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The complex and severe problem of energy poverty seriously affects the health and quality of life of residents and poses a significant challenge to the country’s macroeconomic development. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the spatial distribution of energy poverty and the characteristics of regional differences in 30 provinces in mainland China from 2008 to 2019 by constructing an energy poverty evaluation index system and explore the main reasons for the gap between energy poverty regions in China from the perspective of “relational data.” The results show that the spatial distribution of energy poverty in China is “high in the west and central area and low in the east,” and the spatial pattern is relatively stable. From the perspective of the time dimension, the problem of energy poverty in China has been alleviated during the sample period, and the overall gap in energy poverty has shown a decreasing trend. The difference in energy poverty between regions is the primary source of the overall gap, but its contribution is gradually decreasing. The empirical results suggest that reducing the imbalance of industrial structure, energy price, and energy investment among regions can effectively narrow the inter-regional energy poverty gap. Moreover, there are differences in the dominant factors that determine the difference in energy poverty within the eastern, central, and western regions. In this regard, it is recommended to further improve the relevant policies in developing new energy sources according to local conditions, reasonably increasing energy construction investment, strengthening technological innovation, establishing financial guarantee mechanisms, and guiding residents to consume modern, clean energy.

Haze pollution has been a global problem plaguing people for nearly two centuries, especially in developing countries, where haze pollution is getting worse and has become the culprit that restricts global sustainable development. As the largest developing country in the world, China’s regional characteristics of haze pollution are increasingly prominent, and the coverage is expanding, which means that there is a strong spatial interaction of haze pollution. The real world is composed of asymmetric spatial relationships, and asymmetric spatial interactions are more consistent with the reality of haze pollution. To this end, this paper identifies the asymmetric spatial interaction effects of haze pollution by using the time series econometric analysis framework and then constructs asymmetric spatial weights. In this paper, the spatial panel Durbin model and spatial effect decomposition technique are used for the empirical investigation to provide new empirical evidence to reveal the socio-economic influences of haze pollution. The study finds that haze pollution in China has a significant asymmetric spatial interaction and the degree of influence varies among cities. During the sample period, there is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between economic development and haze pollution. However, the vast majority of cities have not passed the top inflection point of the inverted U-curve and are still in the stage where haze pollution is gradually intensifying with economic growth. High population density, high energy consumption, and unreasonable energy consumption structure aggravate haze pollution, while fixed-asset investment and science and technology expenditure help to reduce haze pollution. However, only the spatial spillover effect of the energy consumption structure is significant. Therefore, the improvement and implementation of more effective socio-economic prevention and control policies in the case of asymmetric interaction is the key to effectively dealing with heavy pollution weather, fighting the defense of the blue sky, and achieving sustainable development.