difference approach (PSM-DID) are used to investigate the impact of the green credit policy implemented by Chinese government on firm-level industrial pollutant emissions. The estimation results indicate that the green credit policy significantly reduces corporate sulfur dioxide emissions. Heterogeneity analysis shows this impact is more pronounced for large-scale enterprises and enterprises located in the eastern region. The estimated mediation models reveal that after the implementation of the green credit policy, reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions can be attribute to the increased environmental investment and improved energy consumption intensity. Moreover, the green credit policy is also significantly effective in mitigating the discharge of other common industrial pollutants. Our findings highlight the importance of green credit policies in achieving greener industrial production and more sustainable economic development.

Review of Top-Down Method to Determine Atmospheric Emissions in Port. Case of Study: Port of Veracruz, Mexico

Indicators of environmental policies in force in Mexico, fossil fuels will continue to be used in industrial sectors, especially marine fuels, such as marine diesel oil, in port systems for some time. Considering this, we have evaluated several methods corresponding to a top-down system for determining fuel consumption and sulfur dioxide atmospheric emissions for the port of Veracruz in 2020 by type of ship on a daily resolution, considering a sulfur content of 0.5% mass by mass in marine fuel. After analyzing seven methods for determining sulfur dioxide atmospheric emission levels, Goldsworthy’s method was found to be the best option to characterize this port. The port system has two maritime zones, one of which is in expansion, which represented 55.66% of fuel consumption and 23.05% of atmospheric emissions according to the typology of vessels. We found that higher fuel consumption corresponded to container vessels, and tanker vessels represented higher atmospheric emission levels in the berthing position. The main differences that we found in the analysis of the seven methods of the top-down system corresponded to the load factor parameter, main and auxiliary engine power, and estimation of fuel consumption by type of vessel.