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The control of carbon emissions from agriculture is imperative in addressing the challenges posed by the greenhouse effect. China must develop a specific pathway for reducing its agricultural carbon emissions, accounting for its unique circumstances and considering the impacts of trade liberalization. (1) The study revealing that agricultural trade liberalization (ATL) has a marked effect on lowering China's agricultural carbon emission intensity (ACEI), with robustness and endogeneity tests supporting these findings. (2) In the pursuit of emissions reduction, the crucial role of technology spillovers (TS) and the optimization of industrial structure (OIS) are essential. (3) The reduction in ACEI is particularly notable in coastal regions, areas with low environmental regulations and during periods characterized by more stable agricultural tariffs. This study shows a synergistic association between ATL and ACEI, indicates the potential for a mutually beneficial situation with advantages in both economic and environmental aspects., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The development and utilization of renewable energy (RE) is crucial for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The northwest China, endowed with abundant RE sources such as wind and solar power, accounts for over 70% of the country's total resources. The assessment and utilization of RE in this region has become a critical means to achieve the SDGs, particularly SDG7. However, lack of knowledge regarding the RE potential poses a barrier to achieving high-quality energy development. Thus, through a Geographical Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria analysis, we assess the solar and wind energy potential in northwest China, quantitatively examine the energy potential and its contribution towards achieving the SDGs. Our results show that a substantial portion of RE can be harnessed in northwest China, with wind energy generation reaching up to 9.84PWh/km 2 /yr at 110m and 12.43 PWh/km 2 /yr at 140m. Concurrently, solar energy can contribute up to 15.16 PWh/km 2 /yr. Xinjiang province has the highest RE potential for it contains a large share of suitable area with good resource quality. The findings illustrate the contribution of northwest China towards achieving SDGs and facilitate the formulation of more targeted resource policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Lijuan Si reports financial support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China. Lijuan Si reports a relationship with National Natural Science Foundation of China that includes: funding grants. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

"Carbon peaking and carbon neutralization" is an important measure to promote China's ecological and environmental protection and high-quality economic development, and the innovation and application of green technology are critical factors in achieving the "double carbon" goal. Based on the number of citations of green patents of listed enterprises in 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper uses GGDP to replace traditional GDP and calculate carbon emission intensity. Based on the relevant panel data at the provincial level, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model to analyze the impact mechanism of whether the promotion and application of green technologies promote regional carbon emission reduction. The specific research results are as follows: (1) Through regression of the core explanatory variables with a one-stage lag, it is verified that the promotion and application of green technology has a significant positive promoting effect on regional carbon emission reduction, and there are significant spatial spillover effects and "learning by doing" effects. (2) In the part of heterogeneity test, the impact of green technology promotion and application on carbon emission reduction presents apparent regional heterogeneity and factor endowment heterogeneity. (3) The mediating effect test verifies the mediating effect of energy structure and industrial structure on the influence of green technology promotion and application on regional carbon emission reduction. (4) In the part moderating effect test, it is verified that marketization level and new infrastructure construction have a positive moderating effect in their influencing process, financial development, and government support will weaken the influence of green technology promotion and application on carbon emission reduction effect, and human capital level has a nonlinear regulating effect. The research conclusions of this paper provide necessary enlightenment for the coordination and unification of China's economic transition to innovation-driven and green and low-carbon development. • The impact of GTPA on reduction in China was analyzed from a macro perspective. • The GS and FDL plays a negative moderating role in the influence process. • The HCL plays a nonlinear moderating role in the influence process. • The GTPA can significantly reduce regional CEI except in Western China. • Regions with high EDL and high GTI have better carbon reduction effects of GTPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data center is a very important infrastructure to support the development of information technology, and its development and increment are very remarkable. However, with the rapid and large-scale development of data centers, the problem of energy consumption turns to be also very prominent. Under the background of global carbon peak and carbon neutrality, developing green and low-carbon data centers has become an inevitable trend. This paper reviews and analyzes the policies and their roles in promoting China's green development of data centers in the past 10 years, summarizes the current situation of the implementation of green data center projects in China and gives the changes of PUE limits of data centers under the policy constraints. Application of green technologies is an important measure for energy-saving and low-carbon development of data centers, so encouraging innovation and application of green technologies in data center is also a priority task in relevant policies. This paper points out the green and low-carbon technology system of data centers, further summarizes energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies in IT equipment, cooling system, power supply and distribution system, lighting, intelligent operation and maintenance, and provides an outlook on the future green development of data centers. • China's green data center policy in recent 10 years has played an important role in promoting the development of green data centers. • Summarizes the status of green data centers under policy guidance. • Provides energy saving and carbon reduction technology path for data centers. • Prospects for the future development of green data centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting green and low-carbon development has become the consensus of the policymakers and the academic, with green transformation of enterprises being the top priority. This paper adopts the difference-in-difference model to investigate the effect of green credit policy on green transition in China, by utilizing the "Green Credit Guidelines" (2012 Guidelines) policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Using panel data from publicly listed companies in China, an empirical investigation is conducted, we explain the dependent variable from two dimensions: economic performance and environmental performance, leading to the following results. First, the green credit policy affects the economic performance and environmental performance of treated firms positively, and the robust tests confirm the reliability of this primary conclusion. Second, the indirect impact of green credit policy on green transition can be explained through two mediating mechanism channels including internal capacity building and external market attention. In addition, the proposal of "Dual Carbon Targets" makes the impact a slight change. Finally, heterogeneous test also shows that the implementation effect of green credit policy is better in non-state-owned enterprises with high political relevance. These findings are providing valuable insights to promote green transition by designing more effective green credit policies. • We identify the effect of green credit policy on green transition. • We employ multiple econometric models to ensure the robustness. • We provide the empirical evidence for heterogeneity. • We investigate the intermediary channels from two ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretically, agricultural insurance influences farmers' use of pesticides by changing the expected income of agricultural production. Full-cost insurance, with high guarantee and high compensation characteristics, may significantly affect farmers' pesticide use. First, this paper constructs a production function to characterize and compare the marginal incomes of insured and uninsured farmers under risk uncertainty and analyses how insured farmers can increase marginal income by increasing or reducing factor inputs. Considering scale differentiation, it discusses pesticide use strategies different types of farmers may adopt to maximize household utility. Second, using survey data of the pilot counties of full-cost insurance for wheat in Henan Province, China, the simultaneous equation model is used for empirical testing. The results reveal the following: (i) Farmers' insurance participation and pesticide application behaviour are not mutually independent. (ii) For the whole sample, full-cost insurance for wheat has a significant pesticide reduction effect. (iii) However, considering scale differentiation, pesticide application decreases significantly among insured ordinary farmers but does not change significantly among insured large-scale farmers. Third, policy measures are proposed to activate the green development function of agricultural insurance. • Construct a production function and a utility function to conduct mechanism analysis. • Estimate simultaneous equation model based on pilot area household level dataset. • Analyse the effect of full-cost insurance on pesticide input behavior. • Find full-cost insurance significantly reduces the pesticide use of ordinary farmers. • But insignificant effect on the pesticide use of large-scale farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental effects of the urban agglomeration planning policy (UAPP) are an exploration by rapidly developing China and a concern for countries seeking development and urban reform around the world. This paper takes the three regional urban agglomerations in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) as the research object and collects the panel data of 106 prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2019 to study the reduction effects of UAPP on the industrial wastewater discharge (IWD). The empirical results from Difference-in-Differences models indicate that UAPP can significantly inhibit IWD. UAPP reduces IWD by promoting green innovation, and the development of service industries can strengthen this effect. UAPP shows a stronger IWD reduction effect in the northeast YRB than that in the southwest region. Compared to urban agglomerations with a single provincial jurisdiction, UAPP exerts stronger IWD reduction effects on urban agglomerations with multiple jurisdictions. Moreover, there exist spatial spillover effects of UAPP on IWD. These findings provide support and references for urban reform and the development of green cities in countries around the world, especially in developing countries. • Urban agglomeration planning policies can reduce industrial wastewater discharge. • Green innovation is the main intermediary factor. • Service industry development strengthens the discharge reduction effects. • The discharge reduction effects are stronger with multiple jurisdictions. • There exist spatial spillover effects of the discharge reduction effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization, air pollutants has been increasing, posing a major threat to human health and the ecological environment. During the past period of rapid growth, with the booming development of real estate, the air pollutants brought about by the construction of housing buildings have become more and more serious, especially sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and dust, which cast a great threat to human life and seriously jeopardize human health. Compared with the traditional construction of houses, prefabricated buildings construction procedures are reduced, to some extent, can reduce air pollutants. Therefore, this paper takes an empirical perspective to include prefabricated buildings and air pollutants into the same research framework and analyze the inherent logical relationship. We found that prefabricated buildings have a substantial role in mitigating urban air pollution. This conclusion remained solid after various robustness tests including constructing instrumental variables. The effect is observed to be greater in cities above the non-sub-provincial level and those positioned within central regions. The conclusions explore new areas for the green and sustainable development of the construction industry, which in the future will have to fill the requirements of green development in order to survive. Else, perspectives from the construction industry, it provides a realistic solution to economic development and ecological protection, helping to alleviate or resolve the conflict between development and survival. • The air pollution abatement effect of prefabricated buildings is investigated. • The results are robust after controlling the endogenous issue. • The heterogeneity is supported for different samples and air pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play a critical role in the sustainable development of water resources due to its outstanding ability of removing pollutants from complex influent wastewater and generating clean and safe effluent. This paper innovatively adopted the meta-analysis method in view of published LCA studies to assess the energy use and environmental impacts of WWTPs during their life cycle. The search and screening process determined a useful data source with 54 LCA literatures covering 109 relevant case studies. The meta-analysis results revealed that, compared with other regions, the WWTPs in China have the higher intensity in terms of energy use, global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EP), acidification potential (AP), photochemical oxidation (PHO), freshwater ecotoxicity potential (FETP) and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential (TETP) categories, implying that the energy conservation and emission reduction strategies are necessary to wastewater treatment industry in China. Moreover, compared with A/A/O and CASS processes, the A/O process consumes less energy and results in lower GWP and AP intensity, but affects adversely the natural water-body protection due to undesirable treatment efficiency. Furthermore, the treatment capacities of medium and large scales (i.e. 5-20 × 104 m3/d) are most reasonable sizes for WWTPs since their intensity of energy use, GWP, EP and AP are under a relatively low level. Finally, a strict effluent discharge standard is highly recommended from the perspective of protecting aquatic environment, although it leads to a higher energy consumption. The findings of this study could provide valuable references for promoting healthy and sustainable wastewater treatment industry. • Meta-analysis was firstly explored for evaluating the energy use and EIs of WWTPs. • Data source included 54 LCA literatures covering 109 independent case studies. • Four physical characteristics associated with WWTPs were in-depth discussed. • Recommendations for design and reconstruction of WWTPs in the future were provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]