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This study aims to explore the direct and indirect impacts of the Carbon Emission Trading System (CETS) on the green transition development (GTD) of Chinese cities. This paper constructs a GTD evaluation system from the perspective of prevention and governance at the source, in terms of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion and growth, and measures the GTD performance of 281 cities based on the EW-TOPSIS model. It is found that the average increase in GTD of the sample cities from 2006 to 2020 is 3.40 %, the GTD progress of the 281 cities has a considerable positive spatial autocorrelation, with the GTD progress of the CETS pilot cities being significantly bigger than that of the non-pilot cities. Further this paper adopts the spatial difference model (S-DID) to scientifically identify the influence mechanism and heterogeneity of the direct and spatial effects of CETS on city GTD, and the results show that CETS has a positive effect on the GTD of both local and neighboring cities. Propensity score matching (PSM) is used to further corroborate these findings. The study also shows that CETS improves local GTD by promoting green innovation, rationalizing industrial structures, and enhancing energy efficiency in cities. Nevertheless, the ensuing siphon effect hinders nearby cities' levels of energy efficiency, industrial structure rationalization, and green innovation. The policy effects of CETS are more significant in large cities, eastern cities, old industrial areas, and non-resource-based cities. CETS can work in synergy with smart city construction, low-carbon city pilot policies, and emission trading policies to accelerate the process of GTD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the nexus between the efficiency of carbon emission allocation and the efficiency of green development within the context of innovative city construction. Leveraging data from 283 prefecture-level cities and corresponding provincial-level panel data spanning the period from 2005 to 2019 in mainland China, the research employs the zero-sum gain DEA model to compute provincial carbon emission allocation efficiency and allocate allowances. Furthermore, it utilizes the all-factor non-radial directional distance function and the SBM-DEA model to gauge the green development efficiency of prefecture-level cities. The double-difference method is applied to evaluate the impact of innovative city construction on regional green development efficiency. The results indicate that an imbalance between carbon emission allocation efficiency and emission quotas detrimentally affects urban green development. However, technological progress, factor accumulation, and the institutional environment associated with innovative city building mitigate this negative impact. Heterogeneity analysis reveals a differentiated effect of innovative city building on regional green development efficiency. This paper not only explores the concept of achieving an equitable distribution of carbon emission allowances but also examines how innovative city building influences regional green development. By establishing connections between urban policies, the equitable distribution of carbon emission allowances, and regional green development, it introduces a new perspective for promoting high-quality development at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to evaluate empirically the main implications of digital technology (DT) on carbon emissions (CE). Our sample focuses on 283 cities of China over the period from 2003 to 2019, and the effect of DT on CE is examined with a threshold spatial effect model. Empirical results show that DT has a negative impact on carbon emissions and the transmission mechanism contains both a direct impact on local region and a spillover effect across regions. There is empirical evidence of a threshold effect in the relationship between DT and CE, with stronger carbon reduction effect for DT values larger than the established threshold. Moreover, CE reduction effect of DT appear to be amplified by the level of marketization. Regions with a higher level of marketization thus show a more significant manifestation of CE reduction effect attributed to DT. Our results provide empirical evidence that DT development may contribute to achieving carbon neutrality at least partially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We try to expand the political promotion tournaments in Chinese local governments from raising GDP to the level of increasing fiscal revenues. From the vantage point of officials' performance appraisal, we investigate the impact of local government officials' political ambitions, represented by the ex-ante commitment level of fiscal revenue targets, on carbon emission intensity (CEI). Utilizing a sample of 209 prefecture-level cities in China spanning 2006 to 2019, this paper empirically scrutinizes the influence of local government political ambition on CEI. The findings reveal that the greater the political ambition of local government officials, the more pronounced the reduction in CEI. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that political ambition contributes to the decline of CEI by elevating the levels of environmental attention and green innovation. This research not only aids in comprehending the rationale and necessity of the political promotion tournaments implemented by the Chinese central government but also offers valuable insights for other developing countries seeking to mitigate CEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comprehensive cohesion of the digital economy, structural deviation adjustment, and green development is a crucial step towards promoting high-quality economic growth and realizing carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This paper probes the impact of intra- and inter-regional digital economy on carbon emissions, considering the mediating effect of structural deviation, utilizing panel data from 267 prefecture-level cities in China spanning the years 2011–2019. The findings reveal the following key insights. First, the connection between the digital economy and carbon emissions within cities follows an inverted "U" shape. In the early stages, the digital economy leads to an average increase in carbon emissions of 0.069%. However, in the later stages, the digitized economy markedly decrease emissions. Second, both the digital economy and carbon emissions exhibit spatial spillover effects. Within the region, DE has a significant nonlinear spillover effect on CO 2 emissions in the neighboring regions, with the spatial decay boundary of this effect extending up to 380 km. Third, analysis of the impact mechanism reveals that the digital economy mitigates local and neighboring carbon dioxide emissions by adjusting structural deviation. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the digital economy is more likely to have a carbon emission reduction effect in cities that are not involved in the industrial transfer and those that do not belong to the old industrial base. These findings provide a rationale and policy reference for China to harness the opportunities presented by digital economy development and to achieve the "dual-carbon" goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with national targets, sub-national governments – including cities – are introducing targets to reduce the emissions associated with economic activity within or associated with a particular geography. Cities are important drivers of not only emissions but also economic activity and are embedded into complex economic systems which reach beyond their boundaries, which can raise major issues in identifying whether a city is assisting in promoting sustainability across a wider spatial level. This paper sets out a methodology to downscale global Input Output tables to city-level and use these to calculate production- (territorial) and consumption-based carbon accounts at the city level simultaneously. Illustrating this for the case of Glasgow, Scotland, we show that the city's territorial emissions are significantly lower than its consumption-based carbon footprint (considering both the Areal and Personal Carbon Footprint), but that both metrics are sensitive to assumptions about the emissions intensity of individual sectors. Our results highlight the importance of data quality and accuracy, and the benefits of local knowledge, rather than the unquestioned use of national metrics. [Display omitted] • Extending Multi Regional Input Output accounts can produce cities emissions metrics. • Framework derives Production- and Consumption-based metrics from global accounts. • Application to Glasgow reveals city as net importer of carbon emissions. • Sensitivity of results to key assumptions shows value of local knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasting the future emission trajectories and the relating sensitive driving factors of emissions for cities is of great significance to formulate realizable CO 2 mitigation policies. To proceed the forecasting, studies on peak prediction and quantification of reduction potential at the city level are essential. However, the studies in the area are very limited. Selecting the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration (BTH) as the study region, this paper aims to contribute to the research area and provides implications for other cities or urban agglomerations. The Kaya identity and multi-scenario simulation were employed to predict the dynamic evolution pathways of CO 2 emissions from 2021 to 2035 and explore the differential CO 2 peak time, peak value, and reduction potential for 13 cities in BTH. Monte Carlo simulation, Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen's slope estimation method are jointly used to reduce uncertainties in estimation. The Monte Carlo simulation results show that most cities in BTH have already reached their CO 2 emissions peak, while Tianjin, Langfang, Cangzhou and Tangshan are expected to reach their peaks between 2025 and 2030. Among them, 5 and 8 cities have the risk of not reaching their peak before 2035 in the high consumption scenario (HCS) and extensive development scenario (EDS) respectively. Comparative analysis reveals that low-carbon scenario (LCS) and sustainable development scenario (SDS) have significant effects on emissions reductions. The top three cities in terms of accumulative emission reduction in 2021–2035 are Tianjin, Tangshan and Cangzhou, estimated as 117.82–250.75 Mt CO 2 in LCS and 217.77–454.10 Mt CO 2 in SDS, respectively. The results of sensitivity analysis reveal that the most critical driver of CO 2 emissions in Beijing is population, while that is GDP per capita for Tianjin. Langfang and Hengshui showed the highest sensitivity to energy intensity. Accordingly, these cities have differentiated concerns and priorities to achieve their carbon peak goal as scheduled. • Kaya identity and scenario simulation are combined to predict future CO 2 emissions. • The BTH would reach CO 2 emission peak by 2025, but the time varies on city-level. • Tangshan, Langfang, and Cangzhou are at greater risk of not reaching the peak by 2030. • Tianjin, Tangshan and Cangzhou have the greatest potential to reduce emissions. • Differentiated priorities are suggested for specific city's CO 2 mitigation targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The examination of explicit and implicit urban land forms and their impact on carbon emissions (CEs) can effectively balance economic development with environmental sustainability. Prior studies have only considered individual factors, such as the scale and structure of urban land use (ULU), without accounting for its multidimensional evolution. To address this limitation, we analyzed data from 44 cities around the Bohai Sea between 2000 and 2020, developing a land-use index system that includes urban land quality. Our results present a nuanced view of the urban land use patterns (ULUPs) in the Bohai Rim region over the 20-year period. We found that all indices of ULUPs demonstrated a trend of improvement. Specifically, the structural pattern index (TS) was typically high, with values ranging between 0.65 and 0.80. The quality pattern index (TQ) witnessed the most significant growth. In contrast, the scale pattern index (TA) and the layout pattern index (TP) registered a relatively lower and slower-paced growth. Simultaneously, we observed an intriguing pattern in the CEs in the Bohai Rim region - an initial surge was followed by a considerable slowdown, as the growth rate plummeted from 88% to a mere 3%. There were noticeable regional variances, with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region registering a lesser increase compared to the Liaodong Peninsula. As our study progressed, we uncovered distinctive and evolving influences of the land use morphology factors on the Bohai Rim region's CEs. A progressively rising number of factors emerged as significantly influential, with their suppressive impact on CEs becoming increasingly potent. Notably, land allocated to public service facilities, green spaces, and squares was found to be associated with reduced CEs. Moreover, our study reveals a clear link between quality optimization of ULU and effective restraint on CEs, whereas larger scales of urban land result in increased CEs. Our findings also show that a continuous and stable optimization of the multidimensional pattern of urban land, accompanied by a relatively stable optimization path, can favorably suppress CEs. This confirms the critical role of strategic land use management in controlling CEs. Our paper provides policy guidance for creating low-carbon, sustainable cities through efficient leveraging of land resources. • Explores the role of urban land use pattern evolution on carbon emissions. • A novel theoretical framework incorporating explicit and implicit characteristics. • CSO and RSO paths favour the suppression of carbon emissions. • Improved urban land quality helping to restrain carbon emissions. • Provides a strategy of low-carbon cities as a reference for reducing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite ecotourism certification's efficacy as a potential environmental management tool for promoting sustainable development, the applicability of Western ecotourism certification patterns in China and the environmental effects of China's ecotourism certification remain unclear. Based on China's Prototype-zone of National Ecotourism Attractions (PNEA) certification, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the causal relationship between ecotourism and low-carbon sustainable development in relation to public environmental concerns. The multiperiod Difference-in-Differences (DID) model is set up to examine the supervision of PNEA certification on regional carbon emissions based on the panel data from 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities in 2011–2017. Results demonstrate that PNEA approval can reduce regional carbon emissions by 1.1% per capita, and this effect would increase over time. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission reduction impact is significantly higher on midwestern cities, resource-dependent cities, and cities with net population inflow. Furthermore, the determinants of public environmental concerns, such as PNEA's functions of tourism economic development and environmental education, are crucial for low-carbon sustainable development. The findings quite clearly account for the contributions of ecotourism certification in promoting sustainable development and the benefits of effective policy instruments. • The PNEA certification implemented by China's central government is different from the Western ecotourism certifications. • The approval of China's unique ecotourism certification can reduce regional carbon emissions by 1.1% per capita. • The economic development function and environmental education function are key to promoting public environmental concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As urbanization has developed, a variety of urban clusters have gradually emerged with important effects on regional economic growth and carbon emissions. This paper constructs a multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model for testing how urban cluster synergistic development policy (UCSDP) affects urban carbon productivity in 148 cities of China with 13 urban clusters as the experimental group from 2003 to 2019. According to the results, the UCSDP improves carbon productivity, mainly via reducing energy intensity. In addition, UCSDP improves carbon productivity by adjusting energy structure, increasing green innovation, altering city greening levels, and accelerating the process of urbanization. Moreover, it can produce synergistic effects in terms of energy structure, green innovation, greening level, and urbanization level. Furthermore, the UCSDP has heterogeneous effects on the carbon productivity in various cities. Specifically, the carbon productivity of high-status, high-rank, and resource-based cities responds more significantly to UCSDP. Therefore, policymakers should strengthen the integration of urban clusters, offer targeted development suggestions for different cities, modify the energy and greening structure, accelerate the process of urbanization, and focus on the formulation of reasonable environmental regulation policies. • Exploring the impact of UCSDP on carbon productivity with multi-period DID model. • The improvement of carbon productivity by UCSDP mainly comes from the decrease of energy intensity. • UCSDP increases carbon productivity by affecting energy structure, green innovation, greening level and urbanization level. • UCSDP produces synergistic effects in terms of energy structure, green innovation, greening level and urbanization level. • The impact of UCSDP on carbon productivity varies by city status, city rank and city type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Despite the impact of urbanization on carbon emission has been extensively studied in recent years, the mechanisms by which urbanization, real estate investment affect carbon emissions are still unclear. Different from previous studies focused on direct effect, this paper investigated the impact of urbanization and real estate investment on China's carbon emissions with considering of the provincial contribution and spatial spillover effect. Using the multiplicative logarithmic mean Divisia index (M- LMDI) model, spatial panel data model and panel data of 30 provinces in China over the period 1997–2015, the results suggested that the contributions to carbon emissions and their driving mechanisms were significantly different across provinces. The top five provinces in China that contributed the most to the growths of carbon emissions in China were Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Henan, with cumulative effects of 10.28%, 10.28%, 5.44%, 5.19%, and 5.09% respectively. The direct impact of urbanization on carbon emissions was significantly negative, but its spatial spillover effect was significantly positive, which suggested that the effect of urbanization on carbon emissions shows significant "pollution transfer effect" after introducing the spillover effect. Due to the characteristics of non-movability and long investment period, the impact of real estate investment on carbon emissions was fixed in the local region, and there was no spillover effect to the adjacent regions. Because of the existence of mutual promotion mechanism between urbanization and real estate investment, the interaction between the two had significant positive direct and spillover effects on carbon emissions, which indicated that the interaction between the two created a reduction effect on both local and adjacent regions. The research can effectively identified the provinces that contribute a lot to China's carbon emissions, and made the decomposition and implementation of the national carbon emission reduction targets more targeted. At the same time, urbanization policies should be combined with real estate policies in the process of carbon emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In community energy systems, the energy demand of a group of households is met by collectively generated electricity and heat from renewable energy sources. What makes these systems unique is their collective and collaborative form of organization and their distributed energy generation. While these features are crucial to the resilience of these systems and are beneficial for the sustainable energy transition in general, they may at the same time undermine the security of energy within these systems. This paper takes a comprehensive view of the energy security of community energy systems by considering dimensions such as energy price, environment and availability, which are all impacted by decentralized and collective means of energy generation and distribution. The study analyses community energy systems' technical and institutional characteristics that influence their energy security. An agent-based modelling approach is used for the first time to study energy security, focusing on thermal energy communities given the considerable share of thermal energy applications such as heating, cooling, and hot tap water. The simulation results articulate that energy communities are capable of contributing to the energy security of individual households. Results demonstrated the substantial potential of energy communities in CO 2 emissions reduction (60% on average) while being affordable in the long run. In addition, the results show the importance of project leadership (particularly regarding the municipality) concerning energy security performances. Finally, the results reveal that the amount of available subsidy and natural gas prices are relatively more effective for ensuring high energy security levels than CO 2 taxes. • Agent-based modelling and simulation is used to study energy security. • The trade-offs between seven energy security dimensions are shown and analysed. • The communities always select a connection to the natural gas grid. • The type of project leadership influences energy security considerably. • Higher initial investment leads to less environmental impacts in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]