Regional differences of pollution emissions in China: contributing factors and mitigation strategies

• We examine the key driving forces of PM2.5 emissions at the regional level in China.
• The impacts of urbanization on PM2.5 emissions vary across regions.
• Energy efficiency improvement has greater potential to mitigate PM2.5 emissions in the western region.
• The regional difference should be taken into account in reducing China's PM2.5 emissions.

Pollution emissions have become a matter of public concern in recent years. However, the vast majority of existing researches on PM2.5 pollution are from the natural science perspective, and few studies have been conducted from an economic point of view. This paper adopts provincial panel data from 2001 to 2012 and panel data models to analyze the key driving forces of PM2.5 emissions at the regional level in China. The results show that economic growth is a decisive factor of PM2.5 emissions. The impacts of urbanization on PM2.5 emissions vary across regions and decrease continuously from the central region to the western and eastern regions. The effects of private cars and coal consumption on PM2.5 emissions in the eastern region are greater than that in the central and western regions because of significant differences in R&D investment, private car ownership and total coal consumption. Energy efficiency improvement has greater potential to mitigate PM2.5 emissions in the central and western regions than that in the eastern region due to its low level of technology. Hence, in order to effectively reduce emissions, the Chinese government should consider all these factors as well as regional heterogeneity in developing appropriate mitigation policies.