Pollutant emission reduction effect through effluent tax,concentration-based effluent standard,or both

There are numerous studies comparing different kinds of environmental taxes and standards.However,forms of environmental standards focused by former researchers are usually quantitybased limits/standards(e.g.pounds per day or pounds per unit of output).Concentration-based emission standard(e.g.milligrams per liter of wastewater) as one important form of environmental standard has not been given much attention.In this article,comparable estimates of their probable effect on enterprise pollution reduction will be developed for concentrationbased effluent standards,effluent taxes,and a combination of both.A linear simulation model is used to clearly and obviously compare the effects of effluent taxes and concentration-based standards within the same figure.With one detailed application to the paper industry,some enlightenment and conclusions-as well as the general applicability of these principles-are then provided:Under the same effluent tax rate,enterprises,groups,and industries that are cleaner will reduce more pollutants than those that have higher pollutant abatement costs.It is recommended that effluent taxes are set by avoiding cutting it even at one stroke and considering the feasibility of pollution-reducing technology in various industries.It is necessary to reduce MAC of enterprises to better stimulate enterprises' or industries' emission reduction by preferential measures,such as high tax rate coordinated by speeding up the depreciation of environmental protection equipment.

MRIO model-based study on water nitrogen pollution transfer embodied in international trade

This study uses the global pollutant emission databases and global input-output model in 2015 to calculate the impact of international trade on global water nitrogen emission patterns,based on considering the total amount of pollutant transfer and pollutant emission intensity of trade flows The main conclusions are as follows:(1) There are always a large amount of water nitrogen emissions transferring from developed economies to developing economies embodied in their bilateral trade activities.Small amount of transfers are of some areas with similar endowments of agricultural resources or long distances.(2) In 2015,the net import of water nitrogen pollution embodied in China's trade was 160,000 tons,accounting for 2.72% of the global water nitrogen imports.The sharp increases in cereal imports,together with high food storage as well as high pollution intensity embedded in trade are the main reason.It is recommended that through applying alleviations such as agricultural machinery assistance and technical training to accelerate the transfer and spread of agricultural technology in Africa,Asia,and other regions,thus helping increase agricultural production productivity in underdeveloped areas and reducing the pollution intensity embodied in trade flows from underdeveloped areas to developed areas.