Impact of Environmental Investments and Air Protection Costs on the Sustainable Development of Coal Mining Regions

The transition to sustainable development of mining regions depends on the size and effectiveness of environmental investments. This study examines the impact of investments and current costs of air protection on the amount of air emissions from stationary sources. We used data on investments in atmospheric air protection, current costs of air protection, and amounts of air emission in 12 mining regions of Russia. The impact of investment and emission costs was simulated using standard pairwise regression equations and the Almon distributed lag model. The statistical insignificance of the models has been established, both in terms of the form of coupling equation and the significance of most coefficients with explanatory variables. The distributed lag model using data on investments in air protection over five years is also statistically insignificant. The paper also discusses the impact of investments and current costs on the specific emission amount per 1 ruble of the gross regional product. The model of pairwise linear regression and other possible forms of the coupling equation in this case are statistically insignificant. The study found that investments and current costs do not affect emissions from stationary sources. This suggests a lack of investments in the air protection and a low efficiency of their use.