Environmental Impact Assessment And Policy Simulation Of The Chinese Automotive Industry

The automotive industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the world.It is diverse,has long value chains and influences other business sectors.The automotive industry is a typical consumption-oriented industry,and has a positive impact on daily life.However,it has also introduced a series of challenges,such as environmental pressures and resources consumptions.Since 2009,the annual production and sales of automobiles in China exceeded those of the European Union,United States or Japan,and the Chinese automotive industry has been the largest worldwide.The Chinese automotive industry is in a period of rapid development,and is a great driving force for domestic consumption and economic growth.It is urgent to assess its environmental impact characteristics and the relevant planning,policies and their environmental efficiencies comprehensively and systematically.In this thesis,from economy-society-environment coupling system perspective,a comprehensive analytical framework,has been developed to analyze the overall environmental impacts of the Chinese automotive industry development,with integration of life cycle assessment,discrete choice,economic modeling,and scenario analysis.A four-quadrant matrix has been developed based on production/consumption,and direct/indirect perspectives,to evaluate the environmental impacts and resources consumptions of the overall and each section of the Chinese automotive industry,and identify the key sections and the spatial differences.From consumer perspective,a discrete choice model has been developed based on the consumer behaviors of automotive purchase and usage,to identify key elements of policies,couple the micro-behavior and macro-policy,and simulate the potential environmental impacts of key policy elements on Chinese automotive industry development.A computable general equilibrium model with environment account has been developed,to simulate the environmental policies,and evaluate their effects on the production and consumption structures of the automotive industry.The calculation results indicate that the development of the Chinese automotive industry has large environmental impact overall,especially for energy consumption and NO_x emission.The indirect impacts at the production stage and direct impacts at the consumption stage dominate the total impacts,and these sections are key for environmental pollution and resources consumption control.Smelting&pressing of metals,manufacture of rubber and plastics products,manufacture of raw chemical materials and chemical products,these industries are the main pollution emission sectors among the sectors related to the indirect impacts at the production stage.In the scenario of 20%pollution reduction,the sectors most related to the automotive industry would depress,including smelting&pressing of metals,manufacture of non-metallic mineral products,processing of petroleum;the automobile product demand would decrease by 0.6%.Rapid expansion of the automotive industry would increase the overall resources and environment pressure.The increase of alternative fuel vehicles proportion and the decrease of vehicle utilization rate would be helpful to reduce the resources and environmental impacts.In the scenario that the alternative fuel vehicles population increases by 19%,NO_x emission would be reduced by 27%compared with the lightweight development scenario.The annual average driving distance decrease by46%,energy consumption,water consumption,COD,SO₂ and NO_x emissions would be reduced by 9.0%,6.1%,29.0%,12.6%and 36.3%,compared with the fuel structure adjustment scenario.This thesis has systematically analyzed and comprehensively assessed the impacts of the Chinese automotive industry development on resources and environment,and summarized the system analysis process of the environmental impact assessment of the automobile industry.It is helpful for in-depth understanding of the intrinsic relationship of the automotive industry and economic,social and environmental systems.It is also valuable for improving the environmental impact assessment methodology and promoting the sustainable development of the automotive industry.