Suchergebnisse

Facing the increasing environmental degradation locally and globally, the Chinese government set mandatory goals of 10% reduction of SO2 emission in its 11th Five-Year Plan period (FYP, 2006–2010). In this paper we use Shanxi province to illustrate how policies and measures are implemented in practice at a provincial level as a response to the National FYP issued by the central government. Local policies are described and their effects are analyzed. We find that the 11th FYP goal for SO2 pollution reduction in Shanxi has been surpassed. SO2 reduction from estimated baseline level was calculated for the FYP period in order to identify which sectors have had the largest reductions. Regarding SO2, we find that Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) in power plants has been the most important, while either the FGD operation rate or the efficiency, or both, are much lower in practice than officially required. SO2 emission reduction from closing down outdated production capacity is small according to our estimates. This is due to the comparatively small use of coal in the units being closed down in Shanxi. Necessary steps to achieve the targets in the 12th FYP are briefly discussed ; "NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Environmental Developmen. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Environmental Development;4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2012.09.002"