Contribution weight of engineering technology on pollutant emission reduction based on IPAT and LMDI methods

The “Energy-saving and Emission Reduction” (ESER) plan for 2011–2015 was developed by the National Development and Reform Commission of China. This plan declared that major pollutants should be reduced by 10 %. In the context of rapid economic growth, it is necessary to develop appropriate measures to achieve the ESER goal. As one of the pollutant emission reduction measures, engineering technology in China has played a gradually increasing role in improving current environments, owing to its various approaches. To realize its positive impact on the environment, this study calculates the contribution of engineering technology on pollutant emission reduction over 2005–2010. Two methods, the impact of population, affluence and technology (IPAT) on the environment and logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI), are applied to analyze contributions of technological progress and engineering technology on pollutant emission reduction, respectively. Industrial chemical oxygen demand (COD) and SO₂ are chosen as two pollutant indexes. The result shows that the contributions over 2005–2010 of engineering technology for reduction of COD and SO₂ were 62.60 and 62.71 %, respectively. In addition, results of annual contributions exceeded 80 %, except in 2009 driven by the US financial crisis and other possible reasons. The strong contributions indicate that engineering technology greatly contributed to protecting the environment. In this paper, the contribution of engineering technology on pollutant emission reduction is first calculated, and IPAT and LMDI methods are initially applied in related calculations. This study has referential value for governments to promote engineering technology using its various implementation approaches in future environmental policies.