Identifying the driving factors of NO₂ pollution of One Belt One Road countries: satellite observation technique and...

To recover the global economy, China in 2013 called for a new global strategy, namely, "One Belt and One Road Initiative" (BRI), which aims at reinforcing regional economic cooperation, enhancing regional collaboration of economic policy, and realizing the goal of rapid economic development of member countries. Accelerating industrialization not only has been recognized as an effective way to stimulate economic development, but also lead to the serious issue of environmental pollution, which challenges the environmental sustainability. In this study, we focus on the industrializing region as a study area to investigate the driving factors of environmental pollution. Technically, we utilized satellite observation technique to obtain NO₂ columns data to denote environmental pollution and then applied dynamic spatial panel data models to evaluate what affects NO₂ pollution levels. The findings are the following. (1) NO₂ pollution exhibits significant and positive spatial autocorrelation, indicating spatial spillovers of NO₂ pollution. (2) Lebanon, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, and India experienced the largest increase of NO₂ pollution while NO₂ pollution in Singapore, Hungary, Greece, and Ukraine was substantially reduced. (3) The results of the dynamic spatial panel data models show that both the time dynamics effects and the spatial spillover effects are found to be significant and positive. In other words, both effects should be considered. Population is the foremost contributor to increase NO₂ pollution while urbanization is an effective way to reduce pollution. An EKC relationship between NO₂ pollution and per capita income was verified. Besides, industrialization, foreign direct investment, and trade openness have positive impacts on NO₂ pollution.