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To secure effective and sustainable climate change policies, it is of the utmost importance to create synergies between socioeconomic and environmental development goals. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs are being promoted as a suitable mechanism furthering, among others, carbon offsetting and poverty reduction in ecologically fragile areas of developing countries. Rural households are compensated for the loss of property and business income through income transfers and potential job opportunities connected to environmental programs. While the potential pro-poor effects of such policies are well recognized, the impact of PES on extremely poor households has not been systematically reviewed. Drawing on a pooled cross-sectional dataset of 5225 households in the Province of Sichuan, this paper analyzes the income and distributional effects among poor households in rural China participating in a forest carbon sink (FCS) program. To be able to make causal inferences, we employ an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach to control for potential endogeneity and self-selection. Our results indicate a strong need to adjust the PES program: While moderately poor rural households benefit from program participation, extremely poor rural households, in fact, suffer net losses. The main reason is that income reduction resulting from limited access to forest resources is compensated mainly via wage income from participating in forest tending work. Extremely poor households with low labor ability cannot make use of these job opportunities, and thus they'll not only fail to benefit but even incur losses from a PES program. While PES programs can be a viable tool for poverty reduction in underdeveloped regions due to their overall pro-poorness, they need to be accompanied by additional benefits for extremely poor rural households to avoid net losses among marginalized population groups especially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature has carried out fruitful research on the effects of environmental regulation policies. Due to differences in policies, regions, and data analysis methods, however, the previous studies have not reached a consensus on the effects of environmental regulation policies, especially on the effects of environmental regulation policies of developing countries from the perspective of environmental justice. This paper takes the establishment of the environmental court in China's intermediate people's court as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the multi-period difference-in-differences method to examine the effect of the establishment of the environmental court on environmental governance and economic performance, based on the panel data of 284 cities in China from 2003 to 2019. The results show that the establishment of the environmental court can significantly reduce the emission intensity of industrial SO 2 in the short term. This reduction effect is resulted from the joint emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court on local cities and adjacent cities. The mechanism analysis shows that the establishment of the environmental court has the dual effect of emission reduction without hindering economic growth. This effect is mainly achieved by improving energy efficiency, stimulating green technology innovation, increasing environmental investment, and improving the green finance level. Furthermore, the emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court shows differential effects under the constraints of regional rule-of-law level, environmental awareness, fiscal pressure, and level of innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, the establishment of the environmental court can facilitate the achievement of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. • Evaluated the impact of the improvement of judicial quality on environmental governance and economic performance. • The establishment of the environmental court would reduce the emission intensity of industrial SO 2. • The establishment of the environmental court would not compromise regional productivity. • There is heterogeneity in the policy effects of the establishment of the environmental court. • Effects are achieved via energy efficiency, green technology innovation, environmental investment, and green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household consumption has great potential to reduce CO 2 emissions from the demand side which is an important way to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. However, the shrinking household size will have a significant impact on household carbon emissions. In this paper, we have investigated the impacts of the decrease in Chinese household size on the direct and indirect household carbon emissions by using the input-output model and the bidirectional fixed-effect model, based on China's Urban Household Income and Expenditure Survey dataset. Results have shown that household size has a significant negative effect on household carbon emissions per capita, and such a negative effect on indirect carbon emissions is much greater than that on direct carbon emissions in China. Reducing the average household size by one has led to an increase of 0.128 t of the direct household carbon emissions per capita and 1.344 t of indirect household carbon emissions per capita, respectively. We also projected the potential change of household carbon emissions by 2030 under scenarios of increasing total population and shrinking household size and found that there may generate a 15.3%–18.8% growth in household carbon emissions compared to that in 2012, with other demographic characteristics unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary carbon offsetting (VCO) is an important means of controlling rapidly growing household consumption emissions. To design an effective VCO system, consumers' willingness towards VCO and its relevant determinants are of crucial importance, but are still rather insufficiently studied, especially in developing countries and among high‑carbon-emitting consumers. This paper adopts an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to explore the influencing mechanism of Chinese consumers' willingness to offset. Willingness to pay(WTP) is also estimated to provide monetary value of willingness. Using K-means clustering based on consumption behaviours, high‑carbon-emitting consumers are identified and further investigated. The proposed model was tested empirically using survey data (N = 905) collected from different areas in China. The results show that on average, Chinese consumers are willing to pay 419.2 RMB (61.2 USD) per year for carbon offsetting. The major influencing factor is subjective norm, followed by attitude and personal moral norm. High‑carbon-emitting consumers have better knowledge, stronger perceived control and greater WTP for VCO, and their willingness to offset is directly influenced by subjective norm rather than personal moral norm. The findings shed light on the offsetting behaviours of Chinese consumers and recommendations on the design of a VCO system are further proposed. • We analyzed consumers' willingness towards voluntary carbon offsetting in the Chinese context. • An extended theory of planned behaviour was developed to study the influencing mechanism. • Subjective norm is the most decisive factor for willingness to offset among Chinese consumers. • High-carbon-emitting consumers pay primary attention to social pressure and are willing to pay more to offset. • Special carbon offsetting products should be designed for high-carbon-emitting consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]