Pollutants discharged from irrational energy consumption pose a serious threat to urban ecological security. The Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone is an important part of China’s coastal economy. With the rapid development of the economy in this area, the atmospheric environmental pollution problem, caused by energy consumption, has become increasingly serious. Therefore, the study of the environmental impact assessment of air pollution in the Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone has reference value to prevent ecological risks. This paper constructed a regional-scale environmental impact assessment model that includes pollution sources, pollution stress, and evaluation results, and evaluated the environmental impact of SO₂, NO₂, CO, PM₁₀, and PM_2.5 from three perspectives: regional integration, different energy consumption sectors, and different cities. The results showed that the regional environmental impact level of the research area was high, and the main pollutants transformed from SO₂ to NO₂, PM₁₀, and PM_2.5 from 2008 to 2016. According to the results of different sectors, the transportation sector contributes the most to NO₂ and remains unchanged, and the industrial sector contributes the most to SO₂, PM₁₀, and PM_2.5. Combined with the research results of different cities, cities concentrated in the coastal areas contribute more pollution than other cities do.

Low-carbon development has become an important measure to cope with climate change and promote sustainable development in China. It is of great significance to carry out comprehensive low-carbon development assessment research in resource-based provinces to promote ecological and environmental protection and achieve the "carbon peaking and carbon neutralization" development goal as soon as possible in China. This study takes Shanxi Province as the research area to carry out comprehensive evaluation research on low-carbon development. The factors affecting the development of low-carbon were screened and determined through Literature Meta-Analysis and the Grey Relational Model. Using the three dimensions of carbon source-carbon sink process and social-environment-economy to construct a low-carbon development evaluation index system, and using entropy weight method and TOPSIS model to analyze the low-carbon development level of Shanxi Province from 2000 to 2020, and analyze the formation mechanism of low-carbon development status. Based on the comprehensive index of low-carbon development and carbon intensity, a low-carbon development grade evaluation model is established, which was used to evaluate the low-carbon development grade of Shanxi Province in 2030. The results showed that the most influential factor on the carbon emissions of Shanxi Province is the total number of civil vehicles, the negative indicators have greater impact on carbon emissions. The low-carbon development level of Shanxi Province was transformed from Level III to Level II from 2000–2020. In 2030, the low-carbon development level of Shanxi Province will be Level I .

Synergistic pollution–carbon mitigation is critical for China’s dual carbon targets. Taking coal-resource Shanxi Province as the case, this study developed an integrated Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP)–Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) coupled framework combined with a three-dimensional vector model to simulate energy consumption, CO₂, and major air pollutant emissions (CO₂, CO, SO₂, NO₂, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀) under Baseline and Policy scenarios (2026–2050). The core novelty of this study lies in methodological innovation: the multi-model linkage realizes full-chain energy-emission-atmosphere simulation, remedying the isolation flaw of single models in prior research. The results indicated that low-carbon levels would rise steadily in both scenarios from 2026 to 2050. The Policy scenario achieved superior long-term low-carbon performance compared with the Baseline scenario and narrowed gaps in underdeveloped social subsystems, despite short-term transition costs. This scenario optimized the overall energy structure yet failed to fully reduce emission loads from residential and transport sectors. It drastically cut carbon and pollutant emissions, optimized spatial emission patterns, and decoupled most air pollutants from carbon emissions. However, this scenario still had prominent limitations: phased delays in emission abatement, strong coupling of CO, NO₂ and carbon emissions, and rising residential carbon emissions. Further pollution–carbon synergy assessment revealed worsening multi-dimensional imbalances under the Baseline scenario. While the Policy scenario experienced temporary systemic imbalance, its long-term coordination level improved steadily. This finding verified that systematic, long-term low-carbon governance constituted the core driver of Shanxi’s green transition. Targeted phased, classified collaborative governance strategies were proposed to resolve structural transformation risks for resource-based regions.