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Air pollution poses a serious challenge to public health and simultaneously exacerbating regional & intergenerational health inequality. This research introduces PM 2.5 pollution into the intergenerational health transmission model, and estimates its impact on health inequality in China using Ordered Logit Regression (OLR) and Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) model. The results indicate that PM 2.5 pollution exacerbate the intergenerational health inequality, and its impacts show inconsistency across family income levels, parental health insurance status, and area of residence. Specifically, it is more difficult for offspring in low-income families to escape from the influence of unhealthy family to become upwardly mobile. Additionally, this health inequality is more significant in households in which at least one parent does not have health insurance. Moreover, the intergenerational solidification caused by PM 2.5 pollution is higher in the east and lower in the west. Both the PM 2.5 level and solidification effect are high in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta region and central areas of China, which is the focus of air pollution management. These findings suggest that more emphasis should be placed on family-based health promotion. In areas with high PM 2.5 pollution levels, resources, subsidies and air pollution protection should be provided for less healthy families with lower incomes and no health insurance., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Haze pollution has drawn lots of public concern due to its potential damages to human health. Strategic interaction of environmental regulation among local governments may lead to a race to the bottom and hinder air quality improvement. Still, current empirical evidence is scarce, especially from developing countries. Based on province-level panel data from 2004 to 2015, the paper employs a dynamic fixed effect spatial Durbin model to identify interactive patterns of environmental regulation and then investigate its environmental impact. Empirical results indicate that regional differences are observed in environmental regulation and haze pollution, and high-high and low-low clusters dominate the spatial pattern. Interactive patterns of economically similar provinces are dominated by strategic substitution, whereas provinces sharing common borders or belonging to the same region are dominated by strategic complementation. Further, both race to the bottom and race to the top effect are discovered in the asymmetric test. The reaction coefficient values are much more extensive when competitors implement laxer policies, indicating a more significant racing trend to the bottom. Overall, after controlling for the spillover effect and hysteresis effect of haze pollution, the strategic interaction of environmental regulation among provinces is not conducive to improve air quality. The consequence might be correlated with low environmental standards, weak regulation enforcement, and the "free-ride" motive in China. These findings will be of great significance for optimizing local government behavior and improving air quality., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Along with iron and steel production, large amount of slag is generated. Proper management on the iron- and steelmaking slag is highly demanded due to the high cost of direct disposal of the slag to landfill, which is the most adopted management approach. In this article, the potential application of iron- and steelmaking slag has been reviewed, which included the slag utilization in construction as cement and sand, in water, soil, and gas treatment, as well as in value material recovery. In addition, the challenge and required effort to be made in iron- and steelmaking slag management have been discussed.

Motivating residents to deliver environmental complaints is beneficial for environmental authorities to help them manage environmental issues and alleviate the adverse effects caused by climate change. The major aim of the present study is to understand how climate-change information and residents' health-risk perceptions (both physical and mental dimensions) affect residents' environmental complaint behavior. The research framework was developed according to planned behavior theory, risk perception behavior and information behavior models. This framework was empirically assessed by employing questionnaire survey data gathered from 1273 respondents in China. The results indicate that climate-change information and residents' health-risk perceptions have all significantly positive effects on residents' attitudes toward environmental complaints and their intention to submit environmental complaints. Meanwhile, residents' health-risk perception is also positively affected by climate-change information. Mental health-risk perception plays a much stronger role in determining a residents' attitude and intention to submit an environmental complaint than does physical health-risk perception. Furthermore, attitude toward environmental complaint, perceived behavioral control and subjective norm all have significantly positive effects on a residents' intention to submit an environmental complaint. Additionally, this study also addresses the intention-behavior gap and suggests a positive relationship between intention and behavior. The present study may provide some practical implications to motivate residents to submit environmental complaints.

Accurate forecasting is required to measure future national energy performance levels in order to establish clear policies for both monitoring and reducing Nitrous Oxide and other harmful emissions. Using the well-established and accepted measures, we predict the Nitrous Oxide emissions for the year 2030 based on actual data from the years 2000 to 2016 for six countries responsible for 61% of global emissions (China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Russia and the USA). Three advanced mathematical grey predictions models were employed, namely the Even Grey Model (1, 1), the Discrete Grey Model (1, 1) and the Non-homogeneous Discrete Grey Model, which is capable of working with poor or limited data. Results showed that the Non-homogeneous Discrete Grey Model was a better fit and proved more effective in forecasting Nitrous Oxide emissions because it produced the lowest mean absolute percentage error for all countries when compared to the Even Grey Model (1, 1) and the Discrete Grey Model (1, 1). The mean absolute percentage error of the Even Grey Model (1, 1) was 2.4%, that of the Discrete Grey Model (1, 1) was 2.16%, and that of the Non-homogeneous Discrete Grey Model was 1.9%. Furthermore, the results show that China has the highest Nitrous Oxide emissions during the years studied (China 20,578,144, Russia 1,705,110, India 7,806,137, Indonesia 3,405,389, USA 8,891,219 and Japan 780,118). This study also suggests some implications for both academicians and practitioners in respect of reducing Nitrous Oxide emission levels.

An effective and powerful regulation is indispensable for the development and smooth operation of a cap-and-trade emission trading scheme (ETS). Seven regional pilot ETSs have been established and gradually improved in China, from which the experiences and lessons learned may provide useful references to facilitate China's national ETS regulation. This article systematically reviews and compares the practices and policies of carbon trading regulation in China's seven pilot schemes from three major aspects of regulatory institutions and subjects, regulatory objects and content, and regulatory means and techniques, and covering both internal and external regulatory architectures. The comparative analysis has demonstrated that the regional pilot schemes have made notable achievements in developing ETS regulatory systems with Chinese characteristics, but they still have considerable deficiencies. Referencing both international and domestic pilot experiences, this study recommends that China's national ETS improve regulatory institutional basis, foster an extensive participation of pluralistic regulatory subjects with a clear division of powers and responsibilities, establish effective regulatory systems on carbon finance, and continuously enrich regulatory techniques and platforms.

The questions of how to mitigate climate change and its impact on human health are currently high on the Chinese agenda for future development. The emission trading scheme (ETS) has become one of China's most important instruments to address climate change through a market mechanism. In the wake of the evolution from regional pilots to a nationwide scheme, it is inevitable to be confronted with tremendous political-economic-institutional challenges. To facilitate a smooth start-up of the upcoming nationwide ETS, this study provides a systematic overview of seven ETS pilots, involving the detailed comparison of ETS design and the in-depth evaluation of market performance, both internal and external performance, based on trading data. Then, the achievements and deficiencies of seven ETS pilots are summarized, several challenges for the current time are discussed, and policy proposals for China's national-level ETS are navigated further coupled with international experience. This study finds that China's ETS pilots, from the short-term perspective, are successful, especially in the reinforcement of China's capacity to develop a market-based scheme in an economy that still cherishes many non-market endowments. However, deficiencies lie in both the internal and external market performance, such as the carbon price lacking a signal function, insufficient incentives for compliance, too low market liquidity, and much too high market fragmentation. Moreover, the retrospective examination of China's ETS pilots suggests that a nationwide ETS should at least be based on an extension of the cap duration from single year to several years, uniform rules on monitoring/reporting/verification and allowance allocation, and the improvement of institutional foundation.