Decoupling effect between economic development and environmental pollution: A spatial-temporal investigation using 31 provinces in China

Environmental pollution is an important factor affecting the sustainable development of a country or region. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to deeply study and judge the decoupling relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution. On the basis of 31 provinces in China, the present paper decomposes the decoupling elastic coefficient into scale decoupling elasticity, technical decoupling elasticity, and structural decoupling elasticity by log mean divisia index and analyzes the decoupling relation between economic growth and environmental pollution from 2001 to 2015. We also evaluate the degree of the decoupling in time and space for various provinces. The results show economic growth has decoupled from industrial waste water emissions; industrial solid waste has gradually gained some improvement; the decoupling state between economic growth and industrial exhaust is unstable; and the increasing economic scale is the key driver for environmental pollution. However, the evidence also shows that technology plays a positive role in the decoupling. From analysis of the spatial pattern of decoupling, almost all developed areas in the eastern coastal region have achieved decoupling, while decoupling in the middle and western regions is unstable. Finally, the revision of The Law of the People's Republic of China on Energy Conservation has played a certain role on the decoupling of economic growth and environmental pollution.