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With the continuous development of global economic and trade activities, environmental problems have become an important factor restricting the sustainable development of all countries. How to realize the coordinated development of international trade and environmental protection has become a major issue facing the international community. Since China joined the WTO, its share of international trade has been increasing continuously. In order to deeply analyze the influence of international carbon emission trading policy on domestic carbon emissions, we use an input–output model and a GTAP analysis method to theoretically calculate the carbon emissions of the international trade of various departments in Shandong Province. At the same time, the implicit carbon emission index of various industries in 2022 is calculated through the direct energy consumption coefficient. The results show that there are significant differences in the impact of the carbon tariff system on different industries. In terms of the carbon emission index, the food processing industry showed a decrease of 18.99 Mt, while the implied carbon emission of the tobacco, textile and leather manufacturing industry reached 30.56 Mt due to the continuous expansion of trade scale. In contrast, the implied carbon emission level of the metal product processing industry reached 5.3 Mt, while the carbon emission of traditional trading industries such as coal mining was almost unaffected by international trade, and its carbon emission index reached the highest level of 5.89 in 2020. In terms of trade impact, high-trade industries such as the food processing industry are significantly affected by the carbon tariff policy, and their share has dropped from 5.89% to 3.95% in the past decade. The carbon emissions generated by GDP growth established by the GTAP model are more convincing. This model can directly reflect the energy efficiency of a region from the side. Based on the present situation of international trade, this paper analyzes the inequality of the current carbon tariff system, and puts forward some policies to optimize the energy structure to reduce carbon emissions and expand domestic demand to reduce the dependence on international trade. Through the GTAP model, we put forward policy suggestions to optimize the energy structure to reduce carbon emissions and the dependence on international trade by expanding domestic demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of electricity in the transition to renewable energy to mitigate climate change. A systematic literature review with the Scopus database identified 92 papers relevant to the renewable electricity transition. A PESTLE (Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental) review of the papers provided a multidisciplinary analysis. The Paris Agreement created a global movement for carbon neutrality to address the threats of climate change, calling for a transition to renewable electricity to lead the way and expand into new sectors and regions. Although smaller renewable technologies are ramping up, complexities thwarting the transition include locked-in assets, high upfront costs, variability of solar and wind energy, infrastructure, difficulty in decarbonizing transportation and industry, material resource constraints, and fossil fuel support. This research found that renewables are not replacing fossil fuels to date but adding further energy demands, so that greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021 despite an increased renewable electricity share. Without a major shift in the trillions of dollars of subsidies and investment away from fossil fuels to renewables, catastrophic climate change is predicted. This paper found that the Paris Agreement's commitment to net-zero carbon and the transition to renewable electricity are undermined by record-high levels of subsidies and financing for fossil fuel industry expansion. Transitioning to a climate-neutral economy requires an investment away from fossil fuels into renewable energy ecosystems. Renewable electricity provides possibilities to realize sustainable development goals, climate stabilization, job creation, a green economy, and energy security with careful planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a raw material for clean energy supply for the new generation, the soybean is conducive to the realization of global energy transition and sustainable development in the context of "carbon neutrality". However, global warming has been affecting soybean yields in recent years. How to clarify the correlation between meteorological factors and soybean yields, so as to ensure the security of soybean growth and development and the stability of renewable energy development, is a key concern of the government and academia. Based on the data of temperature, precipitation, sunshine duration and active accumulated temperature during the soybean growing season in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 1951 to 2019, and soybean yield data of the city from 1985 to 2019, this paper adopted statistical methods such as the Trend Analysis Method, the Rescaled Range Analysis Method and so on to analyze the trends of yield changes, characteristics of abrupt changes and periodic patterns of climate factors and soybean yields in Hulunbuir. A Pearson Correlation Analysis and a Grey Relation Analysis were used to explore the correlation between climatic factors and soybean yields, followed by a comprehensive impact model of the combined effect of temperature and precipitation on soybean yields established by the Method of Integral Regression. The results showed that temperature and active accumulated temperature are the dominant factors affecting soybean yields in Hulunbuir, while the decrease in precipitation is unfavorable to the improvement of soybean yields. Meanwhile, temperature and precipitation have different effects on the growth and development of the soybean at different stages. The conclusion of this paper is of great practical significance for Hulunbuir to promote the sustainable development of clean energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ambitious goal of the European Union (EU) countries is to achieve carbon neutrality by providing inclusive economic growth, which requires the development of relevant incentives and initiatives. Furthermore, such incentives and initiatives should guarantee the achievement of the declared goals. Energy sectors are the core determinant of inclusive economic growth. Traditional energy resources (coal oriented) have a higher negative impact on nature and people's well-being than on economic and social benefits. However, the transition to renewable energy raises new issues in achieving goals of inclusive economic growth: affordable and clean energy, responsible energy consumption, and energy infrastructure. The analysis of the theoretical framework found that the digitalization of government could be a core instrument for handling the abovementioned issues. The paper aims to justify the role of green energy in achieving inclusive economic growth empirically. The study applies the following methods: fully modified Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and canonical cointegrating regression. The findings allow concluding that institutional quality passively affects inclusive economic growth and that the digitalization of government has a U-shaped impact on inclusive economic growth. In this case, countries should boost the digital transformation of public services and continuously increase the quality of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to adapt to the development of the green power certificate trading (GPCT) and carbon emissions trading (CET) market, reduce the carbon emissions of the distribution network and increase the investment income, this paper proposes a new distribution network (NDN) planning and simulation operation bi-layer model with new energy (NE) as the main body, considering the GPCT and CET mechanisms. First, the upper layer determines the capacity and location of wind turbine (WT), photovoltaic (PV), hydraulic turbine (HT), micro turbine (MT), and energy storage (ES), while the lower simulation operation considers the operation costs of WT, PV, HT, MT, ES, load demand response (DR) and carbon emissions. The planning objective was to minimize the total cost of investment, operation and carbon emissions in the planning period. Then, on the basis of a traditional distribution network (TDN), security constraints, carbon emissions intensity, GPCT volume and CET volume were added. Finally, the cases study of the improved IEEE33 node and PG&E69 node NDN planning were provided. The results of NDN planning and TDN planning are compared and analyzed, and a sensitivity analysis was carried out to study the impact of GPCT and CET mechanisms with different price levels on investment planning. The results verify the applicability and rationality of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therefore, applying green technologies in buildings to lower carbon emissions in construction [[2]], maintenance [[3]], operation [[4]], and even recycling [[5]] could considerably mitigate global warming and contribute towards the sustainable development of human society [[6]]. The construction industry is one of the three major worldwide energy consumers, producing nearly 30% of global carbon emissions [[1]]. Based on the aforementioned papers, the research range of the Special Issue "Green Buildings for Carbon Neutral" includes, but is not limited to: Low-carbon building; Building-integrated renewable energy technology; Eco-friendly building material; Advancing building envelope; Intelligent building; Building flexibility; Building energy storage; Healthy building; Energy-efficient lighting; Waste heat utilization in buildings. [Extracted from the article]

Carbon emission efficiency, which is mainly affected by economic output, energy efficiency and energy structure, is the effect of carbon emissions generated in economic activities. Improving carbon emission efficiency and narrowing regional differences are very important for green development in Belt and Road Initiative regions with developing countries as the main body. The existing literature mostly uses the Theil index to study the temporal differences in carbon emission efficiency, but spatial differences and the reasons for the differences have rarely been examined. This paper measures the differences of carbon emission efficiency using the Theil index and examines the reasons based on the Logarithmic Mean Divisia index (LMDI) method in five groups of 60 Belt and Road Initiative countries. The results show that the Theil index of carbon emission efficiency in these countries is 0.196, with an intra-group difference of 0.165 and an inter-group difference of 0.031. Between most of the groups, energy efficiency is the dominant factor affecting carbon emission efficiency differences, especially between East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia and East Asia. Between most of the countries with the highest and lowest carbon emission efficiency in the same group, such as Singapore and Vietnam in East Asia, energy efficiency is still the primary factor affecting the differences. Only some differences between a few groups, countries and sectors have been caused mainly by energy structures. Therefore, improving energy efficiency is the first way for those countries with low carbon emission efficiency to catch up other countries with high carbon emission efficiency, followed by improving the energy structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance and urgency of improving energy and carbon emissions efficiency in mitigating climate change and achieving carbon neutrality have become an increasingly relentless focus in recent years. Assessing the performance of energy saving and carbon emissions reduction is a significant necessity to achieve sustainable economic development. Therefore, from the perspective of production economics, this paper presents a review of the definition, models, and input-output variables for measuring total-factor energy efficiency and total-factor carbon emissions efficiency. Relevant literature in this field, published between 2006 and 2021, has been systematically analyzed using CiteSpace software, which includes a quantitative and visual review of a large body of published literature. This review found that the current definitions of total-factor energy efficiency and total-factor carbon emissions efficiency are confusing and misleading. Furthermore, future research on energy saving and carbon emissions reduction should incorporate subject areas such as economics, energy, and ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]