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Collaborative Governance of Air Pollution Caused by Energy Consumption in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration Under Low-Carbon Constraints: Efficiency Measurement and Spatial Empirical Testing

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Abstract

This paper uses the EBM model to measure the collaborative governance efficiency of air pollution caused by energy consumption in 27 cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) urban agglomeration. The collaborative governance efficiency of these cities ranges from 0.6665 to 0.9356, with Shanghai having the highest efficiency (0.8277–0.9356) and Chuzhou having the lowest (0.6665–0.8787). On this basis, this article uses a spatial Durbin model and government panel data to test the drivers of air pollution collaborative governance efficiency, the empirical testing found that the relationship between environmental regulation intensity (ERI) and air collaborative governance efficiency (AGE) is U-shaped, with an inverse coefficient of impact of − 0.5852 and a positive coefficient of influence of its squared term of 0.3427. Air pollution governance investment level (AGI) has a 0.8107 positive effect on governance efficiency. All spatial lag term coefficients in the spatial test are positive, indicating a spatial spillover effect of collaborative governance efficiency air pollution caused by energy consumption across cities in the urban agglomeration. In addition, control variables: energy consumption intensity (ECI), the air quality index (AQI), per capita CO2 emission scale (PCE), and air pollution loss rate (ALI), had inverse correlations with governance efficiency, with impact coefficients of − 0.5185, − 0.5107, − 0.6164, and − 0.5147. Per capita, GDP level (PGL) and R&D investment intensity (RDII) had positive relationships with governance efficiency with coefficients of 0.6026 and 0.5786, respectively. Based on this foundation, policy recommendations have been proposed to enhance the collaborative governance efficiency of air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta urban cluster.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China National Natural Science Foundation of China for its financial support, and thanks the experts for their review.

Funding

This work has received funding from the general project of the national social science foundation of China: “Research on mechanism and supportive polices of environmental pollution cooperative governance in the process of regional integration development of the Yangtze River delta” (Approval number: 19BJL035).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, Jiangsu, China

    Tao Sun & Yannan Luo

  2. School of Economics, Qufu Normal University-Rizhao Campus, Rizhao, 276826, Shandong, China

    Zhengyu Zhang

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  1. Tao Sun
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  2. Yannan Luo
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Contributions

This paper was written by three authors. Yannan Luo: Writing—original draft, Methodology, Supervision; Methodology; Tao Sun: Conceptualization, writing—review and editing, Formal analysis providing research funds; Zhengyu Zhang participated in the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Tao Sun.

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Highlights

• EBM model is used to measure the air pollution collaborative governance efficiency.

• Air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta is caused by energy consumption.

• The factors influencing of air pollution collaborative governance efficiency are studied.

• The spatial Dubin model is used to test the driving factors.

• The YRD urban agglomeration is taken as an example for application research.

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Sun, T., Luo, Y. & Zhang, Z. Collaborative Governance of Air Pollution Caused by Energy Consumption in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration Under Low-Carbon Constraints: Efficiency Measurement and Spatial Empirical Testing. Water Air Soil Pollut 234, 566 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06579-z

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