Effect of cleaner residential heating policy on air pollution: A case study in Shandong Province, China.

Coal-fired heating in winter is a primary source of air pollution in many countries. In northern China, the use of scattered coal for winter heating has led to severe environmental issues. In this study, we use a quasi-natural experiment in Shandong Province, China, to investigate the effectiveness of a cleaner heating transition policy. Specifically, we use a difference-in-differences approach to identify the effects of the cleaner heating transition policy on air pollution using high-resolution hourly data. Our findings indicate that implementation of the policy could effectively reduce air pollution by decreasing a PM2.5 by 7.32%, PM10 by 2.62%, SO2 by 3.98%, and NO2 by 4.67%. In addition, we used event study and a series of robustness checks to further support our findings. Notably, our findings indicate that implementation of the policy includes a spatial spillover effect, which differs according to the level of compulsory implementation and the distance to a city centre. Overall, our findings can help promote the application of a cleaner transitioning policy for the entire country and offer guidance for further policy development regarding the effective reduction of winter air pollution in the developing world.

Reduction Effect of Carbon Emission Trading Policy in Decreasing PM2.5 Concentrations in China.

Carbon emissions trading is a market-based tool for solving environmental issues. This study used a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to estimate China's carbon trading pilots to reduce PM2.5 concentrations. The results of this quasi-natural experiment show that the carbon trading policy effectively reduces PM2.5 by 2.7 µg/m3. We used a propensity score matching (PSM-DID) method to minimize selection bias to construct a treatment and a control group. The results show the policy effect is robust, with a PM2.5 concentration reduction of 2.6 µg/m3. Furthermore, we employed a series of robustness checks to support our findings, which notably indicate that the effect of carbon trading on reducing PM2.5 differs across regions over the years. The western region of China tends to be the most easily affected region, and the early years of carbon trading show slightly greater reduction effects. Our findings provide valuable policy implications for establishing and promoting carbon trading in China and other countries.

Identifying important ecosystem service areas based on distributions of ecosystem services in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China.

Water conservation, soil conservation, biodiversity importance, and sandstorm prevention are important ecosystem services (ES) and the core challenges to sustainable economic and societal development in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region. Using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model and observation data, we identified high-value ES areas in the BTH region. The high-value ES areas were mainly found in the northern and southwestern parts of the region, like the Yanshan Mountain Range and the Taihang Mountain Range. The ecosystem in the northern mountains is dominated by forest and grassland, and generally provides more valuable ES than does the eastern agricultural plain. Greater species richness was mainly found in the northern mountains with low human activity intensity. Due to its proximity, the Yanshan Mountain Range is critical to the health of the local ecosystem of Beijing. High biodiversity was present in the vicinity of the national nature reserves. Compared with other regions of China, changes in the BTH region are highly intense. Reinforcement of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration in areas with a high degree of ES in the BTH region are capable of effectively improving habitat quality and regional ES.