Atmospheric pollution reduction effect and regional predicament: An empirical analysis based on the Chinese provincial NOx emissions

Atmospheric pollution emissions have become a matter of public concern in recent years. However, most of the existing researches on NOx pollution are from the natural science and technology perspective, few studies have been conducted from an economic point, and regional differences have not been given adequate attention. This paper adopts provincial panel data from 2006 to 2013 and the LMDI model to analyze the key driving factors and regional dilemmas of NOx emissions. The results show that significant regional disparities still exit on NOx emissions and its reduction effect 27 provinces didn't accomplish their corresponding reduction targets. Economic development factor is the dominating driving factor of NOx emissions during the study period, while energy efficiency and technology improvement factors offset total NOx emissions in the majority of provinces. In addition, the industrial structure factor plays a more significant role in reducing the NOx emissions after 2011. Therefore, the government should consider all these factors as well as regional heterogeneity in developing appropriate pollution mitigating policies. It's necessary to change NOx emissions control attitude from original key areas control to divided-zone control, not only attaches great importance to the reduction of the original key areas, but also emphasizes the new potential hotspots with high NOx emissions. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.