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Abstract: Reducing environmental pressure is a major concern for China but despite the improvements in energy efficiency, its gross carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have maintained an upward trend, consistent with the Jevons Paradox. A fundamental shift is thus needed at all levels, including the household. This paper explores the embedded carbon footprint (ECF) of Chinese urban households associated with activities, such as food, personal transport, communications, education, recreation, health and hygiene. It uses an input–output model for carbon emissions and 2003–2009 urban household data. The results show that the total ECF emission intensity increases when an individual''s consumption is higher than 10,000 Yuan (¥). Structural changes are further observed with consumption expenditure above ¥10,000: food, clothing and other survival-oriented emissions intensities as well as education, health and development-oriented emissions intensities reduce; transport, recreation, housing and enjoyment-oriented emissions intensities increase or remain stable and the total emissions intensity increases. Currently per capita consumption expenditure of Chinese urban residents exceeds ¥10,000 and as income continues to rise, China will remain on a high-carbon track. There is a need for better policies, management and behavioural change and the study provides some policy suggestions, including a carbon quota system to guide individual consumption. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper performs a cost-effectiveness analysis of some of the best available technologies (BAT) that can contribute to decreasing the energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the European Union’s (EU27) cement industry. Several capital budgeting decision criteria have been used (the payback period, the net present value and the internal rate of return) to study whether or not an investment should be considered worthwhile. The results show that, independent of the capital budgeting decision criteria used, the number of cost-effective retrofitting possibilities available is large compared to the rate of improvements that the industry undertakes annually. This shows the insensitivity of the industry to financial criteria when it comes to making their investment decisions. The possible thermal energy improvement in the clinker production, if all these BATs were implemented, has been quantified to be around 10%. This achievement would place the cement industry in the upper bound of the benchmark range for clinker manufacture. However considering the delays observed nowadays in terms of diffusion of BATs in the cement industry, it requires a conducive policy environment that combines support for both technology development and to their deployment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]