Air Pollution Control Policies in China: A Retrospective and Prospects

Abstract

With China’s significant role on pollution emissions and related health damage, deep and up-to-date understanding of China’s air pollution policies is of worldwide relevance. Based on scientific evidence for the evolution of air pollution and the institutional background of environmental governance in China, we examine the development of air pollution control policies from the 1980s and onwards. We show that: (1) The early policies, until 2005, were ineffective at reducing emissions; (2) During 2006–2012, new instruments which interact with political incentives were introduced in the 11th Five-Year Plan, and the national goal of reducing total sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 10% was achieved. However, regional compound air pollution problems dominated by fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ground level ozone (O3) emerged and worsened; (3) After the winter-long PM2.5 episode in eastern China in 2013, air pollution control policies have been experiencing significant changes on multiple fronts. In this work we analyze the different policy changes, the drivers of changes and key factors influencing the effectiveness of policies in these three stages. Lessons derived from the policy evolution have implications for future studies, as well as further reforming the management scheme towards air quality and health risk oriented directions.

Spatial and seasonal variations of aerosols over China from two decades of multi-satellite observations – Part 1: ATSR (1995–2011) and MODIS C6.1 (2000–2017)

“…However, the economic situation and governmental policy measures to improve air quality by emission reduction obviously influence the temporal variations of the AOD in each province. This is due to the fact that differences in the emissions between provinces also occur due to the differences in regional policies on emission control and their implementation schedule (Jin et al, 2016;. In addition, both meteorological conditions and large-scale circulation will vary from year to year and between different parts of China during each year.…”

“…The results from the ADV and MODIS AOD comparison will be utilized in Part 2 to construct a combined long-term AOD time series from ADV and MODIS for the period from 1995 to 2017. AOD tendencies over the selected regions will be estimated in Part 2 for the different periods characterized by changes in air pollution control policies in China (Jin et al, 2016;.…”

Environmental Challenges and Current Practices in China—A Thorough Analysis

“…The recent environmental problems in China have evolved towards a matter of scale and political priority. Large-scale national policies have been initiated and implemented, such as the 2015 Environmental Protection Law, the 2017 Environmental Protection Tax Law (implemented since 1 January 2018), Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, and so on [13].…”

Decomposing Air Pollutant Emissions in Asia: Determinants and Projections

“…In general, over the past 25 years these standards have been updated and made more and more stringent, depending on the environmental goals of individual countries, considerations about economic development, and the competitiveness and evolution of the structure of economies. There are various obstacles reported in the literature that, in many cases, have had negative impacts on the effectiveness of policies and delayed their implementation, such as an underdeveloped institutional capacity, fragmented policy-making regime, lack of enforcement mechanisms, or moderate public pressure [23].…”

“…The share of coal-fired power plants equipped with sulfur scrubbers, for example, increased from 10% in 2005 to 85% in 2015, and nearly 1.5% of GDP in China has been spent on investments in pollution control over this period. However, the overall policy framework suffered from numerous flaws and deficiencies [23,35] and did not prevent the repeated haze pollution crisis in 2013 and beyond [36,37].…”