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Purpose Carbon offsetting is one of the tools that companies can use to achieve their climate targets. The ability of a company to offset its emissions successfully depends on the availability and quality of guidance on the subject. This study explores how well existing offsetting guidelines equip corporations to achieve successful emissions offsetting. Methods Instructional criteria were developed and used to evaluate seven guidelines. The contents of each guideline were assessed based on how they instruct a company to achieve emissions offsetting that fulfills five criteria for appropriate offsetting: target affiliation, Paris compatibility, effectiveness, prioritizing removals, and transparency. Results and discussion The review revealed that necessary instructions enabling appropriate emissions offsetting were absent in the guidelines. Moreover, the degree of climate ambition and the role of offsetting varied between guidelines. Deficiencies in emissions offsetting guidance may increase the uncertainty of companies’ succeeding in offsetting their emissions. Conclusions Developing guidance on emissions offsetting could benefit society and corporations by increasing the certainty of achieving successful emissions offsetting. Standardizing corporate emissions offsetting could be considered as one solution for unifying the practice. The practical life-cycle implications of current ambiguity in guidelines are a direction for future research.

This paper systematically describes the technical principles, evaluation indicators, system forms and research progress of air-side evaporative cooling air conditioning systems, water-side evaporative cooling air conditioning systems and freon-side evaporative cold coagulation heat air conditioning systems of Data center. In order to reduce the energy consumption of the refrigeration and air-conditioning system in the Data center, the application conditions and scenarios of the different forms of evaporative cooling air-conditioning systems should be considered comprehensively. Therefore, it is very important that the renewable energy-dry air can be used to the greatest extent. These efforts would contribute to China's 2030 "Carbon Peak" and 2060 "Carbon Neutral."

Clean and renewable energy plays important role in achieving carbon neutrality and nature sustainability, especially the application of green hydrogen in new energy system. Hydrogen (H2) produced from visible light has attracted attention owing to its high conversion efficiency and cleaner process. In this review, different photocatalyst preparation methods which can directly design the same structure were clarified. Also, different mechanism design which can realize different electron transfers were also proposed. Thus, various morphologies and different mechanisms of electron transfer have been summarized and evaluated. Also, the methods of photocatalysts’ construction were mentioned, all H2 production reactions depend on the amount of reaction sites and photo-generate electrons. It was evident that the concentration of reaction sites and photo-generate electrons play important roles in efficient H2 production. This review provides fundamental knowledge to design and construct variable morphologies with different electron transfer processes to enhance efficiency of H2 production.

Under the requirements of a low carbon economy, promoting the transition of energy consumption of power generation enterprises from fossil energy to renewable energy is essential in practicing carbon emission reduction. Taking China as an example, this study investigates the impact of the interactive behavior of central and local governments in fulfilling their green obligations on the green transformation of power generation enterprises by constructing a tripartite evolutionary game model. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (i) Under the trend of reducing subsidies for renewable electricity, if local governments fail to fulfill their regulatory obligations for renewable energy consumption on time, it will discourage power generation enterprises from using renewable electricity; in the short term, it will cause power generation enterprises to turn their backs on green power strategy and choose thermal power strategy. (ii) If the central government releases a strong signal of a considerable amount of renewable energy power subsidy, the local government’s enthusiasm for fulfilling the renewable energy consumption supervision obligations will be hurt. (iii) The practical implementation of the responsibility assessment system of renewable energy consumption requires mobilizing all relevant stakeholders in the renewable energy market. It is essential to motivate local governments to fulfill their renewable energy consumption regulation obligation. This study provides a policy analysis for the green transformation of Chinese power generation enterprises and a reference for the green transformation of enterprises in other developing countries.

China is committed to achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. This study projected the changes in climate and runoff in the source region of the Yellow River Basin for 2021–2060 under lower carbon emission pathways (SSP1–2.6 and SSP2–4.5) using a statistically downscaled climate dataset and the SWAT hydrological model. Results showed that the climate will become warmer and wetter from 2021–2060. In comparison with the baseline period (1995–2014), in terms of the ensemble mean, annual mean air temperature, annual precipitation, and annual runoff will increase by 1.3 °C and 1.6 °C, by 11.1% and 11.2%, and by 12.8% and 11.9% under SSP1–2.6 and SSP2–4.5 scenarios, respectively. Moreover, the seasonal pattern of runoff was projected to change. The proportion of monthly runoff to the annual total will decrease by 0.6–1.0% in summer but increase by 0.1–1.0% during the period from January to April and September to December. The multimodel ensemble mean (MEM) of extremely high monthly flow (Q10) will increase by 3.5–13.4% in the flood season (June to August) and water storage season (September to December). The MEM of extremely low monthly flow (Q90) will increase by 19.4–26.2% from February to April but decrease by 5.0–8.9% in January, May, and December. Thus, the warmer and wetter climate from 2021–2060 will likely cause flatter seasonal distribution of runoff, lower risk of water scarcity at the annual scale and of drought from February to April, but higher risk both of flood in the flood season and of drought in December, January, and May. Generally, the flatter pattern of runoff would likely alleviate water scarcity in the dry and water storage seasons to some degree, and the increase in monthly runoff in the water storage season will benefit hydroelectric power generation and agriculture and animal husbandry production. However, in some years, the increase in Q10 in the flood season will likely increase flood prevention pressure, and the decrease in Q90 in May will likely obstruct grass revival.

This research article provides a comprehensive scenario analysis of key structural changes in Kazakhstan’s fuel and energy complex subsectors until 2060, focusing on decarbonization efforts. The background places the issue of decarbonization in a broader context, considering the country’s vast size and sparse population. The study’s purpose involves analyzing the development of the climate agenda by comparing two scenarios: a “reference” scenario without decarbonization measures and a carbon neutrality scenario until 2060 (CN2060). A mathematical technical-economic model based on the TIMES paradigm (The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System) serves as the method to optimize and simulate Kazakhstan’s energy system. The main findings reveal sets of policies, standards, and legislative, economic, and political decisions that are required to achieve CN2060. Additionally, the integration of a low-carbon policy, sectoral and cross-cutting approaches, the impact of the coronavirus crisis, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and energy security issues receive a discussion. The article concludes with projected shares of generation and investment in renewable energy sources (RES) necessary for attaining CN2060. This work offers novel insights into challenges and opportunities for Kazakhstan’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

To explore the role of forest carbon sinks in achieving carbon neutrality, the cointegration regression method and scenario analysis are utilized to forecast the long-term development trend of China’s forest carbon sinks up to the year 2100 and their impact on carbon neutrality. The results show that: (1) Under routine, accelerated, and strengthened ecological civilization scenarios (or RECS, AECS, and SECS, respectively), China’s forests are projected to absorb 531–645 million tons of carbon by 2050 and 2.32–4.69 billion tons of carbon by 2100, respectively, and the value of the strengthened scenario will be markedly higher than that of the routine scenario. (2) Driven by slower growth in forestry investment, China’s forest carbon sinks growth in all three scenarios peak by 2050 and then slow in a U-trend, with the growth rate in the SECS 0.45 percentage points higher than that of AECS, and the growth rate in the AECS 0.44 percentage points higher than that of RECS. (3) Under SECS, forest carbon sinks can help China achieve its carbon neutrality goal in 2054 (before the target date of 2060) with cumulative forestry investment of 53.3 trillion yuan and an annual investment growth rate of about 6.3%. Therefore, this study provides a deeper understanding than previous works of the important role of forest carbon sinks in achieving carbon neutrality.

In the past few decades, human activities have caused the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide, which has severely impacted the Earth’s ecosystem and human health. Therefore, carbon reduction has become the focus of global attention. In this study, the Zhouyuan region of China, which is rich in ancient remains, is taken as an example. Based on the land use characteristics in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, the spatial-temporal evolution of land use and carbon storage in the Zhouyuan region is simulated using four methods, including land use classification, land use transfer maps, patch-level land-use simulation (PLUS), and the integrated valuation of ecosystem services and trade-offs (InVEST) models under three scenarios, including the natural development scenario, urban development priority, and heritage conservation priority in 2030. According to the results, the carbon storage in the area in 2030 under all three scenario simulations has decreased compared with 2020, indicating that the region faces great challenges in achieving its targets of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. The paper points out four causes for the decrease in carbon storage, and five suggestions for increasing carbon storage are proposed, such as developing a carbon storage master plan, applying energy-saving technologies, establishing an ecological substitution mechanism, and so on. Through the study of carbon storage in the Zhouyuan region, this paper hopes to establish a mechanism to balance urban development, heritage conservation, and carbon sinks on the one hand, and encourage more scholars to participate in the study of carbon sinks in areas rich in ancient remains, so as to to jointly promote their healthy development on the other.

Global climate change and rapid urbanization have placed enormous pressure on the urban ecological environment worldwide. Urban green spaces, which are an important component of urban ecosystems, can maintain ecological and environmental sustainability and benefits, including biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. However, land use changes across urban landscapes, especially in plain urban areas with high development pressure, have significantly impacted the carbon sequestration efficiency of urban green spaces. Nevertheless, research examining the impact of land use change and development pressure on urban green spaces and carbon sequestration is relatively scarce. Understanding the carbon sequestration efficiency of urban green spaces and its determining factors will help predict future carbon capture trends within urban ecosystems and formulate more targeted sustainable urban planning and management strategies to improve urban carbon sink efficiency and achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. Therefore, to understand the factors affecting the carbon sequestration efficiency of urban green spaces, this paper used an integrated framework that combined the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford approach (CASA) model, landscape pattern index, multiple linear regression, and Markov–FLUS model. The study explored the impact of urban land use and land cover changes on carbon sequestration within the plain urban areas of Beijing at street scale. The results showed that, at street scale, there was a significant positive and negative correlation between the landscape pattern index and net primary productivity (NPP). In addition, the green spaces located in areas with more complex landscape structures had better carbon sequestration benefits. In addition, multiscenario carbon sequestration efficiency prediction suggested that the sustainable development (SD) scenario could achieve a positive increment of overall NPP. In contrast, the business-as-usual development (BD), the fast development (FD), and the low development (LD) scenarios showed a downward trend in NPP. This paper also proposed strategies for optimizing and enhancing green spaces within urban plain areas. Based on the strategies, the results guide decision making for sustainable urban green space planning that maintains the ecological, economic, and social integrity of urban landscapes during urbanization.

Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. CO2 emission is deemed to be mainly responsible for global warming. To reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and to use it as a carbon source, CO2 capture and its conversion into valuable chemicals is greatly desirable. To reduce the transportation cost, the integration of the capture and utilization processes is a feasible option. Here, the recent progress in the integration of CO2 capture and conversion is reviewed. The absorption, adsorption, and electrochemical separation capture processes integrated with several utilization processes, such as CO2 hydrogenation, reverse water–gas shift reaction, or dry methane reforming, is discussed in detail. The integration of capture and conversion over dual functional materials is also discussed. This review is aimed to encourage more efforts devoted to the integration of CO2 capture and utilization, and thus contribute to carbon neutrality around the world.

As environmental crises such as global warming become more and more serious due to the large amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels, much attention has been paid to carbon neutrality. Hydrogen, with zero carbon content, is a clean and renewable energy carrier having a large energy density. It is considered as one of the most desirable alternatives to fossil fuels. Electrochemical water splitting, unlike the steam reforming process accelerating fossil fuels depletion and CO2 emissions, can produce H2 powered by renewable energy such as solar or wind. As a promising way to promote carbon neutralization, hydrogen production by electrolysis of water is meaningful both in terms of scientific research and practical application. In order to drive electrochemical water splitting with low power consumption, efficient, durable and affordable electrocatalysts with low overpotentials are in urgent need. Therefore, this mini-review briefly introduces the current development status and mainstream obstacles of carbon-based materials used in electrochemical water splitting.

China’s energy system requires a thorough transformation to achieve carbon neutrality. Here, leveraging the highly acclaimed The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System model of China (China TIMES) that takes energy, the environment, and the economy into consideration, four carbon-neutral scenarios are proposed and compared for different emission peak times and carbon emissions in 2050. The results show that China’s carbon emissions will peak at 10.3–10.4 Gt between 2025 and 2030. In 2050, renewables will account for 60% of total energy consumption (calorific value calculation) and 90% of total electricity generation, and the electrification rate will be close to 60%. The energy transition will bring sustained air quality improvement, with an 85% reduction in local air pollutants in 2050 compared with 2020 levels, and an early emission peak will yield more near-term benefits. Early peak attainment requires the extensive deployment of renewables over the next decade and an accelerated phasing out of coal after 2025. However, it will bring benefits such as obtaining better air quality sooner, reducing cumulative CO2 emissions, and buying more time for other sectors to transition. The pressure for more ambitious emission reductions in 2050 can be transmitted to the near future, affecting renewable energy development, energy service demand, and welfare losses.

Objective/Significance:: “Carbon neutrality” has become a major focus of the development of green energy; for the energy industry, there is an urgent need to promote the realization of the goal of carbon neutrality through transition; this study aims to explore the path of energy industry carbon neutrality transition. This study has methodological innovations in the existing literature in the combination of qualitative and quantitative research on the carbon neutral transition of energy industry. The large-scale case corpus study bears an important significance for providing pragmatic typical case references for energy industry and enterprises involved. Method/Process:: This study treats the energy industry as a system. Exemplified by China’s energy carbon neutrality, this study collects authoritative case data to establish a large-scale corpus concerning energy industry carbon neutral transition, followed by extracting word frequency through keyword search in the corpus for quantitative analysis, after that, qualitative analysis is carried out by Concordance function of the corpus. Based on the Corpus results, an AHP model has been built, applying DEMATEL method to implement further qualitative analysis, obtaining the factors that affect the carbon neutral transformation of the energy industry; both of the priority and influence of those factors are further calculated. Through the analysis of three sorts of typical cases, the actual validity and practical feasibility of the relationship derived from the Corpus keywords and concordance were further verified, and previously identified model was eventually tested through actual case analysis. Results/Conclusions:: The research results show that amongst those five factors impacting the carbon neutralization , “Management” bears the closest relations with other factors (the maximum R+C value is 1.845); “Trading” exerts the greatest influence on other factors (the maximum R+C value is 0.823), thus “Trading” has the highest priority, followed by “Digitalization “(0.755) and “Innovation” (0.666). Both “Technology”(-1.331) and “Management” (-0.913)are of negative values, indicating that they are influence recipients. It is confirmed by those actual cases that carbon trading, innovation and digitalization function as effective means to achieve carbon neutrality for energy enterprises. Based on the results, this paper draws a conclusion: three preferred paths of neutralization can be taken into account by energy industry, namely, carbon trading, innovation and digitalization.

India is facing challenges on its pursuit to carbon neutrality and energy security. This paper analyzes the long- and short-run dynamics of clean energy, coal consumption, trade openness, and urbanization on CO2 emissions in India. The findings suggest that: (1) the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis can be verified for India in the time period from 1990 to 2020, and the long-run elasticities for per capita income on CO2 emissions have strengthened compared to previous studies. (2) The long-run coal consumption increased CO2 emissions by 0.75%–0.78%, while clean energy consumption potentially decreases long-run CO2 emissions by 0.08%–0.14%. (3) Urbanization and trade openness seem to have an adverse impact on CO2 emissions. The study suggests that India, to reach net-zero carbon emissions in 2070 can (1) accelerate the utilization of higher efficiency and low CO2 emissions technology in coal-fired plants, increase the share of hydropower and nuclear energy use, which would help alleviate the current tradeoff between energy security and carbon neutrality, (2) seek more opportunities for cooperation with countries that are further ahead in the deployment of clean energy technologies, such as China, to accelerate clean energy technology utilization and thus achieve mutual benefits, (3) Lastly it is suggested that India’s carbon trading market should be further developed to allow for carbon pricing in practice.

In terms of policy, the BRICS region has prioritized achieving environmental sustainability. Environmental problems are mostly caused by the area's continuous reliance on fossil fuels to meet its energy requirements. It is also challenging to significantly reduce the region's reliance on fossil fuels because historically, the region has been a big importer of fossil fuels. As a result, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rates of the BRICS countries have been rising over time. Furthermore, the area has enormous untapped reserves of renewable energy sources that can be exploited to produce electricity without negatively impacting the ecosystem. In light of this, this research analyses, while controlling for energy innovation, economic growth, and natural resource rent, the combined effects of green finance (GFN) and financial technology (fintech) in reaching the region's carbon neutrality goals from 1990 to 2020. The findings for the BRICS economies, which are consistent with the EKC theory, imply that environmental sustainability is promoted by GFN, fintech, and energy innovation (ENI). NRR (natural resource rent) and GDP (economic growth) compromise environmental quality, nevertheless. It has also been demonstrated that there is a two-way causal relationship between CO2 emissions and GFN, fintech, and NRR. However, it has been demonstrated that GDP and ENI have a one-way causal relationship with CO2 emissions. It is recommended that the BRICS nations speed up the development of green financial products and increase the capacity of banks and financial institutions to offer green credit facilities based on the empirical findings. The basic study of how green finance solutions might be used while lowering the related risks should receive more funding.

The transition towards renewable energy is leading to an important strain on the energy grids. The question of designing and deploying renewable energy technologies in symbiosis with existing grids and infrastructure is arising. While current energy system models mainly focus on the energy transformation system or only investigate the effect on one energy vector grid, we present a methodology to characterize different energy vector grids and storage, integrated into the multi-energy and multi-sector modeling framework EnergyScope. The characterization of energy grids is achieved through a traditional energy technology and grid modeling approach, integrating economic and technical parameters. The methodology has been applied to the case study of a country with a high existing transmission infrastructure density, e.g., Switzerland, switching from a fossil fuel-based system to a high share of renewable energy deployment. The results show that the economic optimum with high shares of renewable energy requires the electric distribution grid reinforcement with 2.439 GW (+61%) Low Voltage (LV) and 4.626 GW (+82%) Medium Voltage (MV), with no reinforcement required at transmission level [High Voltage (HV) and Extra High Voltage (EHV)]. The reinforcement is due to high shares of LV-Photovoltaic (PV) (15.4 GW) and MV-wind (20 GW) deployment. Without reinforcement, additional biomass is required for methane production, which is stored in 4.8–5.95 TWh methane storage tanks to compensate for seasonal intermittency using the existing gas infrastructure. In contrast, hydro storage capacity is used at a maximum of 8.9 TWh. Furthermore, the choice of less efficient technologies to avoid reinforcement results in a 8.5%–9.3% cost penalty compared to the cost of the reinforced system. This study considers a geographically averaged and aggregated model, assuming all production and consumption are made in one single spot, not considering the role of future decentralization of the energy system, leading to a possible overestimation of grid reinforcement needs.

The quantification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is increasingly important in spatial planning for regions, cities, and areas. The combination of territorial and consumption-based accounting (CBA) approaches can currently be considered best practice for calculating GHG emissions at sub-national levels, in terms of informing local decision-making about the different climate impacts of spatial planning policies, both within the boundaries of a given region and for the inhabitants of that region. This study introduces four European case studies that were conducted using the two quantification approaches to assess the climate impacts of locally relevant planning policies. The case studies represent different scales of spatial planning, different European planning systems, and different situations in terms of data availability. Territorial results are not suitable for inter-regional comparison, but rather for internal monitoring, while CBA allows for comparison and provides a comprehensive picture of the global carbon footprint of residents, however, with indications that are more difficult to link to spatial planning decisions. Assessing impacts, and in particular interpreting results, requires both methodological understanding and knowledge of the local context. The results of the case studies show that setting climate targets and monitoring the success of climate action through a single net emissions figure can give false indications. The study shows that the two approaches to quantifying GHG emissions provide complementary perspectives on GHG emissions at the sub-national level and thus provide a more thorough understanding of the GHG emission patterns associated with spatial planning policies. The identification of the regional differences in GHG emission sources and mitigation potentials are the main functions of sub-national GHG inventories and the impact assessment for spatial planning. Harmonization of the data collection for sub-national GHG inventories and the transparency of underlying assumptions would greatly support the coherence of climate action and the implications to spatial planning.

Finland is committed to aim for a carbon-neutral energy system by 2023. The transition is in progress with increasing shares of various forms of low-carbon production and significant reductions in the share of energy production from coal and natural gas, for example. Finland has traditionally been strong in the use of renewable energy thanks to wood-based fuels availability. However, a significant part of the energy is still produced from fossil fuels in Finland. The energy system has been in constant evolution throughout history. Recently, climate change mitigation has made carbon neutrality the single biggest goal in energy system development, which has a major impact on current decision-making. In addition to carbon neutrality, the change must consider two other particularly important and ongoing societal objectives such as security of supply and service of the energy system, and cost-effectiveness. The future energy system will be affected by many expectations and parallel developments. These include the arrival of new energy sources on the market and their integration into the system, the progress of electrification, the development of energy technologies and changes in cost-efficiency, the growing importance of energy storage, the carbon capture development, and plans for the hydrogen economy. There are numerous possible directions for development, and they are not mutually exclusive. However, it creates science-based, urgent information needs and challenges for energy system decision-making. As decisions have to be taken that simultaneously create the conditions for the achievement of several objectives, partly cross-impacting each other. This report offers a clear and comprehensive overview of energy system status in Finland including the main trends. The report provides basic general information of the different types of energy production, energy storage, energy efficiency and savings as well as the entire energy system, including system integration. In addition, the aim is to present basic information of the different types of energy production, the current state of the energy system and future trends. The report is intended for all those who are interested in the trends in the energy system and aims to present relatively complex entities in an understandable way and to provide an overview of the factors involved in the development of the energy system. The report has been written by 19 experts in their field from the Faculty of Energy Systems at LUT University. The report starts with a summary of the views of public organisations on future trends and scenarios for energy systems. The most relevant of these are the views and scenario calculations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the EU, the Nordic Council of Ministers' organisation called Nordic Energy Research (NER) and the Finnish Climate and Energy Strategy. The views contain the same basic elements related to energy systems and also partly contain many different future scenarios. For example, the evaluation models reviewed by the IPCC include more than 2 500 scenarios. The report presents basic information on the technologies and characteristics of all the main energy production methods in Finland, considering the sustainability of the production method and the different needs of society. In addition, reports covers topics such as energy system integration costs, hydrogen economy, carbon capture and utilisation, energy storage and carriers, energy efficiency, energy savings and consumption flexibility. The intention is to provide the reader as comprehensive a basic understanding as possible of the main technologies of the energy system and the most important elements of its development. Besides presenting the different forms of energy production and the main technologies, the report also considers the energy system as a whole and the various priorities for the future. The current state of the energy system is examined in particular for electricity and heat and also briefly for industry and transport. The report also is discussed the significance and role of the three main energy sources in the development of the national energy system. In Finland, the main energy sources for the energy system development are variable renewable energy, nuclear power and biomass. In addition, the report provides information on important elements of system integration, such as sector integration, system infrastructure, the functioning of the energy market and system-level investments, and export opportunities related to carbon neutrality expertise in Finland. The main issues of the energy system development are currently related to variable renewable energy, especially wind power in Finland. It plays an important role in transforming energy consumption in many sectors towards carbon neutrality and will grow significantly in the coming years. As the wind dependent and variable production share increases, ensuring operational reliability will require significant structural changes and system development to maintain a balance between production and consumption under all conditions. The main tools to achieve these purposes include energy storage in different time periods, weather-independent and controllable forms of energy production, power reserves, consumption flexibility and integration between different sectors. This report aims to provide the basic information needed to understand the whole picture and its various components. Publishers version

Republic of Korea has unique geographical characteristics similar to those of an island, resulting in an isolated power system. For this reason, securing sufficient operating reserves for the system’s stability and reliability in the face of the intermittency of increasing variable renewable energy (VRE) is paramount, and this will pave the way to achieving the nation’s decarbonization target and carbon neutrality. However, the current reserve-operation method in Republic of Korea does not take into account energy-system conditions, such as the intermittency of the VRE. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the impact of changes in reserve-operation methods on the electricity market in the future Republic of Korean power system, with the increased levels of VRE that are currently envisioned. Specifically, three reserve-operation methods, including Korea’s current reserve-power-operation standards, were applied to the two power-system plans announced by the Korean government to analyze the annual generator operation and costs. The analysis results show that securing reserves proportional to the VRE would exert negative effects, such as increased power-generation costs and the curtailment of nuclear and VRE generation. These results can contribute to the estimation of operational reserves needed for high levels of VRE and to the design of new the Korean reserve market, to be introduced in 2025.

Lithium-based new energy is identified as a strategic emerging industry in many countries like China. The development of lithium-based new energy industries will play a crucial role in global clean energy transitions towards carbon neutrality. This paper establishes a multi-dimensional, multi-perspective, and achievable analysis framework to conduct a system analysis for determining the potential risks involved in the sustainable development of lithium-based new energy industries in China and other countries towards a carbon-neutral future. The results show that critical risk points including resource supply risks, overcapacity risks, environmental impact risks, and regulation absence risks have emerged with the large-scale development of the lithium-based new energy industry in China. These will not be helpful for the sustainable development of the lithium-based new energy industry, which will play a vital role in attaining the goal of carbon neutrality. Based on our risk identification, a policy implication analysis was performed to investigate potential policy countermeasures including promoting the exploration and development of domestic lithium resources, improving the coordination degree of the lithium-based new energy industry, adopting green and low-carbon development paths, and improving the quality of industry regulation. Based on our findings, recommendations are proposed to optimize policy formulation and implementation for stimulating the sustainable development of the lithium-based new energy industry towards a carbon-neutral future.

Human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels, have increased global temperature at an unprecedented rate since the pre-industrial period. Cities and municipalities have a crucial role in accelerating the decarbonization of economic sectors, since they are at the hub of economic development and progress. The percentage of people who live in cities is expected to rise significantly by 2050, and so do GHG emissions from cities unless urban decision-makers commit to significant improvements. They are in charge of establishing a strategy course to boost energy efficiency, generate renewable energy, and reduce GHG emissions. They are crucial in inspiring communities and stakeholders to promote energy alternatives that are climate neutral. Nevertheless, this potential is not yet fully realized due to a lack of knowledge and helpful tools. It is challenging for municipality representatives to estimate baseline CO2 emissions, and it is even more difficult to comprehend several potential future situations. This research contextualizes a new computer simulation tool called the CommitClimate Simulator. The tool was developed to help municipalities calculate the carbon footprint and propose a framework for long-term scenario design and future projections. The modeling tool is based on the System Dynamics approach and includes all major GHG emission sectors following international guidelines. The modeling results emphasize the significant impact of behavior change measures on transforming local economies towards climate neutrality. Behavioral change measures are especially crucial in hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as transport. This means that policymakers should not only consider technical or economic aspects in the policy design process, but great care should also be placed on public education and involvement, information and awareness raising campaigns, and fundamental research of energy consumption habits and determining factors.

Optimizing land use structure in urban agglomerations is essential to mitigating climate change and achieving carbon neutrality. However, the studies on low-carbon (LC) land use in the urban agglomeration based on carbon neutrality are still limited and lack the consideration of the optimized land ecological benefits. To reduce land use carbon emissions (LUCEs) and improve the ecological benefits of urban agglomerations, we constructed the framework of land use structure optimization (LUSO) under carbon neutrality. Then, in view of land use quantity structure and spatial distribution, we compared the results of LUCEs and the ecological benefits of the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration (the CCUA) in 2030 under different scenarios. The results showed that in 2030, the LUCEs of the CCUA is 3481.6632 × 104 t under the carbon neutral scenario (CN_Scenario), which is significantly lower than the baseline scenario (BL_Scenario) and 2020. In the CN_Scenario, the land use/cover change (LUCC) in the CCUA is more moderate, the aggregation degree of the forestland (FL), grassland (GL), wetland (WL), and water (WTR) patch area deepens, and the overall landscape spreading degree is increased, which is more conducive to play the ecological benefit of carbon sink land. The results can provide a reference for the more efficient use of land resource areas and the formulation of land use and spatial planning.

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Academy of Finland , providing funding for the study ‘Smart Energy Transition - Realising its potential for sustainable growth for Finland's second century (SET)’ [grant number 293405]. 1 1 Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors Energy systems are rapidly changing, and many promising low-carbon solutions are now available for different industries. For a society to efficiently implement these promising technologies, experts and policymakers from different fields must comprehensively understand the possibilities and barriers of these technologies. This paper investigates how experts in different fields perceive the transition by conducting two broad Delphi surveys regarding energy transition and greenhouse gas emission targets in the context of Finnish society. The focus of the research is Power-to-X technologies, the required actions and barriers for achieving emissions targets, and societal electrification. The results reveal that while it is possible to achieve the ambitious emissions targets, a variety of political and technological changes are required. It is also established that Finnish society will increase low-carbon electricity consumption in the near future. For instance, Power-to-Gas and Power-to-Fuel technologies are viewed possible technologies for achieving the targets.

The goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality requires major systemic changes in the energy supply sector. As one of the major non-carbon-based energy sources, geothermal energy is characterized by large reserves, stability, and reliability. This paper summarizes the current situation of geothermal resource endowment and industrial development in China. Based on this, a system dynamics model of geothermal industrialization is established, and the potential of geothermal industrialization and carbon emission reduction in China is predicted. The prediction results show that the growth rate of geothermal heating and cooling areas in the next 40 years will follow a trend of acceleration followed by deceleration. China’s geothermal energy heating and cooling area will reach 11.32–14.68 billion m2 by 2060, an increase of about 9–12 times compared to 2020. The proportion of geothermal heating and cooling area to the total building area in China will reach 13.77–17.85%. The installed capacity of geothermal power generation will reach 14,452.80–20,963.20 MW by 2060 under the scenario with electricity subsidies. The proportion of geothermal energy in China’s primary energy consumption structure will reach 3.67–5.64%. The annual carbon emission reduction potential of the geothermal industry will reach 436–632 million tons, equivalent to 4.41–6.39% of China’s carbon emissions in 2020. The results of this study can provide a reference for the healthy and high-quality development of China’s geothermal industry and help to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

Investigating the essential impact of the cryptocurrency market on carbon emissions is significant for the U.S. to realize carbon neutrality. This exploration employs low-frequency vector auto-regression (LF-VAR) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) models to capture the complicated interrelationship between cryptocurrency policy uncertainty (CPU) and carbon emission (CE) and to answer the question of whether cryptocurrency policy uncertainty could facilitate U.S. carbon neutrality. By comparison, the MF-VAR model possesses a higher explanatory power than the LF-VAR model; the former’s impulse response indicates a negative CPU effect on CE, suggesting that cryptocurrency policy uncertainty is a promoter for the U.S. to realize the goal of carbon neutrality. In turn, CE positively impacts CPU, revealing that mass carbon emissions would raise public and national concerns about the environmental damages caused by cryptocurrency transactions and mining. Furthermore, CPU also has a mediation effect on CE; that is, CPU could affect CE through the oil price (OP). In the context of a more uncertain cryptocurrency market, valuable insights for the U.S. could be offered to realize carbon neutrality by reducing the traditional energy consumption and carbon emissions of cryptocurrency trading and mining.

This study explored underground biomethanation as a means to achieve carbon neutrality and promote carbon circular utilization by methanating CO2 and hydrogen-rich industrial waste gas in depleted natural gas reservoirs (MECHIG). This approach not only aids the development of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies, but also effectively processes industrial waste gas, thereby reducing pollutant emissions. In order to verify the feasibility of the MECHIG concept, this study builds upon the analysis of the MECHIG process overview and employs the net present value (NPV) analysis method to investigate its economic viability. Additionally, the study conducts a sensitivity analysis on six factors, namely methanation efficiency, facility site investment, hydrogen content in waste gas, natural gas prices, operation and maintenance (O&M) investment, and CO2 capture and injection prices. The results indicate the following: (1) Under the baseline scenario, the NPV of the MECHIG concept is approximately CNY 5,035,100, which suggests that the concept may be economically viable. (2) The fluctuation in natural gas prices has the most significant impact on NPV, followed by facility site investment and methanation efficiency. In contrast, the variations in hydrogen content in waste gas, O&M investment, and CO2 capture and injection prices have relatively smaller effects on NPV. (3) To ensure the economic feasibility of the concept, the acceptable fluctuation ranges for the factors of methanation efficiency, facility site investment, hydrogen content in waste gas, natural gas prices, O&M investment, and CO2 capture and injection prices are −16.78%, 5.44%, −32.14%, −4.70%, 14.86%, and 18.56%, respectively.

The accurate detection of coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) is meaningful for environmental protection, while challenging. The CFPP is a complex combination of multiple components with varying layouts, unlike clearly defined single objects, such as vehicles. CFPPs are typically located in industrial districts with similar backgrounds, further complicating the detection task. To address this issue, we propose a MUltistage Recursive Enhanced Detection Network (MUREN) for accurate and efficient CFPP detection. The effectiveness of MUREN lies in the following: First, we design a symmetrically enhanced module, including a spatial-enhanced subnetwork (SEN) and a channel-enhanced subnetwork (CEN). SEN learns the spatial relationships to obtain spatial context information. CEN provides adaptive channel recalibration, restraining noise disturbance and highlighting CFPP features. Second, we use a recursive construction set on top of feature pyramid networks to receive features more than once, strengthening feature learning for relatively small CFPPs. We conduct comparative and ablation experiments in two datasets and apply MUREN to the Pearl River Delta region in Guangdong province for CFPP detection. The comparative experiment results show that MUREN improves the mAP by 5.98% compared with the baseline method and outperforms by 4.57–21.38% the existing cutting-edge detection methods, which indicates the promising potential of MUREN in large-scale CFPP detection scenarios.

More than 25% of the total energy consumption in Finland has been produced with wood fuels. Since 2012, the share has been greater than that of oil, coal, or natural gas. Internal carbon pricing is used to manage the risks in wood procurement after wood import from Russia ended. Further, the EU announced plans to sell more carbon emission permits to fund the EU’s exit from Russian energy. To manage these challenges, a data-driven internal carbon pricing mechanism (DDICPM) has been developed for wood procurement optimization. Particularly, local changes are considered via available information about growth-based carbon sinks (GBCS). The results of the new scenario were compared to the basic national scenario that ensures carbon neutrality in forestry. The DDICPM may provide the optimum wood-procurement operations maintaining carbon neutrality in the integrated energy and material industry (IEMI). In this study, the use of DDICPM increased profitability b 16.2, 16.1, and 16.0% between adapted wood procurement areas at the EU’s emission allowance prices of 30, 65, and 98 € t−1 CO2. The experiments’ results also revealed that the DDICPM could consistently and significantly outperform the conventional solution adopted by the company in terms of economic costs. A significant conclusion is that an increase in profitability is possible if the size of wood procurement areas is allowed to vary optimally with respect to transport distance to take advantage of the GBCS as a new application of the renewable carbon sink.

Increasing total factor carbon productivity (TFCP) is crucial to mitigate global climate change and achieve carbon neutrality target. The Yellow River Basin is a critical energy area in China, but its TFCP is relatively low, which results in particularly prominent environmental problems. This paper investigates TFCP using MCPI, Global Moran’s I and kernel density estimation based on panel data of the 9 provinces along this vast basin in 2007–2017. The results demonstrate that: the average value of TFCP fluctuates around 1 and overall TFCP evolution exhibits significant spatial aggregation effect, and technological progress is the dominant impetus for TFCP growth. At regional level, regional heterogeneities of TFCP change and its dynamics exactly exist, with Qinghai the lowest performance and Shandong the highest performance. Moreover, global Moran’s I index reflects there is a significant positive spatial correlation between provincial TFCP, and cumulative TFCP takes on a certain degree of club convergence features. Furthermore, specific and targeted recommendations have drawn from this paper, in particular for the Yellow River Basin, to increase TFCP and achieve sustainable development in the long run.

Many countries have adopted carbon regulatory policies in pursuit of carbon neutrality, which pose great transition risks for energy-intensive sectors. Using the panel data of 186 Chinese listed enterprises in the energy-intensive sector from 2007 to 2019, this study investigates the impact of green technology innovation on corporate operation risks. Empirical evidence shows that energy-intensive enterprises can effectively reduce their operational risks by participating in green technology innovation activities. This study also proves the mechanism of obtaining the support of public policies and enhancing investor confidence in the capital market, while the mechanism of improving recognition in the consumer market is insignificant. Climate policy uncertainty weakens the stabilizing effect of green technology innovation on operational risks. In addition, green technology innovation has a weak stabilizing effect on the operational risks of state-owned enterprises, while government subsidy can strengthen the stabilizing effect. Finally, the stabilizing effect of green technology innovation on operational risks varies by region, period, scale and ownership. This study and its findings provide theoretical insights for corporate risk management in energy-intensive industries and theoretical analysis for the realization mechanism of the market value of corporate green behavior.

Improving agricultural green total factor productivity is important for achieving high-quality economic development and the SDGs. Digital inclusive finance, which combines the advantages of digital technology and inclusive finance, represents a new scheme that can ease credit constraints and information ambiguity in agricultural production. First, this study focused on agro-ecological functions; we incorporated total agricultural carbon sequestration and emissions extraction into the evaluation system and used the mixed-direction-distance function to calculate agricultural green total factor productivity. Then, based on panel data from 31 provinces in China collected from 2011 to 2021, we used the two-way fixed effect model, the interactive fixed effect, and the plausibly exogenous variable method to test the impact of digital financial inclusion on agricultural green total factor productivity, and its mechanism of action. The panel-corrected standard error and fixed effect Driscoll–Kraay methods were used to account for the unobserved heterogeneity and cross-section dependence in the panel data. The results showed that digital financial inclusion can significantly improve agricultural green total factor productivity. This conclusion remained valid following robustness tests using the spatial econometric model and the method of changing explanatory variables. Digital financial inclusion can improve agricultural green total factor productivity by facilitating the transfer of agricultural land. Sound digital infrastructure and strict green credit policies enhance the role of digital inclusive finance in promoting the green development of agriculture. These conclusions could help the financial sector to formulate flexible, accurate, reasonable, and appropriate financial policies and products that would support agriculture, and enhance the role of digital inclusive finance in promoting sustainable agricultural development.

More than 100 countries have communicated or adopted new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and net-zero target pledges. We investigate the impact on global, national, sectoral, and individual greenhouse gas emissions projections under different scenarios based on the announced NDCs and net-zero pledges using the IMAGE integrated assessment model. Our results show that while the net-zero pledges, if implemented, could be an important step forward, they are still not enough to achieve the Paris Agreement goals of well below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C by the end of the century. Still, our net-zero scenarios project significant all-sector decarbonization, in particular, electricity; however, certain sectors like industry and transport prove hard to completely abate.

Land-use changes remain a major source of terrestrial ecosystem carbon stock (TECS) change. However, existing studies estimating TECS change caused by land-use changes, considering the mixed land-use structure and its continuous structural changes in the land-use change model, are still absent. Our study first analyzed land-use changes during the years 2000–2020 in the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan (CZX) urban agglomeration, and then simulated the multi-scenario mixed land-use structure pattern in 2030, and finally estimated its effects on TECS change. Results show that: (1) The TECS change in CZX urban agglomeration during the years 2000–2020 are trending downward, decreasing 5.62 Tg. (2) Over the past 20 years, land-use changes in CZX urban agglomeration were dominated by the increase of artificial surfaces, and the decrease of forest, farmland, and grassland, which are major sources of TECS reduction. (3) The total TECS in inertial development, cultivated land protection, and ecological priority scenarios, are 95.82 Tg, 95.97 Tg, and 97.31 Tg, respectively. Compared to TECS in 2020, the decrease is 2.61 Tg, 2.46 Tg, and 1.12 Tg, respectively. While the spatial pattern of losses in TECS is trending toward sustained expansion in the inertial development and cultivated land protection scenario, the ecological priority scenario is more concentrated. The results can provide decision support for regional carbon accounting, for the assessment of terrestrial carbon stock, and for the planning of the “dual-carbon” (refer to peak carbon and carbon neutrality in dioxide emissions) goal.

The transition towards low-carbon energy and power has been extensively studied by research institutions and scholars. However, the investment demand during the transition process has received insufficient attention. To address this gap, an energy investment estimation method is proposed in this paper, which takes the unit construction costs and potential development of major technology in the energy and power sector as input. The proposed estimation method can comprehensively assess the investment demand for various energy sources in different years, including coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, power, and hydrogen energy. Specifically, we applied this method to estimate the investment demand of China’s energy and power sector from 2020 to 2060 at five year intervals. The results indicate that China’s cumulative energy investment demand over this period is approximately 127 trillion CNY, with the power sector accounting for the largest proportion at 92.35%, or approximately 117 trillion CNY. The calculated cumulative investment demand is consistent with the findings of several influential research institutions, providing validation for the proposed method.

As one of a number of crucial policies for achieving the goal of “double carbon”, it is crucial to investigate the “carbon neutral” effect of the carbon trading market (CTM) in the pilot phase, which is an essential reference for the development of a future CTM. Based on panel data of 283 cities in China in the period from 2006 to 2017, this paper examines the impact of the Carbon Trading Pilot Policy (CTPP) on the achievement of the “carbon neutrality” target. The study shows that the CTPP market can promote an increase in regional net carbon sinks and further accelerate the achievement of the “carbon neutrality” goal. The findings of the study remain valid after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis finds that the CTPP can help achieve the carbon neutrality target through three mechanisms: the effect on concern for the environment, the effect on urban governance, and the effect on energy production and consumption. Further analysis reveals that enterprises’ willingness and productive behavior, as well as the internal elements of the market, have a positive moderating effect on the achievement of the carbon neutrality target. In addition, there is heterogeneity among regions with different technological endowments, CTPP regions, and regions with different shares of state-owned assets in the CTM. This paper provides important practical references and empirical evidence that can help China to better achieve the “carbon neutrality” target.

[ES] Las ciudades son responsables de más del 70% de las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero. Por lo tanto, es necesario evaluar el potencial de un área para lograr la neutralidad en carbono para calcular y medir su capacidad real de reducción de gases de efecto invernadero con el fin de mitigar estas emisiones y los efectos del cambio climático. Sin embargo, estimar la descarbonización es difícil, principalmente cuando se analiza el área grande y compleja de una zona urbana. Antes de evaluar el potencial de descarbonización, se requiere investigar la huella de carbono en el área de estudio. En este trabajo, se desarrolla y aplica una metodología para estimar el potencial de descarbonización de un área particular, el barrio de La Carrasca en la ciudad de Valencia, España. La idea de elegir un área más pequeña en lugar de una ciudad entera es concentrar los esfuerzos en dicha área, procesar menos información y considerar detalles que no son posibles cuando se selecciona un área más extensa. Este método podría extrapolarse a otros barrios, obteniendo información sobre el potencial, estimando las emisiones y determinando si es posible obtener un barrio con emisiones negativas de carbono. El método no solo tiene en cuenta todas las emisiones probables según los alcances 1, 2 y 3 (emisiones directas, emisiones indirectas primarias y otras emisiones indirectas, respectivamente), sino también todas las posibles medidas de reducción de la descarbonización (el uso de energías renovables para la generación de energía, soluciones basadas en la naturaleza, el uso del vehículo eléctrico, la electrificación de otros consumos como el gas natural y la mejora en la gestión de residuos). Las herramientas utilizadas para realizar el estudio son HOMER para estimar la producción de energía, QGIS para evaluar las áreas funcionales de las instalaciones fotovoltaicas, DATADIS para calcular el consumo eléctrico en los diferentes sectores (residencial, servicios e industrial), Google Earth para medir áreas y distancias, y Excel para analizar todos los datos. Como resultado, se obtuvo que para el barrio La Carrasca el potencial de descarbonización es de 6796 toneladas de CO2, lo que representa un poco más del 10,5% de sus emisiones totales. Se puede concluir que, para alcanzar la descarbonización completa de la zona, las medidas de mitigación propuestas deben ser más agresivas, proponiendo también nuevas medidas, como la rehabilitación de edificios para reducir sus consumos energéticos para la climatización, y cambios de hábitos en la población. Del análisis económico se concluyó que para proyectos de esta magnitud son necesarios incentivos y promociones gubernamentales., [EN] Cities are responsible for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, assessing an area's potential to achieve carbon neutrality is required to calculate and measure its actual greenhouse gas reduction capacity in order to mitigate these emissions and the effects of climate change. Nevertheless, estimating decarbonization is difficult, mainly when an urban zone’s big and complex area is analyzed. Before evaluating the decarbonization potential, it is required to investigate the carbon footprint in the studied area. In this work, a methodology for estimating the decarbonization potential of a particular area is developed and applied to the neighborhood of La Carrasca in Valencia City, Spain. The idea of choosing a smaller area rather than an entire city is to focus efforts on such an area, process less information, and consider details that are not possible when a more extensive area is selected. This method could be extrapolated to other neighborhoods, obtaining information about the potential, estimating the emissions, and determining if it is possible to get a negative carbon emissions neighborhood. The method not only takes into account all likely emissions according to scopes 1, 2, and 3 (Direct emissions, primary indirect emissions, and other indirect emissions, respectively) but also all possible decarbonization reduction measures (The use of renewables for power generation, nature-based solutions, the use of electric vehicle, electrifying other consumptions such as natural gas, and improved waste management). The tools used to carry out the study are HOMER for estimating the energy production, QGIS for evaluating the functional areas for photovoltaic installations, DATADIS to calculate the electricity consumption in the different sectors (residential, service, and industrial), Google Earth for measuring areas and distances, and Excel to analyze all of the data. As a result, it was obtained that for the neighborhood of La Carrasca, the potential of decarbonization is 6796 tons of CO2, representing a bit more than 10.5% of its overall emissions. It can be concluded that to reach complete decarbonization of the area, the mitigation measures proposed need to be more aggressive, while also proposing new measures, like the refurbishment of buildings to reduce their energy consumption for climatization, and changes of habits in the population. From an economic analysis it was concluded that for projects of this magnitude, government incentives and promotions are necessary, [CAT] Les ciutats són responsables de més del 70% de les emissions globals de gasos d'efecte d'hivernacle. Per tant, és necessari avaluar el potencial d'una àrea per a aconseguir la neutralitat en carboni per a calcular i mesurar la seua capacitat real de reducció de gasos d'efecte d'hivernacle amb la finalitat de mitigar aquestes emissions i els efectes del canvi climàtic. No obstant això, estimar la descarbonització és difícil, principalment quan s'analitza l'àrea gran i complexa d'una zona urbana. Abans d'avaluar el potencial de descarbonització, es requereix investigar la petjada de carboni en l'àrea d'estudi. En aquest treball, es desenvolupa i aplica una metodologia per a estimar el potencial de descarbonització d'una àrea particular, el barri de la Carrasca a la ciutat de València, Espanya. La idea de triar una àrea més xicoteta en lloc d'una ciutat sencera és concentrar els esforços en aquesta àrea, processar menys informació i considerar detalls que no són possibles quan se selecciona una àrea més extensa. Aquest mètode podria extrapolar-se a altres barris, obtenint informació sobre el potencial, estimant les emissions i determinant si és possible obtindre un barri amb emissions negatives de carboni. El mètode no sols té en compte totes les emissions probables segons els abastos 1, 2 i 3 (emissions directes, emissions indirectes primàries i altres emissions indirectes, respectivament), sinó també totes les possibles mesures de reducció de la descarbonització (l'ús d'energies renovables per a la generació d'energia, solucions basades en la naturalesa, l'ús del vehicle elèctric, l'electrificació d'altres consums com el gas natural i la millora en la gestió de residus). Les eines utilitzades per a realitzar l'estudi són HOMER per a estimar la producció d'energia, QGIS per a avaluar les àrees funcionals de les instal·lacions fotovoltaiques, DATADIS per a calcular el consum elèctric en els diferents sectors (residencial, serveis i industrial), Google Earth per a mesurar àrees i distàncies, i Excel per a analitzar totes les dades. Com a resultat, es va obtindre que per al barri La Carrasca el potencial de descarbonització és de 6796 tones de CO₂, la qual cosa representa una mica més del 10,5% de les seues emissions totals. Es pot concloure que, per a aconseguir la descarbonització completa de la zona, les mesures de mitigació proposades han de ser més agressives, proposant també noves mesures, com la rehabilitació d'edificis per a reduir els seus consums energètics per a la climatització, i canvis d'hàbits en la població. De l'anàlisi econòmica es va concloure que per a projectes d'aquesta magnitud són necessaris incentius i promocions governamentals.

China and Europe have both announced plans to be carbon neutral by 2060 and 2050 respectively. In residential sector, energy-saving technologies and behaviours are important measures to achieve carbon neutrality. This study investigated the adoption of technical and behavioural energy-saving measures in Northern China and Western Europe as important paths to achieve carbon neutrality in residential sector. The prevalence of six measures was investigated using a survey, which also enquired about the reasons for the adoption and nonadoption of such measures. The study highlighted remarkable differences in the measures adopted and the reasons for them. People in Northern China were more likely to adopt technical energy-saving measures but less likely to adopt behavioural energy-saving measures than people in Western Europe. Differences in respondents' socio-demographic backgrounds, building details, environmental concerns, or beliefs played a role in the differences observed, but not a great one according to our econometric analysis. Two important reasons for the observed differences were subsidy policies and split incentives due to principal-agent issues between energy companies and energy users. The results showed that the residential sectors in China and Europe are working towards carbon-neutral targets, but in different ways. In Northern China, the direct energy-saving subsidy policy encouraged residents to adopt technical energy-saving measures. In Western Europe, the relatively reasonable energy charging system encouraged people to adopt behavioural energy-saving measures.

Bioenergy plays an important role in the climate neutrality targets of the EU. However, the status of bioenergy implementation varies greatly across the EU. The aim of this paper is to assess the role of bioenergy in different EU countries using EU experts’ opinions of bioenergy implementation in their own country. The paper identifies leading and lagging countries in biomass development by focusing on the current share of bioenergy in the total energy supply. The study shows differences in bioenergy development between Southern and Western EU countries with Northern and Eastern EU countries. The anti-bioenergy movement and continuing political support for the fossil fuel industry are important barriers inhibiting biomass development in many EU countries, especially in Southern Europe and Western Europe. Our analysis finds that the EU needs more factual bioenergy information and improved promotion of bioenergy throughout society, especially in southern and western parts of the EU. Bioenergy development in the EU can be looked at optimistically, especially in Northern and Eastern Europe. The experience of societal acceptance of bioenergy in countries such as Finland and Sweden is applicable to countries that have thus far seen less progress in bioenergy implementation such as Poland and the Netherlands. Publishers version

This review examines the current understanding of the global coastal ocean carbon cycle and provides a new quantitative synthesis of air-sea CO2 exchange. This reanalysis yields an estimate for the globally integrated coastal ocean CO2 flux of −0.25 ± 0.05 Pg C year−1, with polar and subpolar regions accounting for most of the CO2 removal (>90%). A framework that classifies river-dominated ocean margin (RiOMar) and ocean-dominated margin (OceMar) systems is used to conceptualizecoastal carbon cycle processes. The carbon dynamics in three contrasting case study regions, the Baltic Sea, the Mid-Atlantic Bight, and the South China Sea, are compared in terms of the spatio-temporal variability of surface pCO2. Ocean carbon models that range from box models to three-dimensional coupled circulation-biogeochemical models are reviewed in terms of the ability to simulate key processes and project future changes in different continental shelf regions. Common unresolved challenges remain for implementation of these models across RiOMar and OceMar systems. The long-term trends in coastal ocean carbon fluxes for different coastal systems under anthropogenic stress that are emerging in observations and numerical simulations are highlighted. Knowledge gaps in projecting future perturbations associated with before and after net-zero CO2 emissions in the context of concurrent changes in the land-ocean-atmosphere coupled system pose a key challenge. ▪ A new synthesis yields an estimate for a globally integrated coastal ocean carbon sink of −0.25 Pg C year−1, with greater than 90% of atmospheric CO2 removal occurring in polar and subpolar regions. ▪ The sustained coastal and open ocean carbon sink is vital in mitigating climate change and meeting the target set by the Paris Agreement. ▪ Uncertainties in the future coastal ocean carbon cycle are associated with concurrent trends and changes in the land-ocean-atmosphere coupled system. ▪ The major gaps and challenges identified for current coastal ocean carbon research have important implications for climate and sustainability policies.

Geomimicry, or the art of using natural symbioses to tackle climate change As we consider the most effective paths to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, nature provides us with a laboratory of 3.5 billion years of energy efficiency improvements. Geomimicry – biomimicry at the service of the climate – opens up leads into decarbonizing industrial processes (moving from a thermic to an organic industry) and to strengthen natural carbon sinks. Symbioses between living beings are key to biomimicry, whether for the synthesis of materials or for the cycle of transformation of atmospheric CO2 into stable and inert forms of carbon. Therefore, it is critical to study these symbioses in depth and place them at “our service”, with the aim of replacing fossil fuels and resisting the temptation for geoengineering. This requires an actual public climate policy., Le géomimétisme, ou l’art de mettre les symbioses naturelles au service de la lutte contre le changement climatique Alors que nous envisageons les manières les plus efficaces d’atteindre la neutralité carbone d’ici 2050, la nature nous offre un laboratoire riche de 3,5 milliards d’années de perfectionnement sur le plan de la consommation d’énergie. Le géomimétisme – le biomimétisme au service du climat – propose ainsi des pistes pour décarboner les procédés industriels (passer d’une industrie thermique à une industrie organique) et renforcer les puits naturels de carbone. Les symbioses entre les êtres vivants sont une clé pour le biomimétisme, que ce soit pour la synthèse de matériaux ou bien pour le cycle de transformation du CO2 atmosphérique en forme stable et inerte de carbone. Dès lors, il s’agit d’étudier en profondeur ces symbioses et de les mettre à « notre service », dans le but de remplacer les hydrocarbures ou de prévenir de la tentation pour la géoingénierie. Ce qui passe par une véritable politique publique climatique., La geomímesis, o el arte de utilizar las simbiosis naturales para combatir el cambio climático Si buscamos las formas más eficaces de alcanzar el equilibrio de las emisiones de carbono para 2050, la naturaleza nos proporciona un laboratorio de 3.500 millones de años de mejoras en la eficiencia energética. El geomimetismo (biomimetismo al servicio de la protección del clima) ofrece vías para descarbonizar los procesos industriales (pasando de una industria térmica a una orgánica) y mejorar los sumideros naturales de carbono. Las simbiosis entre los seres vivos son elementos clave para el biomimetismo, ya sea para la síntesis de materiales o para el ciclo de transformación del CO2 atmosférico en formas estables e inertes de carbono. Se trata por tanto de estudiar a fondo estas simbiosis y ponerlas “a nuestro servicio”, con el fin de sustituir los hidrocarburos o evitar la tentación de la geoingeniería. Para ello, es necesario adoptar políticas públicas reales sobre el clima., Gilbert Pierre. Le géomimétisme, ou l’art de mettre les symbioses naturelles au service de la lutte contre le changement climatique. In: Communications, 110, 2022. Vivantes interactions. pp. 195-207.

In the context of carbon neutrality, the electric vehicles (EVs) are increasingly used in city logistics service. To utilize EVs in the logistics delivery service in a cost-effective manner, this paper proposes a coordinated operational planning method for EVs considering the real road networks and battery swapping for EVs. Specifically, utilizing the EVs parked in the depot to discharge to power the depot or feed to the grid for an arbitrage, this paper is to minimize the sum of transportation cost and energy cost by determining the optimal number of EVs assigned to delivery goods and their driving route, as well as the charge–discharge operation decisions of all EVs including those without a delivery assignment and those returning to the depot after completing delivery. In simulation study, the effectiveness of the proposed methods is finally validated.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to human activities have significantly caused climate change since the Industrial Revolution. China aims to achieve its carbon emission peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. Accordingly, this paper reviews and discusses technical strategies to achieve the "dual carbon" targets in China's metal mines. First, global carbon emissions and emission intensities from metal mining industries are analyzed. The metal mining status and carbon emissions in China are then examined. Furthermore, advanced technologies for carbon mitigation and carbon sequestration in metal mines are reviewed. Finally, a technical roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality in China's metal mines is proposed. Findings show that some international mining giants have already achieved their carbon reduction targets and planned to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Moreover, improving mining efficiency by developing advanced technologies and replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy are two key approaches in reducing GHG emissions. Green mines can significantly benefit from the carbon neutrality process for metal mines through the carbon absorption of reclamation vegetations. Geothermal energy extraction from operating and abandoned metal mines is a promising technology for providing clean energy and contributing to the carbon neutrality target of China's metal mines. Carbon sequestration in mine backfills and tailings through mineral carbonation has the potential to permanently and safely store carbon dioxide, which can eventually make the metal mining industry carbon neutral or even carbon negative.

Population aging is an important concern not only in China but also to many developed countries, and it will be a more serious issue throughout the world in the future. From this point, understanding the impact of population aging on CO2 emissions is important for achieving carbon neutral in the future. To analyze this impact, this study quantifies lifestyle and urban household's consumption impacts upon carbon emissions from the indirect CO2 emissions aspect and uses the structural decomposition method to analyze the factors influencing the growth of indirect CO2 emissions from 2007 to 2012. The analysis results indicate that the indirect CO2 emissions peak at 20s age group and gradually decline as age increases. Since elderly households have relatively lower indirect CO2 emissions, population aging in the future will reduce indirect CO2 emissions. The decomposition analysis for indirect CO2 emissions shows that the effects of changes in consumption pattern and production technology progress reduced indirect CO2 emissions to a large extent. The main factors leading to the increase in indirect CO2 emissions are the increase in the number of households and consumption volume. The corresponding policy implications are proposed based on our findings: improving energy efficiency in older households, promoting energy conservation promotion among younger households, and cultivating consumers’ green-consumption awareness.

Hydrogen-integrated transportation and power systems (HTPS will become an important way to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. As an important coupling unit of HTPS, the business mechanism of hydrogen fueling stations (HFS is an important starting point for improving system economy and promotion value. This paper proposed an interaction mechanism between HFS and HTPS and hydrogen and fuel cell EVs (HFEVs in smart cities for HFS pricing strategies. First, we construct the framework of the HTPS interaction mechanism based on the basic combination of HTPS. Then, the interactive model of HTPS is constructed, including the scheduling model of HTPS, the pricing model of HFS and the response model of HFEVs. Finally, an HTPS system is constructed based on the improved IEEE 33-node power distribution system for simulation and analysis. The results show that the interaction mechanism and pricing strategy can improve the economics of HTPS and HFS, the operating cost of HTPS has been reduced by approximately 5.57%, the operating income of HFS has increased by approximately 4.17%.

How does the agglomeration economy affect carbon emissions? Does it hinder China's zero-carbon emissions and carbon neutral goals? This study explored the impact of industrial agglomeration on carbon emissions and spatial spillover effects by expanding the output density theoretical model of Ciccone & Hall. The main findings are as follows: (1) Industrial labor and technology agglomerations increase regional carbon emissions, while industrial output agglomeration reduces emissions in the immediate term. Industrial capital agglomeration has no significant immediate effect on carbon emission. (2) Industrial output and technology agglomerations have significant lag effects. Output agglomeration increases carbon emissions, while technology agglomeration reduces emission levels. (3) The impact of industrial output agglomeration on regional carbon emissions shifts from a positive inhibitory effect into a negative aggravating effect. In comparison, industrial technology agglomeration transitions from increasing carbon emissions in the immediate term into having a suppressing effect in the long term. (4) There are significant regional differences in the impact of industrial output and capital agglomerations, while industrial labor and technology agglomerations showed no significant regional difference. The results are important in developing policies and strategies of the economy and the environment.

High emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) has aroused global concern due to the 'greenhouse effect'. The conversion of CO2 to valuable chemicals/materials is an indispensable route toward 'carbon neutrality'. Enzyme-photo-coupled catalytic systems (EPCCSs), integrating synthetic library of semiconductor photocatalyst and natural database of enzyme, have emerged as a green and powerful platform toward CO2 conversion. Herein, we discuss the recent progress in design and application of EPCCSs for CO2 conversion from the perspective of pathway engineering, reaction engineering and system engineering. We firstly summarize the explored pathways of EPCCSs for converting CO2 to C1 and C2+ products. Secondly, we discuss the matching of kinetics between photocatalytic and enzymatic reactions in EPCCSs. Thirdly, we unveil the complex interplay between photocatalytic and enzymatic modules, and further demonstrate the strategy of compartmentalization to eliminate the negative interactions. Lastly, we conclude with the perspective on the opportunities and challenges of EPCCSs for CO2 conversion.

Renewable energy generation, as part of the global effort to mitigate climate change, will play a central role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving China’s goal of carbon emissions peak before 2030 and carbon neutral before 2060. However, the impact of carbon quota auctions on renewable energy generation has not been sufficiently discussed. The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether China can rely on quota auctions to increase renewable energy generation in the short term, and to demonstrate which is more effective in promoting renewable energy development, policy enforcement or auction constraints? The improved neo-trans-log production model, the multi-objective linear programming model and the dispatch heuristic were used to predict additional emission reduction cost, optimized power mix with different auctioning rates, with economic development, technological progress and the unique characteristics of China's power generation industry being taken into consideration. The results show that the auctioning rate will have little influence on the optimized energy production structure, especially on the share of renewable energy resources; when the total on-grid electricity generation ranges from 7625‒7926 billion kW h and the auctioning rate ranges from 0%‒5%, policy enforcement will influence the generation of renewable energy to a greater extent than auctioning in the near future.

China’s recently announced directive on tackling climate change, namely, to reach carbon peak by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, has led to an unprecedented nationwide response among the academia and industry. Under such a directive, a rapid increase in the grid penetration rate of solar in the near future can be fully anticipated. Although solar radiation is an atmospheric process, its utilization, as to produce electricity, has hitherto been handled by engineers. In that, it is thought important to bridge the two fields, atmospheric sciences and solar engineering, for the common good of carbon neutrality. In this überreview, all major aspects pertaining to solar resource assessment and forecasting are discussed in brief. Given the size of the topic at hand, instead of presenting technical details, which would be overly lengthy and repetitive, the overarching goal of this review is to comprehensively compile a catalog of some recent, and some not so recent, review papers, so that the interested readers can explore the details on their own.

In a monopolistically competitive model with production externalities, where individuals voluntarily provide offsets which compensate for degradation of environmental quality caused by their income earning activities, this paper examines how an increase in the population size affects the equilibrium levels of environmental quality, offsets, and net contributions. Whether labor supply is institutionally constrained or not, as the population size increases, environmental quality decreases and converges to zero. However, since offsets increase and converge to the degradation rate of environmental quality, the carbon neutrality theorem holds: net contributions are zero. These results are independent of the specification of the utility function.

Hydrogen as a low-carbon clean energy source is experiencing a global resurgence and has been recognized as an alternative energy carrier that can help bring the world to a carbon neutral future. However, getting to scale is one of the main challenges limiting the growth of the hydrogen economy. In particular, the high cost of transporting green hydrogen is bottlenecking the international trading and wider adoption of hydrogen for global carbon natural objectives. In order to explore incentives for the global hydrogen economy and develop new pathways towards the carbon neutral future, the concept of hydrogen credit is proposed by this research and a framework of trading hydrogen credits similar to carbon credits in the international market is established. This research aims to contribute to the overall uptake of green hydrogen financially rather than relying on the physical production, transportation, and storage of hydrogen. Case studies are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed hydrogen credit framework, as well as the great potential of a global hydrogen credit market.