Economic transition and industrial sulfur dioxide emissions in the Chinese economy.

China transitioned into "new normal phase" during 2007 to 2017, shifting from pursuing rapid GDP growth to a win-win state of economic development and environmental improvement. Using the input-output (IO) table for 2007-2012 and the latest IO table for 2012-2017, an IO model of China's industrial SO2 emissions is established and structural decomposition analysis (SDA) is applied to examine the changes in industrial SO2 emissions resulting from this economic transition. Five influencing factors (emission intensity, production technology, final demand expenditure, final demand structure and economic scale) are taken into consideration. The analysis shows that emission intensity and economic scale are the most influential factors on SO2 emissions. Emission intensity reduced SO2 emissions by 16,560,886 t in 2012-2017 whilst economic scale increased SO2 emissions by 473,490 t. Compared with the period 2007-2012, the contribution rate of emission intensity increased from -82.3% to -189.2%, while that of economic scale decreased from 131.8% to 54.1%. The total contributions of 5 factors to SO2 reduction increased from -5,249,417 t to -12,783,248 t, and the contribution rate increased from -24.8% to -146%. China's energy conservation and emission reduction has achieved remarkable results between 2007 and 2017. In "new normal phase", the slowing of China economic growth, the transition of economic development, industrial structural adjustment and rational consumption habits have had significant effects in reducing environmental pollution.