Evolution analysis of environmental standards: Effectiveness on air pollutant emissions reduction

Environmental standards play a critical role in the environmental protection policy landscape in China. Emission standards have significant impacts on the environmental management, especially on controlling the pollutant emissions and reducing environmental risks. The evolution and improvement of the air pollutants emission standards were critically analyzed, which focus on thermal power plant atmospheric pollutants emission standards, boiler air pollutant emission standards and atmospheric pollutants integrated emission standard. According to the different versions of the Atmospheric Pollutant Emission Standard of Thermal Power Plants, a case study was carried out in Shandong Province, China. Data was quantitatively analyzed to examine the effectiveness of environmental standards on pollutants emission reduction. The results showed that each amendment to the standard has a significant reduction effect on the discharge of pollutants. In Shandong Province, the emission coefficients of sulfur dioxide and soot (dust) in 2013 was only 15.9% and 11.6% of the 1993 level. This research provides a theoretical and practical reference for the formulation or revision of the environmental standards, especially for the developing countries.