**1. Introduction**

Atmospheric environmental quality is the key index to measure economic quality and sustainable development. After experiencing rapid industrialisation, China is also facing problems, such as environmental pollution restricting economic development, and endangering health. As early as 1982, China promulgated the standards and specifications for evaluating atmospheric environmental quality, which were revised and improved in 1996, 2000, and 2012. Existing studies have conducted rich research on atmospheric environmental quality evaluation methods. The main methods and models include the RBF (Radial Basis Function) network analysis method [1,2], the fuzzy mathematics method [3], the set pair analysis method [4], the grey clustering method [5], the AHP model (Analytic Hierarchy Process) [6,7], the DPSIR model (Drive-Pressure-State-Impact-Response model) [8,9], etc. Lu et al. [10] studied and analysed that under the new air quality evaluation standards, the atmospheric environment of more than 70% of prefecture-level cities in China is overloaded. The improvement of environmental carrying capacity is very urgent. Dong et al. [11] analysed China's atmospheric environmental quality from 2015 to 2019 according to the data of monitoring stations and found that China's air quality index

**Citation:** Zhang, X.; Zheng, J.; Wang, L. Can the Relationship between Atmospheric Environmental Quality and Urban Industrial Structure Adjustment Achieve Green and Sustainable Development in China? A Case of Taiyuan City. *Energies* **2022**, *15*, 3402. https://doi.org/10.3390/ en15093402

Academic Editors: Junpeng Zhu, Xinlong Xu and Luigi Aldieri

Received: 14 April 2022 Accepted: 3 May 2022 Published: 6 May 2022

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and the concentration of six types of pollutants were significantly improved during the study sample period. The study pointed out that PM2.5 (particulate matter) is the most important pollutant affecting China's air quality. As people pay more and more attention to environmental issues, the Chinese government has adopted a positive action plan to promote the governance of the atmospheric environment. In 2013, the action plan for preventing and controlling air pollution was issued, which made specific action guidelines for "winning the Blue-Sky Protection Campaign". In 2018, the three-year action plan for winning the Blue-Sky Protection Campaign was further released to deepen the governance of end problems. The plan aims to improve air quality in key areas through coordinated control of multiple pollutants. Based on the quasi-natural experimental method, Wu and Yin [12] found that the implementation of the action plan can improve the atmospheric quality through the impact on the industrial structure, especially in resource-based cities. The study emphasises that compared with the development of the advanced industrial structure, the rationalisation of the industrial structure plays a more obvious role in improving air quality. Only when the adjustment of industrial structure is compatible with the overall characteristics of the region can the policy really play a role.

Industrial structure adjustment is an important way to optimise economic and social factors. William Petty first put forward the theory of industrial structure, while Clark revealed the evolution law of industrial structure. How to measure the change in industrial structure and whether the adjustment is reasonable is a more concerning issue in the research of industrial structure adjustment. Fu [13] took the proportion of three industries as the corresponding weight of each industry and aggregated it to build an advanced index of industrial structure. Gan et al. [14] took the ratio of the tertiary industry to the secondary industry to measure the upgrading of the industrial structure. However, relevant studies believe that it is too one-sided to measure the rationality of the industrial structure from the change of the proportion of three industries. Liu [15] believes that the rationality evaluation system of industrial adjustment should have the functions of judgment, selection, control, guidance, and early warning, and should follow the principles of scientificity, comprehensiveness, independence, feasibility, and stability. Based on the above functions and principles, 5 primary indicators, 13 secondary indicators, and 37 tertiary indicators are selected to build an evaluation system for industrial structure rationalisation. In empirical research, most choices are mainly measured by constructing the ratio of the output value of various industries to labour productivity [16–18].

How to coordinate the relationship between the upgrading of the industrial structure and the improvement of atmospheric environmental quality is a very important issue for China in the green transition period. Many scholars have also carried out research on this issue. Zhang et al. [19] used the SDA method (structural decomposition analysis method) to evaluate China's economic development during the Eleventh Five Year Plan period. They pointed out that if China does not change its economic structure and development model, it may not be able to fulfil its commitment to reduce the emission of industrial air pollutants. Zhang et al. [20] found that the adjustment of the industrial structure had a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions based on the econometric model. Among them, the reduction of the proportion of energy-intensive secondary industry and the optimisation of energy structure have a particularly obvious effect on improving atmospheric environmental quality [21,22]. Ding et al. [23] have tried to analyse the relationship between industrial structure and the atmospheric environment through an integrated and systematic method. They constructed the PSR-LQI (pressure–state–response and level–quality–innovation model) index evaluation system and presented the corresponding evaluation results. Zheng et al. [24], based on the threshold model and the empirical analysis of China's provincial panel data, found that the impact of the industrial structure on pollutant NOx and PM2.5 is divided into three stages, while the impact mechanism of pollutant SO2 is two stages. The adjustment of the industrial structure can improve the impact of economic development on air pollution. Zhou et al. [25] pointed out that the strictness of environmental supervision helps to optimise the industrial structure and then improve the quality of the atmospheric

environment. Relevant studies also show that the impact of the industrial structure on atmospheric environmental quality is long-term and increases with time [26].

What is the relationship between atmospheric environmental quality and industrial structure adjustment? How important is the adjustment of the industrial structure to improve atmospheric environmental quality? What difficulties are faced in the process of improving atmospheric environmental quality through industrial structure adjustment? Previous studies have fully analysed the single system of atmospheric environmental or industrial systems and used the econometric model to empirically test and evaluate the relationship between them. Many studies have also mentioned the long-term nature, dynamic interaction, and segmentation of the relationship between the two systems [24–26]. However, the existing studies mainly analyse the relationship between the two systems from the perspective of a single system or comparative static and have not been able to analyse the dynamic process of the interaction between the two systems and present an intuitive evaluation of the coupling and coordination between the two systems. The development of the atmospheric environmental system has experienced a strategic change from the total amount control of single pollutants to the quality improvement of multipollutant collaborative control. To maintain the sustainable development of its own system, it needs to maintain coordination with other economic and social subsystems through continuous optimisation. On the other hand, after transforming the industrial structure level from low to high level, the industrial system needs to consider the rationalisation within the system. After reaching coordination and balance within the system, it will develop in the direction of rationalisation among systems. The development between the two systems can be roughly divided into three stages: the low-level coupling and coordination stage, the mutual running in and coordination stage, and the high-level coupling and coordination stage. In the first stage, the atmospheric environment system has constraints on the industrial system, and the industrial system cooperates with the realisation of the governance goal of the atmospheric environment system. In the second stage, the regulation of the atmospheric environment system on the industrial system is gradually optimised. The optimisation and improvement of the industrial system will promote and guide the improvement of the atmospheric environment system. In the third stage, the two systems maintain benign coupling and need coordination, and jointly develop in the direction of sustainability. For the leapfrogging of different stages and the drive of the system itself, the systems will also affect each other. The strategic improvement of the atmospheric environment system will enhance the optimisation requirements of the industrial system, and the improvement of the matching and adaptability of the industrial system will also enhance its impact on the atmospheric environment system. Of course, due to the complexity of the urban development model, the industrial system and atmospheric environment system may not only promote each other's leap forward, but also regress. Therefore, this paper constructs the analysis framework of coupling and coordination between the atmospheric environment system and the industrial system. As shown in Figure 1, it analyses the internal and external evolution processes of the two systems in the interaction process from the theoretical level, and then uses the coupling and coordination model and the VAR model for empirical analysis.

There are three main contributions of this paper. Firstly, it constructs the theoretical analysis framework of coupling and coordination between the atmospheric environment system and the industrial system and clarifies the internal mechanism of the interaction and coordinated development of the two systems. Secondly, the coupling coordination model and the VAR model are combined to test the relationship between them from the perspectives of "static" and "dynamic", which not only provides an overall intuitive evaluation of the relationship between them, but also analyses the dynamic process of interaction. Thirdly, as a resource-based city in China, Taiyuan is typical and representative. This paper selects the data of Taiyuan for the empirical test, provides an analytical framework and comprehensive evaluation method for evaluating the situation of the two systems of the

city, and provides support for government departments to formulate policies and evaluate the effectiveness and rationality of urban policies.

**Figure 1.** Analysis framework of coupling and coordination between the atmospheric environment system and the industrial system.
