High Energy-Consuming Industrial Transfers and Environmental Pollution in China: A Perspective Based on Environmental Regulation

Environmental regulation and industrial restructuring are highly relevant to environmental governance and green development in China. A dynamic game model was used to analyse the mechanisms behind the role of environmental regulation in promoting the restructuring of energy-intensive industries. A dynamic spatial Durbin model was constructed to empirically test the dynamic spatial effects and regional heterogeneity of the transfer of high energy-consuming industries on environmental pollution under environmental regulation with panel data. Thus, the study found that the environmental emission effect of a single high energy-consuming industry transfer and environmental regulation is significant, while the combined effect of both exhibits a negative environmental effect. Environmental regulation and the concentration of high energy-consuming industries have a positive spatial spillover effect on environmental pollution, and the long-term effect is greater than the short-term effect; high energy-consuming industries are gradually transferred from the more developed regions in eastern and central China to the less developed regions in western China.