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Carbon emissions neutrality has been a strategic target of many countries. Most of them have set the deadline at around the middle of this century in spite of very few already achieved. Different kinds of policies and strategies have been made during the past years, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from the EU. The CBAM is a carbon tariff on carbon emissions intensive products, such as cement and some electricity. It was imported by the EU currently being legislated as part of the European Green Deal and will to take effect in 2026 with reporting starting in 2023. As the largest economic partner of the EU, China export a large number of products to the EU every year. China has also promised achieving the carbon neutrality target by 2060. It could be predictable that the CBAM would have significant impact on the industrial activities, exportation and the progress of the carbon neutrality of China. However, it is not clear that what impacts and how significance it would be. It is crucial and urgent to explore the impacts of CBAM on the carbon emissions of China and relevant policies. This work makes a review on the state of the art on this topic, the development of CBAM and potential impacts on the carbon neutrality target of China, providing support for relevant research in the future.

Land-based sectors play significant roles in carbon emissions, and removals, including agriculture, forestry, other land uses (AFOLU), as well as land use and cover change (LUCC). More than 20 % of carbon emissions globally are from land-based sectors. It is increasingly crucial to identify and model the relationship between land-based sectors and climate change, especially toward the carbon emissions neutrality target or net-zero emission goal. However, few works so far were systematically and comprehensively designed for this topic. The boundary of land-based sectors is not clearly defined, and the linkages between land-based sectors and carbon emissions are not well identified. This paper overviewed the relationship between land-based sectors and climate change toward the carbon emissions neutrality goal to narrow the research gaps. The AFOLU-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were identified, the implications for land-based emissions reduction were discussed, and the potential priority action areas were summarised. This study provides a better understanding of the relationship between land use and climate change.

The paper provides an updated overview of the main achievements and ideas presented at the most recent PRES conferences and in the fields which have been covered by them. The conference history now reached a quarter of the century – from 1998 to 2022. The PRES conferences have become one of the main vehicles for spreading Process Integration (PI) into various research directions and fields of possible implementation. The PRES went successfully during the last period challenged by COVID-19 pandemics. Not all conferences managed to adapt well. However, PRES successfully implemented the hybrid mode and learned how to use it efficiently for enlarging the number of speakers as well as the audience while still keeping very intensive and beneficial cross-fertilisation and networking. Some experiences have been shared in this paper. The hybrid mode helped successfully intensify the research efforts on the research challenge, which remained as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemics – an increased amount of waste and during the life and economy recovery also increasing environmental footprints. This short overview includesProcess Integration with Pinch AnalysisProcess Integration with another approachDevelopment of heat exchanger systems for Process IntegrationOther extensions of Process Integration for wider Process Systems Engineering and recentlyCircular economyEnvironmental footprints and nexuses and justCOVID-19 pandemics energy and environmental consequences and recovery. This paper presents an attempt to demonstrate and make suggestions for the future growth of the Process Integration branching out during the next years.

This paper reviews the Process Integration (PI) development related to the recent Conferences on Process Integration for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES conferences) and makes suggestions for the future growth of PI branching out in the future. The conference history is now close to a quarter of the century–from 1998 to 2021, and has been flourishing despite the difficult COVID-19 period. The paper overviews the progresses in Process Integration with Pinch Analysis, heat exchangers and Process Integration, extensions of Process Integration for wider process system engineering, integration of renewable energy sources, Circular Economy, extended environmental footprints, extended water-energy nexus contribution to environmental assessment, COVID-19 pandemics environmental consequences, and ecosystem remediation and waste stream clean-up. Considerable progress in Process Integration has also been achieved thanks to PRES conferences. This overview is an attempt to demonstrate the contribution delivered and make suggestions for the future growth of the PI branching out during the next years. It has become apparent that further improvements of the PI technologies are necessary and possible for achieving sufficient reductions of resource demands and pollution so that available renewables and end-of-pipe cleaning can serve them, minimising the environmental impacts. The key methodology developments enabling this are multi-constraint Pinch Analysis and the joint use of several PI methods for delivering comprehensive macro-analyses.

This study seeks to explore the Energy-Carbon-Water nexus of China, identifying the regional transmissions of embodied energy consumption, CO2 emissions and water consumption in the coastal area of China. Nice provinces are taken into consideration, and the Multi-Region Input-Output model is employed. The critical transmissions of embodied Energy-Carbon-Water among different provinces have been analysed. Results show that: i) Hebei export the most embodied energy and Zhejiang import the most embodied energy; ii) The structure of embodied CO2 emissions transmissions is similar with that of embodied energy consumption; iii) Guangdong benefits the most from the regional embodied water transmissions system, and Jiangsu contributes the most. This study contributes to a better understanding of the regional embodied Energy-Carbon-Water nexus system, providing a reference for future studies of other regions in the world.

The Water-Energy-Carbon Emissions (WEC) nexus has been drawing increasing attention. However, very few studies, to date, were conducted to comprehensively review the assessment approaches, challenges and trends of future works for regional and sectoral CWC nexus. This paper aims to analyse and review the WEC nexus assessment methods, challenges of WEC network management and ways to go in the future. Eight different kinds of WEC nexus assessment methods are introduced, as well as their advantages and drawback. Five future work directions of WEC nexus assessment are proposed. This study provides a better understanding of the WEC nexus and more approaches to assess the WEC nexus.

EU27 and China have been two of the largest economies as well as water consumers, energy utilisers and carbon emitters. However, the linkages and key flows of Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus (WECN) in the EU27 and China remain not entirely clear. It is still under exploration, whether the associated benefits are mutual or not. This study aims at assessing the WECN of different countries in the EU27 and different sectors in China. The Environmental Extended Input-Output (EEIO) model is used to analyse the embodied water consumption, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The total water consumption, energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the specific country in the EU27 and specific sector in China are analysed as well. The results identify the characteristics of water and energy consumption, and carbon emission of the EU27 and China. This study provided an approach to identify the synergies in terms of Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus. It provides decision-making support to apply to other regions for better cope with the possible consequences of climate change.

GHG emissions caused by energy generation and consumption is both a global as well as localised issue. Especially for Kazakhstan, which is one of the most significant coal reserves and mining countries. Kazakhstan is the 9th biggest country worldwide and the biggest country in Middle Asian (MA), is a gateway to the west for China. It has been playing a significant role in the “Belt & Road” strategy. It is essential to specify GHG emissions in Kazakhstan, especially that from energy consumption, which has not been studied deeply so far. To fill that gap, this study analysed the GHG emissions from the main types of energy in Kazakhstan from 2006 to 2016, based on the GHG emissions assessment methods defined by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The GHG emissions characters of Kazakhstan and the whole world were also compared. Results showed that: 1) the energy consumption structures of Kazakhstan and the whole world are visibly different. Coal accounted for a significant proportion in Kazakhstan; 2) the consumption changes of different types of energy ranged widely; 3) the change trends of GHG emissions from Kazakhstan and whole world are similar, first upward then downward; 4) the GHG emission sources structure of Kazakhstan is visibly different to that of the whole world, coal accounted for more than 58 % of whole GHG emissions in Kazakhstan. This study can contribute to understanding energy consumption and GHG emissions in Kazakhstan.