Research on Dynamic Monitoring of Coordinated Development of Economy, Environment and High Haze Pollution Industries Such as the Thermal Power Industry in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

Abstract

With the accelerating urbanization process in China, the extensive economic growth model with high energy consumption and high pollution aggravates atmospheric environmental pollution and restricts the sustainable development of the social economy. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has the most severe haze pollution and the most acute contradiction between resources, environment and economic development. Based on the physical coupling theory, this paper constructs a coupling coordination degree model of the economy, environment and high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry. Through literature analysis and expert investigation of the economic, industrial and environmental data of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region from 2006 to 2018, the coordinated development of the economy, environment and high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, in the above region, was dynamically monitored. The monitoring results show that the development level of the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei region is significantly different, and the three subregions have not entered the stage of coordinated development. Moreover, since 2015, they have been in a bottleneck period of development and have not achieved a higher level of progress. The three subregions have different advantages and restraining factors. For example, the backward level of Hebei’s economy and high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, restrict the coordinated development of the region as a whole. Only by accelerating the high-quality development of the Hebei economy can we break through the bottleneck of the development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.

1. Introduction

As an important part of the Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone in China, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region possesses the largest comprehensive industrial base in northern China, and its extensive economic development mode has brought rapid economic growth. It also suffers from serious haze pollution and has the most prominent contradiction between industrial development and economic development. The high proportion of high haze pollution industries and the great intensity of pollution emissions in Tianjin and Hebei are obstacles to economic growth for the region. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has the highest level of air pollution in China. Since the outbreak of haze pollution in China in 2012, the years from 2013 to 2016 featured serious haze pollution. In 2017, a large number of haze pollution enterprises had their production strictly limited. This effectively mitigated haze pollution and obstructed economic development simultaneously. In 2017 and 2018, ten cities were rated as cities with the worst air quality in China, among which eight were in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. In 2019, the ratio of days with excellent or good air quality in the region and surrounding areas reached only 63.5%, 21.7% lower than that in the Yangtze River Delta. A dynamic monitoring model to coordinate the control of high haze pollution industries to ensure the efficiency of industrial development, encourage economic growth and minimize the negative impact of industrial development on the environment at the same time is desperately needed.

As the main source of China’s electric power, the thermal power industry accounts for about 50% of China’s total coal consumption. High haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, are the most important source of smog pollution in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Therefore, how to dynamically monitor these industries is of significant theoretical and practical research value. As early as the mid-19th century, foreign scholars began researching the interactive relationship between the ecological environment and economic development; in the mid-and-late 20th century, they continued the research and formed many mature theories and models. To name a few, the coordinated development theory of Norgaard (1990) [1], the relevant studies on using the input–output model to measure economic behavior and the environment of Cumber (1966) [2] and Daly (1968) [3], the modelling of the environment and economic development with the expert knowledge system of Bithas (1988) [4], and the economy–energy–environment impact model of Oliveira et al. (2011) [5] have all been widely distributed. In recent years, Chinese scholars have conducted multiple research studies on the coordinated development of polluting industries, economic growth and the ecological environment. In terms of research contents, the research showing the interconnectedness of the ecological environment and economic development [6,7,8,9,10]) is the richest. However, as there is still no uniform concept and classification method for polluting industries, research on polluting industries and the ecological environment [11] and polluting industries and economic development [12] is relatively weak. In particular, research on the relationship between polluting industries, the ecological environment and economic development [13] is relatively deficient. While there is considerable cross-regional research [14], northeast three provinces research [15], Yangtze River Delta research [16,17], Yellow River Basin research [18,19] and targeted provincial [20] municipal level research [21,22], the overall research on the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is scarce. The authors believe that research into the coordinated development and connections between the three systems of economic development, ecological environment and high haze pollution industries in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is of great significance to the coordinated development of the region and the construction of a world-class urban agglomeration ecosystem. This paper aims to reveal the reasons behind the current state of uncoordinated development, hoping to provide government departments with ideas on how to formulate targeted counter-measures and suggestions.

2. Data Sources and Research Methods

2.1. Data Collection and Processing

In this paper, the years between 2006 and 2018 were used as the sample interval for the research, with the data mainly from the 2007–2019 China Statistical Yearbook, China City Statistical Yearbook, China Environmental Statistics Bulletin, China Statistical Yearbook on Science and Technology, Beijing Statistical Yearbook, Tianjin Statistical Yearbook, Hebei Economic Statistics Yearbook and Hebei Ecological Environment Bulletin. Meantime, the Statistics Communique on National Economy and Social Development in the corresponding years was used to make up some missing data. Finally, the complete data available for the 13 cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region were obtained.

Given that the selected indicators are different in nature and dimensions, this paper used the following formula to conduct standardized processing of the original data to eliminate the influences caused by the difference of indicator dimension or indicator measure magnitude.

$$u_{ij}=\left\{\begin{array}{c}\frac{x_{ij}-\min \left(x_{ij}\right)}{\max \left(x_{ij}\right)-\min \left(x_{ij}\right)}, u_{ij} has positive efficacy \left(1\right)\\ \frac{\max \left(x_{ij}\right)-x_{ij}}{\max \left(x_{ij}\right)-\min \left(x_{ij}\right)}, u_{ij} has negative efficacy \left(2\right)\end{array}\right.$$

2.2. Research Methods

This paper’s selection of theoretical indicators is based on five basic principles: validity, systematicity, operability, comparability and dynamism.

In this paper, the coupled model is used to dynamically monitor the coordinated development level of high haze pollution industries. The specific application is as follows:

• Construction of the indicator system and weight determination

High haze pollution industries, economic development and the ecological environment are three mutually interrelated complex systems. To facilitate the objective, operational, and sustainable research on the coordinated development of these systems as well as their relationships to the local economy, literature statistics and theoretical analysis methods were adopted to determine the preliminary index system. At the index system level, this paper follows a stratified index system as suggested by Zeng Rong et al. (2000) [23]. This paper chose 80 frequently cited papers on the ecological environment, economic development and industrial development published in domestic core journals in the past 10 years and determined which were cited more frequently in recent years. For the ecological environment index, this paper referred to the China Sustainable Development Strategy Report from 2000, released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences [24] and divides the ecological environment into three element layers, i.e., the self-purification capacity of the environment, the pressure on the ecological environment and the governance of the ecological environment. In terms of the development index, this paper highlights the current major fields in China’s economic development and follows the research of Che Bingqing et al. (2012) [25] and Zhou Cheng et al. (2016) [16] to build a subsystem of economic development that comprises economic output, economic quality and economic structure. For the polluting industry index, we use the research results of Tang Zhongfu et al. (2004) [26] and Yang Dacheng (2006) [27] and amplify and integrate the characteristics of the subsystems of high haze pollution industries from the aspects of industrial input, industrial output and industrial benefit. Afterwards, experts and professors on industrial economics from the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Institute of Hebei University of Economics and Business were invited to revise the evaluation indexes with the Delphi Method. Then, we adjusted the evaluation indexes in line with their feedback and constructed a comprehensive evaluation index system for high haze pollution industries in the region. Lastly, we use comprehensive weight assignment analysis that combines the subjective stratified analysis method and objective entropy method to determine the index weight. The results are listed in

Table 1. Evaluation index system of coordinated development between high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and the local economy.

Subsystem	Level-I Indexes	Level-II Indexes	Weight of Analytic Hierarchy Process	Weight of Entropy Method	Comprehensive Weight	Mean Value	Standard Deviation
Economic development level	Economic aggregate 0.473	GDP	0.13	0.111	0.121	4286.727	5649.619
		Total investment in fixed assets	0.1	0.084	0.092	2460.062	2710.17
		Total retail sales of consumer goods	0.06	0.113	0.086	1614.275	2218.843
		Local fiscal revenue	0.11	0.184	0.147	504.142	1038.145
		Local fiscal expenditure *	0.05	0.003	0.026	730.604	1244.481
	Economic quality 0.368	Economic growth volatility *	0.09	0.000	0.045	0.182	45.183
		Per capita retail sales of consumer goods	0.06	0.066	0.063	19,670.96	17,398.91
		Proportion of scientific research investment in GDP	0.07	0.091	0.080	0.223	0.293
		Number of patents	0.05	0.228	0.139	7445.888	19,014.94
		Urbanization	0.03	0.051	0.041	44.157	17.409
	Economic structure 0.160	Proportion of added value of primary industry in GDP	0.07	0.024	0.047	11.25	5.176
		Proportion of added value of secondary industry in GDP	0.09	0.011	0.050	46.822	9.375
		Proportion of added value of tertiary industry in GDP	0.09	0.034	0.062	41.927	12.303
Development level of high haze pollution industries such as thermal power industry	Industry input 0.405	Fixed assets	0.08	0.140	0.110	1098.397	1170.414
		Current assets	0.06	0.162	0.111	856.106	1013.144
		The average number of employees	0.05	0.146	0.098	125,920.7	107,804
		Number of enterprises	0.06	0.111	0.086	415.124	345.329
	Industry output 0.351	Gross industrial output value	0.1	0.139	0.120	2203.972	2260.678
		Total profits	0.09	0.109	0.099	106.17	146.667
		The main business cost *	0.04	0.012	0.026	1963.157	2049.007
		The main business income	0.07	0.142	0.106	2195.161	2267.455
	Industrial benefits 0.244	Asset liability ratio *	0.13	0.001	0.065	379.841	112.563
		The main business profitability	0.1	0.005	0.053	65.894	24.108
		Ratio of profits to cost	0.07	0.010	0.040	627.039	511.401
		Product sales rate	0.15	0.023	0.086	593.381	90.912
Ecological environment level	Self-purification capacity of environment 0.328	Mean annual temperature	0.04	0.034	0.037	12.584	1.771
		Annual cumulative precipitation	0.07	0.049	0.059	530.376	126.569
		Daily precipitation ≥ 0.1 mm number of days	0.09	0.056	0.073	65.525	8.948
		Average two-minute wind speed	0.1	0.064	0.082	2.108	0.452
		Built-up area *	0.03	0.034	0.032	262.445	367.158
		green coverage rate of built-up area	0.07	0.019	0.045	40.098	6.041
	Ecological environment pressure 0.192	Population density *	0.02	0.023	0.021	3244.722	2333.992
		Industrial sulfur dioxide emission *	0.06	0.028	0.044	90,902.2	74,310.02
		Industrial smoke (powder) dust emission *	0.04	0.001	0.020	75,929.54	166,140.1
		PM 2.5 annual average concentration *	0.08	0.068	0.074	61.189	24.694
		PM10 annual average concentration *	0.05	0.014	0.032	112.823	43.114
	Ecological environment treatment 0.480	Number of days of air quality standard II and above	0.12	0.044	0.082	256.716	83.599
		Gas penetration rate	0.05	0.002	0.026	97.359	7.368
		Industrial smoke (powder) dust removal amount	0.08	0.345	0.213	4,265,750	7,068,673
		Industrial sulfur dioxide removal amount	0.1	0.219	0.159	173,806.1	157,389

* negative indexes.

.

• Description of evaluation indicators of economic development

Economic aggregates. GDP is the final result of production activities of all resident units of a country (or region) at national market prices. Investment in fixed assets of the whole society is the general term for the amount of work of building and acquiring fixed assets of the entire society in a certain time expressed in monetary terms and the costs related to this. Retail sales of social consumer goods are the sum of the retail sales of consumer goods to urban and rural residents and social groups from various economic types of wholesale and retail trade, catering and other industries. This indicator reflects the supply of consumer goods to residents and social groups through different commodity distribution channels to meet their living needs. It is an essential indicator for studying people’s lives, the purchasing power of social consumer goods and money circulation. Local fiscal revenue refers to the revenue obtained by the state treasury through its participation in distributing social products. Local fiscal expenditure is the amount of money at the government’s disposal.

Economic quality. Economic growth volatility = (current year GDP growth rate − previous year GDP growth rate)/previous year GDP growth rate × 100%. Per capita retail sales of social consumer goods = retail sales of social consumer goods (CNY 100 million)/total regional year-end population (10,000 people) × 100%. Scientific research investment as a percentage of GDP = scientific research expenditure (CNY 100 million)/GDP (CNY 100 million) × 100%. The number of patents granted refers to the number of patents granted by the patent administration department during the reporting period. Urbanization rate = urban population/total population × 100%.

Economic structure. Economic structure evaluation indicators include three basic ones: the proportion of the added value of the primary industry to GDP, the proportion of the added value of the secondary industry to GDP and the proportion of the added value of the tertiary industry to GDP.

Industrial input. Fixed assets are non-monetary assets that are held by an enterprise for the production of products, provision of services, rental or operation and management, used for more than 12 months and valued at a certain standard. Current assets are assets that can be realized or used within a business cycle of one year or more and are an essential part of the enterprise’s assets. The number of enterprises is the sum of the number of households of industrial enterprises counted. The average number of employees = the sum of the 12-month average number of employees in the report/12.

Industrial output. Total industrial output is the total amount of sold or available-for-sale industrial products produced by industrial enterprises in a certain period expressed in monetary terms. Total profit is the final financial result achieved by the production and operation activities of the enterprise in a certain period. Revenue from the main business refers to the business income obtained by the enterprise engaged in the production and operation activities of the industry. The main business incomes are revenue received by the enterprise in selling goods, providing labour services and other operating activities.

Industrial benefits. Asset–liability ratio = total liabilities/total assets × 100%. The profit margin of the main business = (revenue from the main business − cost of the main business − tax and surcharge of the main business)/revenue from the main business × 100%. Cost profit margin = total profit/(selling expenses + administrative expenses + financial expenses) × 100%. Product sales rate = industrial sales output value/total industrial output value (current price) × 100%.

Environmental self-purification capacity. The annual average temperature is the yearly average temperature of the place or the site for the year obtained by dividing the sum of the daily average temperature measured at the meteorological station for the year by the number of days in the year. Annual accumulated precipitation is the total amount of precipitation in a year. The built-up area is the area within the city administrative district that has been developed and constructed. The municipal public facilities and public facilities are basically available. The greening coverage rate of built-up area is the percentage of greening coverage area in the urban built-up area.

Ecological environment pressure. Population density is the number of people per unit of land area. PM 2.5 concentration is expressed in milligrams of respirable particulate matter per cubic meter of air. The annual average PM10 concentration is expressed in milligrams of respirable particulate matter per cubic meter of air.

Ecological environment treatment. The number of days with air quality at level 2 and above is calculated. Gas penetration rate = the number of people using gas in the urban built-up area/population in the urban built-up area × 100%. Industrial smoke (dust) removal = industrial smoke (dust) generation − industrial smoke (dust) emissions. Industrial sulfur dioxide removal = industrial sulfur dioxide generation − industrial sulfur dioxide emissions.

• Model of coordinated development degree

As each system differs in its own development process when calculating with the coupling model, it will lead to low development but high coupling; that is, the development level of each subsystem is low but the calculation result of coupling degree is high, which is obviously contrary to the facts. To that end, to better judge the coordination degree of 3D interactive coupling of high haze pollution industries and reflect the coupling coordination law while avoiding the abovementioned low development but high coupling, this paper introduces a coordinated development degree model, with the formula as follows:

$$D=\sqrt{C\times T} , in which T=\alpha f\left(x\right)+\beta g\left(y\right)+\gamma h\left(z\right)$$

(3)

where D is the coupling coordination degree of the three systems, C is the coupling degree, and T is the comprehensive evaluation index of coupling and coordinated development of the system of high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, economic system, and ecological environment system, reflecting the overall development level of the three. Here, $\alpha , \beta \mathrm{and} \gamma$ are undetermined coefficients. Building on the idea of sustainable development, this paper argues that the development of high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, is as important as economic development and ecological environment, so $\alpha =\beta =\gamma$ = 1/3. The coupling coordination function integrates the coupling degree C of high haze pollution industries and the comprehensive development level of the three systems T, D ∈ [0, 1]; when D = 0, the coupling coordination degree of high haze pollution industries is the lowest; with the growth of D, the coupling coordination of the three systems (the thermal power industry, the local economy and the ecological environment) is improving; when D is 1, the three systems promote each other and are well-coordinated, and the entire system develops to high harmony from low harmony and steadily to the best coupling state. Based on the above analysis, the coupling and coordinated development degree of high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry and the local economy is divided into ten categories. See

Table 2. Classification system and grading standard of coordinated development degree.

Coordinated Development Degree D	[0, 0.1)	[0.1, 0.2)	[0.2, 0.3)	[0.3, 0.4)	[0.4, 0.5)
Type of coordinated development	Extreme disorder Regression	Severe disorder Regression	Moderate disorder Regression	Mild disorder Regression	On the verge of disorder Regression
Coordinated development degree D	[0.5, 0.6)	[0.6, 0.7)	[0.7, 0.8)	[0.8, 0.9)	[0.9, 1]
Type of coordinated development	Barely coordination Development	Primary coordination Development	Intermediate coordination Development	Good coordination Development	High-quality coordination Development

for details.

3. Results and Analysis of Dynamic Monitoring

3.1. Results and Analysis of Horizontal Monitoring

From Figure 1, we can see that although the coupling and coordinated development in Beijing decreased from 2006 to 2018, the city cluster in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region reflected the inability of Beijing to coordinate high haze pollution industries, the economy and ecology which needed further optimization and adjustment. The coupling coordination degree of Tianjin was higher than Beijing from 2011 to 2016 and increased slowly after falling in 2017, signifying that Tianjin saw uncoordinated factors in the three systems in 2017. The coupling coordination degree of Hebei Province lagged far behind Beijing and Tianjin. It increased steadily from 2006 to 2012 and fell suddenly in 2013 and 2014, signifying the severe incoordination between polluting industries, the economy and the ecological environment in Hebei Province in those two years. It has increased steadily since 2015.

The reasons for the discrepancies in the coupling degree and coordinated development degree of city clusters in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region include three aspects (Figure 2):

• Subsystems have great differences in the development level. Beijing is characterized by an economic development system, Tianjin with a system of high haze pollution industries and Hebei with an ecological environment system. This is the result of the long-term accumulation of regional development strategies and policy orientation and the basis of functional orientation of the three segments in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. According to the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Integration Initiative, Beijing is a centre for scientific and technological innovation, international exchanges, culture and policy; Tianjin is a national pilot area of reform and opening up, a national advanced manufacturing research and development centre and a financial innovation and operation demonstration zone; Hebei is an ecological environment support area in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and an important national base of modern business logistics. The three places are working to forge an integration pattern for the region to maintain their advantages for the long-term.
• Subsystems have different growth rate gaps. ① Recently, in Beijing, the ecological subsystem grew slowly and even dropped. This is probably due to the growth spurt in the number of motor vehicles in Beijing. The number of vehicles in Beijing in 2017 increased by 2.92% from 2016. Currently, the number of vehicles in Beijing has reached 6.1 million, and the impact of exhaust emissions on air pollution is also growing. ② From 2015 to 2018, the gap between subsystems in Tianjin was narrowing. In part driven by the Binhai New Area, industrialization drew even with computerization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. Environmental management also made marked achievements. Through accelerating the implementation of “four-clean and one-greening”, the heavily polluted air has been properly dealt with. Monitoring data displayed that the average concentration of PM 2.5 decreased by 15.7%. ③ The gap between the three subsystems in Hebei Province has been around for 13 years. There was a lucrative ecosystem in 2008, but the level of economic development and the number of severe smog polluting industries are both low, so the coupling level is weak. There are three reasons for this situation. First is the low economic aggregate. Due to the impact of the financial crisis in 2008, investment in fixed assets was CNY 380.68 billion. Second is poor economic quality. In 2008, there was a wide gap between urban and rural personal incomes, and serious problems existed in the urban–rural structures. Third is the unreasonable economic structure. The development of service lags behind, and inadequate industrial development limits the gradual expansion of the industrial structure, leading to the instability of economic growth and declining social benefits. Recently, however, Hebei Province has stepped up the restructuring and quality upgrading of polluting industries. In 2015, it further optimized the industrial structure with the enterprise structure. The number of small and medium high-tech enterprises increased by 26,000 in two years, and the economic quality increased markedly. Hence, economy–ecology–high-haze pollution industries achieved relative coupling, and the coupling degree was around 0.313.
• Subsystems have great differences in development level. ① The level of subsystems in Tianjin is high as a whole, so its overall coordinated development has been leading the way. Since 2017, however, it has decreased significantly, which may be due to the average annual growth rate of the economy in Tianjin since 2017 having fallen to an all-time low over the years. Various indexes, including the entire number of personnel and municipal scientific achievements, saw rapid negative growth in 2017 for the first time. The total amount of traditional non-ferrous industries, such as metallurgy and petrochemicals, account for a large share of the area’s industrial base, with the effects on the economy only falling slightly, but it could even fall rapidly again. ② Although the development level of the economy in Beijing was fairly high in recent years and that of high haze pollution industries was moderate, the ecological environment system had stark disadvantages. So, its coordinated development level was relatively weak and even dropped in 2013. A clue is the large number of highly polluting plastic products and chemical industries, such as cement, flat glass and chemicals in Beijing in 2013 and unorganized harmful emissions from “poorly managed, polluting and small” manufacturers, which directly exacerbated the severity of urban air pollution. Statistics showed that from January through September 2013, the number of heavy pollution days was 58, accounting for 15.9% of the annual average. ③ In Hebei Province, in addition to its marked regional advantages in the ecological environment system, economic development and high haze pollution industries are well below those in Beijing and Tianjin. So its coordinated development level is very low, and especially in 2013 and 2014, it declined severely. This is mainly because Hebei Province is still one of the areas where comprehensive treatment of industrial air pollution is the most behind in China. In 2013, Hebei was the first to launch the “6643” key project of addressing coal overcapacity. The whole province reduced the total production capacity of ironmaking coal by 10.77 million tons, the total production capacity of iron and steelmaking by 8.2 million tons and the total production capacity of coal production by 13.09 million tons. The province also shut down 50 coal production facilities. In 2014, Hebei Province cut overcapacity in heavy industry and dealt with high haze pollution, which affected the total target amount of coordinated development of the annual regional economy in Hebei Province by about 1.75 percent and the overall industrial output growth by about 3 quarterly percentage points. Under the requirements of “tough measures on fighting pollution” and “zero tolerance”, the development of polluting industries, such as steel, petroleum products, chemicals and non-metallic and mineral composites, will be affected.

For the types of coordinated development (Figure 3), Hebei was different from Beijing and Tianjin at the starting point, so the development gap is significant. After 13 years of development, it is still in the disordered recessional stage. (1) After the first bottleneck period from 2006 to 2011, in 2012 the coordinated development degree in the three areas entered a high level; but in 2013 and 2014, it plunged, especially in Hebei Province. Some say it is because Hebei Province experienced serious ecological environment pollution in those two years. In 2013, the total number of severe air pollution days in seven provincial-level cities divided into districts accounted for about 21.92% of the annual total number of air pollution days. Besides Qinhuangdao, Cangzhou, Zhangjiakou and Chengde, there were other heavily polluted districts and cities. In the first half of 2014, the number of days meeting air quality standards in 11 cities divided into districts was only 56, accounting for 30.9%. Moreover, the economy of Hebei Province in 2013 declined at one point, and the proportion of the tertiary industry was lower than 10% of the country. Therefore, owing to the economic downturn and serious environmental pollution, the coordinated development degree in Hebei Province plummeted in 2013 and 2014. (2) Since 2015, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has encountered a second bottleneck period of coordinated development. Beijing and Tianjin led the pace in the region, with a high starting point (since 2006, they have encountered mild disorder) but failed to transit to barely coordinated development since 2013. Some believe that ① the greatest barrier to coordinated development in Beijing is the ecological environment; from 2013 to 2018, the annual mean concentration of air pollutants followed an obvious downward curve, but the number has been hovering at a high level on the whole. In addition, in 2018, besides SO2, whose annual average pollutant concentration met the national standard, all the other pollutants exceeded the national standard, with the fine particulate matter PM 2.5 being the most serious, as high as 46%. ② Tianjin was confronted with the greatest difficulties in economic development. First, advancing supply-side reform and adjusting the economic structure was unfavorable to short-term economic development. Second, with the transformation of economic growth, investors failed to follow up in time. ③ Hebei has long been backward. Its starting point trailed far behind Beijing and Tianjin as a consequence of an unreasonable personnel structure, low concentration of industrial leading industries and lack of large enterprises and industrial clusters with significant influence in the country, the most serious air and water pollution and a mismatch between resources, environment and development (2006–2011 entered the moderate disorder and regression). In 2012, it developed quickly because that year was a crucial year for implementing the 12th Five-Year Plan—industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization accelerated. The GDP in Hebei Province increased by 9%, the total revenue increased by 13.5%; chemical oxygen demand, sulfur dioxide and ammonia nitrogen, and NOx emissions were cut down 2.2%, 3.2%, 3.1% and 1.5%; the registered urban unemployment rate was kept at 2.5%; and the CPI rose by 4%. Since 2015, although the natural ecological environment and social and economic development in Hebei Province have improved considerably, they remain problems for the ecological environment and social and economic development. Since 2013, exhaust emissions have skyrocketed; from 2015 to 2018, emissions rose robustly, up to 7912.1 billion normal cubic meters in 2018 from 788.9 billion normal cubic meters in 2016, an increase of nearly tenfold. The outbreak of large-scale smog in 2013 led to widespread concern in all sectors of society. Emissions of industrial waste gas have been on the rise, which contributed to the coordinated development degree of polluting industries–economy–ecology in Hebei Province during the bottleneck period since 2015.

3.2. Results and Analysis of Longitudinal Monitoring

The coordinated development of high haze pollution industries such as the thermal power industry, economy and environment in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region requires the coordinated development at the spatial and temporal levels. Vertical monitoring helps to monitor the coordinated development as well as its evolution to detect uncoordinated development or take effective countermeasures.

Judging from the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region as a whole (

Table 3. Coupling degree and coupling coordination degree of local economy–ecological environment–high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.

Year	Economic Development Level	Development Level of High Haze Pollution Industries Such as Thermal Power Industry	Ecological Environment Level	Composite Coordination Index (T)	Coupling Degree (C)	Coupling Coordination Degree (D)
2006	0.17922641	0.21645917	0.37200034	0.25589531	0.31280915	0.28233452
2007	0.19249814	0.22221698	0.40823475	0.27431662	0.30913877	0.29025577
2008	0.19918928	0.22377005	0.43412624	0.28569519	0.30608781	0.29481005
2009	0.20943513	0.23297935	0.43871469	0.29370973	0.30711467	0.29931861
2010	0.21938169	0.25587288	0.4528063	0.30935362	0.30849615	0.30760683
2011	0.22983425	0.26662614	0.47057092	0.32234376	0.30965663	0.3139938
2012	0.2409436	0.27592507	0.48113753	0.33266874	0.30857209	0.31862389
2013	0.25425316	0.27539014	0.3876836	0.30577564	0.31940703	0.30986209
2014	0.25842061	0.2977641	0.38538515	0.31385661	0.31812315	0.31207524
2015	0.28282154	0.29490088	0.44393503	0.34055248	0.31532293	0.32496711
2016	0.29424027	0.29732376	0.4557558	0.34910661	0.31493583	0.32883821
2017	0.29102283	0.291891	0.43402342	0.33897908	0.31530299	0.32378387
2018	0.30170597	0.29401043	0.43802907	0.34458182	0.31555886	0.32658898

), the coupling coordination degree in 2006 was very low. Through analysis, we believe that there are two reasons: (1) The development differences of the overall economic and social structure in different parts of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region are pronounced. The development strategy in Beijing and Tianjin is still heavily concentrated on chemicals, machinery, metallurgy and food. The heterogeneous industrial chain leads to the special phenomenon of a “prisoner’s dilemma” between Beijing and Tianjin which has stifled economic cooperation and disproportionately limited the healthy and rapid development of the two central cities, especially Tianjin. The “prisoner’s dilemma” signifies that one region chooses the optimal solution that benefits itself rather than the overall optimal solution. “Strong heavy industry coloration” is evident in the central cities in Hebei Province. According to statistics, of the 11 developed subregions and key cities, the comprehensive rate of choosing non-ferrous, petroleum, and chemical industries as the three pillar industries is 72.7%, building materials 63.6%, and metallurgy 45.5%. (2) The second reason for the low coupling coordination is the unreasonable economic gradient. In 2006, prefecture-level cities, surrounding counties, cities, and regions were small, and the economic development level was modest, so it was hard to realize an effective connection with Beijing and Tianjin on industrial transfer, etc. Meantime, the internal gap between the separate subregions of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region was also stark. Therefore, the coupling coordination degree was the lowest in 2006. After 4 years of slow development, it reached mild disorder in 2010. However, dry desulfurization (GGH) was cancelled in 2012, and the wet desulfurization project was accelerated to installation. The amount of fine particles, ammonia and sulfur trioxide contained in the emissions of the wet desulfurization process and the denitration project in coal-fired power plants gradually increased, leading to a soaring PM 2.5 index; further, it went on to absorb air to cause a “smog outbreak”. As a result, the coupling coordination degree in the region saw a huge dip in 2013. After fluctuations in the next eight years, the coordinated development degree slowly reached 0.327.

Viewed from the development status of subsystems in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region (Figure 4), the comprehensive evaluation values of the economy subsystem and the industrial economy subsystem demonstrated a fast-growing and upward trend in the past 13 years. They hit 0.178 and 0.151, respectively, in 2018, well over the comprehensive evaluation of other eco-economic subsystems. In 2006, the comprehensive impact assessment value of the ecological subsystem was at an average of 0.125, which was prioritized over the average value of 0.077 and 0.101 of the economic development subsystem and industrial development subsystem. We can see that the foundation of ecological environment protection was good and the impact and pressure from human activities on the ecological environment were small at that time. In the subsequent changes and development, the average value of the comprehensive evaluation of ecological subsystems increased rapidly in cyclical fluctuations. In 2011, it reached the highest level of 0.174 but dropped sharply in 2012 and 2013 to the lowest level of 0.136. The possible reasons include the following four aspects: (1) There was an overload of city dwellers. In 2013, the maximum mutual complementarity capacity within the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region was 98 million people in Beijing, but actually, the number was 112 million. (2) of Disorderly new urban construction directly impacted the urban ecological environment. The total land area of built-up area around the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region rapidly increased to 3776 km². in 2012 from 2949 km. in 2004. The urban population of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region grew at an amazing rate over the years, and the total scale of construction in these surrounding towns further expanded and gathered speed. Because the supervision failed to be strengthened in the surrounding areas in an orderly way, the problems between urban planning and construction and the urban ecological environment were not solved effectively and fundamentally. Further, it led to cross-regional pollution. (3) Air pollution is serious and difficult to control. In 2012, the air quality was generally poor in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. The average number of days of meeting air quality standards accounted for 37.5% of the total, and the annual average concentration of fine particles in all large and medium-sized cities exceeded standards. In 2013, major regions in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region gave smog weather warnings multiple times. About 30–40% of fine particles in the air of Beijing and Tianjin came from the spread and diffusion of polluted air from the surrounding areas in Hebei Province to the north. (4) The investment in R&D and technological innovation continues to grow. A substantial level of investment in R&D improves production efficiency. In the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, the capital for green technology innovation has proven insufficient. Rapid economic growth restricts the effect of the governance of environmental pollution.

According to the results of the statistical analysis of the ecological environment in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, we can find that in the past 13 years, the total built-up land area has risen by 48% and the green coverage ratio by 26%; besides, with efforts toward environmental protection increasingly enhanced, the gas penetration rate reached 100% in 2018 and the removal rate of industrial smoke (powder) dust and industrial sulfur dioxide could reach over 90%. However, the environmental pressure caused by rapid economic development is also on the rise. For example the emissions of industrial sulfur dioxide rose to 424,033 tons in 2013 from 211,545 in 2006. In terms of total economic development output and economic structure in the region, GDP and total output tripled, from CNY 280.2979 billion to CNY 819.78 billion in the past 13 years. However, the proportion of agriculture as a part of GDP fell by 2.11 percentage points, while the proportion of industry rose by 1.1 percentage points. The rapid growth of the economy, especially the progress and development of modern industry, has put great pressure on the ecological environment of our country. Despite the ever-strengthening attention and control measures on the ecological environment in recent years, there is still no way to mitigate the effects unleashed by economic and industrial development. As a result, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region’s air quality and soil environment keep deteriorating, and environmental pollution accidents occur frequently.

Table 1 and Figure 5 show the following. ① The overall coupling degree is better than the regional coupling degree in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Because each subregion has its own advantageous and disadvantageous systems, at the regional level the parameters of economic growth, industry, and the environment are balanced. So, in comparison, the regional coupling degree is weaker, and the mutual complementarity makes the regional subsystem level more balanced, which in return improves the regional holistic coupling degree, but the overall high regional development level is not equally enjoyed by all regions. However, if the regions can enjoy mutual complementarity in the future, the overall regional coupling and coordinated development can be realized. ② As the coupling degree in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is high, the internal connection is close, and the three subregions boast unique functions and statuses in the regions They should therefore be able to promote regional coordinated development. ③ The overall regional coupling degree and coordinated development degree are low, mainly because the index of Hebei economic development and subsystems is low, thereby lowering the overall regional development level and making it difficult for the regionally coordinated development degree to move to a higher degree of coordination and development.

We can see that it is urgent and necessary to realize coordinated development in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Only when we accelerate the holistic, coordinated development level between the three subregions and the industrial transfer to prompt the development of industries in Tianjin and Hebei and high haze pollution industries making clear their respective environmental controls can we realize the coupling and coordinated development of economic development—ecological environment—high haze pollution industries such as the thermal power industry in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

4.1. Conclusions

The main conclusions are as follows: First, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region mainly stays in the stage of extensive economic growth. A substantial investment in R&D improves production efficiency. In the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, the capital for green-technology innovation proves insufficient. Therefore, rapid economic growth restricts the effect of the governance of environmental pollution, with serious environmental consequences. Second, the coordinated development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region embodies significant differences among the subregions, and none of the three cities has reached the stage of coordinated development. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, as an important region in the national strategic layout, displayed significant spatiotemporal differentiation in development in the past 13 years. Beijing has been leading the way in economic development, but it experiences weaknesses in the ecological environment and resources. Tianjin enjoys great potential and maximum activity in high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry. In recent years, its economic growth and urban development have led Beijing to rise to an economic centre in North China. Still, it also is confronting severe ecological and environmental constraints. Though Hebei Province boasts ecological environment and resources advantages, it fails to transform them into productivity. Its holistic, coordinated development has been seriously handicapped by the lagging economic development and the level of high haze pollution industries such as the thermal power industry. Third, when all the subregions reach a relatively high development level, the level of coordinated development (as an ensemble) will significantly improve. In terms of the spatial aspect, it is crucial to weigh the coupling level at the regional and provincial levels. The regional mutual complementarity contributes to a high regional holistic coupling degree. However, the holistic coupling does not mean the coupling of all subregions. The coordinated development degree can demonstrate the overall regional development level more clearly; only when all places are at a high development level can the regional overall coordinated development level be enhanced.

4.2. Recommendations

The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region should transform from a model of extensive economic growth to a model of high-quality economic development, stress green-technology innovation, and promote the quality of economic development.

The main recommendations are as follows: First, break the barriers of regional elements and scientifically plan industry development. Figure out a scientific and reasonable industrial restructuring strategy to promote the coordinated and synchronized development of the regional economy. Effectively advance the overall urban planning and the coordination between regional spacing layout and industrial adjustment strategy. Second, focus on the technological innovation capability and promote industrial transformation and upgrading. The governments should increase investments in research funds and accelerate the pace of innovation and upgrading of the science and technology industry. Enterprises should continue to step up efficient and comprehensive transformation application of national scientific and technological achievements. Third, relying on the self-purification capacity of the environment, guide the orderly industrial transfer. Based on the scientific classification of self-purification capacity level, devise a scheme of industrial transfer according to the regional industry development planning and improve the gradient transfer guarantee system of high haze pollution industries, such as the thermal power industry, by supporting land, tax and finance. Fourth, respond to the changes in major contradictions and improve the coordinated development guarantee mechanism. On the one hand, we should strengthen the decision-making power of the “Leading Group of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Integration Development”, move ahead with the joint development strategic plan in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, tackle various major problems in the process of coordinated development in a powerful way and shift the focus of work to dealing with contradictions between chief designer and chief commander to promote the smooth implementation of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei coordinated development strategy. On the other hand, to boost the exchange and cooperation between local governments, we should develop and increasingly improve the cooperation system between local governments.