Are China's trade interests overestimated? Evidence from firms' importing behavior and pollution emissions

2021 ◽  
pp. 101738
Author(s):  
Ling-Yun He ◽  
Geng Huang
Keyword(s):  
Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 290
Author(s):  
Akvilė Feiferytė Skirienė ◽  
Žaneta Stasiškienė

The rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affected the economy, trade, transport, health care, social services, and other sectors. To control the rapid dispersion of the virus, most countries imposed national lockdowns and social distancing policies. This led to reduced industrial, commercial, and human activities, followed by lower air pollution emissions, which caused air quality improvement. Air pollution monitoring data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) datasets were used to investigate how lockdown policies affected air quality changes in the period before and during the COVID-19 lockdown, comparing to the same periods in 2018 and 2019, along with an assessment of the Index of Production variation impact to air pollution changes during the pandemic in 2020. Analysis results show that industrial and mobility activities were lower in the period of the lockdown along with the reduced selected pollutant NO2, PM2.5, PM10 emissions by approximately 20–40% in 2020.


Kybernetes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (11) ◽  
pp. 2713-2735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomin Fan ◽  
Yingzhi Xu ◽  
Yongqing Nan ◽  
Baoli Li ◽  
Haiya Cai

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of high-speed railway (HSR) on industrial pollution emissions using the data for 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2016. Design/methodology/approach The research method used in this paper is the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model, which is an effective policy effect assessment method. To further address the issue of endogeneity, the DID integrated with the propensity score matching (PSM-DID) approach is employed to eliminate the potential self-selection bias. Findings The results show that the HSR has significantly reduced industrial pollution emissions, which is validated by several robustness tests. Compared with peripheral cities, HSR exerts a greater impact on industrial pollution emissions in central cities. In addition, the mechanism test reveals that the optimised allocation of inter-city industries is an important channel for HSR to mitigate industrial pollution emissions, and this is closely related to the location of HSR stations. Originality/value Previous studies have paid more attention to evaluating the economic effects of HSR, however, most of these studies overlook its environmental effects. Consequently, the impact of HSR on industrial pollution emissions is led by using multi-period DID models in this paper, in which the environmental effects are measured. The results of this paper can provide a reference for the pollution reduction policies and also the coordinated development of economic growth and environmental quality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-55
Author(s):  
I.O. Chernychenko ◽  
◽  
N.V. Balenko ◽  
O.M. Lytvychenko ◽  
V.F. Babii ◽  
...  

Objective: We determined the possible effects of priority chemical environmental carcinogens on the incidence of hormone-dependent tumors and the mechanisms of their effect on the basis of the analysis of literature data and our own research. Results: The performed analysis demonstrates the scanity of the research devoted to the study of chemical carcinogens which are concerned only with the class of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), benzo(a)pyrene (BP), atmospheric pollution, emissions from vehicles, the cadmium heavy metal and products of smoking containing these substances. The connection with PAH (BP) and the development of breast, ovarian cancer, cadmium with the development of breast, endometrial, ovarian cancer in women and prostate cancer in men was established. Epidemiological data, combined with experimental ones, suggest a possible contribution of carcinogens into the increase of the incidence of hormone-dependent tumors. At the same time, mechanisms of action of PAH and cadmium on the development of hormone-dependent tumors are unclear. The accumulated experimental and epidemiological data allow us to conclude that the oncological danger of these carcinogens lies in the combination of genotoxic and hormone-mimetic properties; the main mechanisms, involved in the realization of the effect of BP and cadmium, are associated with changes and disorders at different levels of the structural and functional organization of the organism, including the endocrine system, which can lead to the development of tumors. The urgency of the problem of the incidence of hormone-dependent tumors and the potential role of the studied chemical carcinogens as pollutants of the environment of human functions indicate the need to take these circumstances into account when developing and implementing preventive measures.


Author(s):  
Wesley R. Bussman ◽  
Charles E. Baukal

Because process heaters are typically located outside, their operation is subject to the weather. Heaters are typically tuned at a given set of conditions; however, the actual operating conditions may vary dramatically from season to season and sometimes even within a given day. Wind, ambient air temperature, ambient air humidity, and atmospheric pressure can all significantly impact the O2 level, which impacts both the thermal efficiency and the pollution emissions from a process heater. Unfortunately, most natural draft process burners are manually controlled on an infrequent basis. This paper shows how changing ambient conditions can considerably impact both CO and NOx emissions if proper adjustments are not made as the ambient conditions change. Data will be presented for a wide range of operating conditions to show how much the CO and NOx emissions can be affected by changes in the ambient conditions for fuel gas fired natural draft process heaters, which are the most common type used in the hydrocarbon and petrochemical industries. Some type of automated burner control, which is virtually non-existent today in this application, is recommended to adjust for the variations in ambient conditions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 772 ◽  
pp. 705-710
Author(s):  
Li Wei Ju ◽  
Zhong Fu Tan ◽  
He Yin ◽  
Zhi Hong Chen

In order to be able to absorb the abandoned wind, increasing wind-connect amount, the paper study the way of wind power, thermal power joint run and puts forward wind power, thermal power joint run optimization model based on the energy-saving generation dispatching way under the environment of TOU price and the target of minimizing the cost of coal-fired cost, unit commitment and pollution emissions. The numerical example finds, the TOU price can realize the goal of peak load shifting, increasing the electricity demand in the low load and reducing electricity demand in the peak load. The model can increase the amount of wind-connect grid, absorb the abandoned wind, reduce the use of coal-fired units under the environment, increase the average electricity sales price and profit of Power Company. Therefore, the model has significant economical environmental benefits


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