Energy and air? The impact of energy efficiency improvement on air quality in China

Energy shortage and air pollution are the two key issues hindering global economic development. And the optimal measure to improve air quality is by increasing energy efficiency. The influence of energy efficiency, socioeconomic and natural climatic factors on air quality is analyzed under the theory of STIRPAT. The energy efficiency is measured using the super SBM model while air pollutants are estimated by sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrogen oxides (NO x ) and dust and smoke (DS). It is highly coupled between the energy efficiency and the spatial distribution of air quality. Increased energy efficiency can improve air quality by reducing SO 2 and NO x , but the impact on DS is not significant. Air pollutants decrease by about 0.5313% for every 1% increase in temperature and 0.1046% for every 1% increase in precipitation. Consumption will exacerbate air pollution, and there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between population density, economic scale, urbanization, technology innovation and air pollution. It is worth mentioning that this work adds temperature and precipitation to the STIRPAT as natural climatic factors, analyzing the impact of energy efficiency on air pollution under the two-factor restrictions of socioeconomic and natural climatic factors. Finally, management suggestions are made in order to improve air quality.