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Global warming has aroused the attention all over the world, because not only can it directly damage the living environment, but it can also impact on the social and economic development, of a region in an obvious and far-reaching way. In this paper, we builded a trans-log production function model incorporating variables, such as rainfall, labor force, technology and temperature to simulate how climate changes impacted on the regional economics. Time series data of the domestic economy of Nanjing, a city in the southeast China, between 1996 and 2017, were used to verify the production theory of trans-log production frontier. The results showed that: with the rainfall increased and the temperature declined, the climate impact on the economy and the absolute value of the output elasticity of the frontier diminished. In addtion, the climate change was also positively related to the capital investment. The larger variation of temperature negatively impacted on the economic development. • This paper builds a trans-log production function model. • Time series data are used to verify the production theory of trans-log production frontiers. • Analyzing the effect of climate change on the regional economy. • The larger variation of temperature negatively impacted on the economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Cities do play significant roles in tackling global environmental changes. Decoupling economic growth from environmental pressures is critical for global sustainable development, however, few studies pay attention to the decoupling analysis at city level. This paper conducts a comparative study of the decoupling performance of economic output from CO 2 emissions between Beijing and Shanghai, the top two cities in China. In this paper, the decoupling trends and the decoupling effects are explored from a sectoral perspective, by combining the Tapio decoupling elasticity and the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) model. The results show that Beijing and Shanghai both experienced weak decoupling in construction, expansive negative decoupling in transport, expansive coupling in trade, and weak decoupling in others over the period 2000–2015. Moreover, agriculture appeared strong decoupling in Beijing, and recessive decoupling in Shanghai; industry showed strong decoupling in Beijing, and weak decoupling in Shanghai. The decoupling effects showed different magnitudes and patterns in industrial sectors between Beijing and Shanghai. Overall, per-capita GDP and population growth inhibited the decoupling, while energy intensity, industrial share, energy mix accelerated the decoupling process. Highlights • The decoupling of sectoral economic output from carbon emissions in Beijing and Shanghai are investigated. • Beijing's industry enjoyed better decoupling performance than Shanghai's industry. • Transport should be put more emphasis in further decoupling efforts. • Energy intensity is crucial effect accelerating the decoupling process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adequate response to global climate change and low carbon economy development has become a worldwide concerned subject. As one of the energetically most intensive industries, construction industry is a key area to promote decarbonization, which is an important path to realize national strategic goals on carbon reduction in China. This paper focuses on low carbon technology integration management, and analyzes the existing research status of green building or low carbon buildings on the related evaluation indexes, then proposes an evaluation system framework for the low carbon technology integration innovation from the perspective of the system management. It points out, that t he evaluation of low carbon technology innovation should be conducted by a smarter managing of system resource input, the process control and the system comprehensive performance as an output . Furthermore, based on the questionnaire survey and the exploratory factor analysis result on the selected indexes, this paper implements a rough set method to identify the weight of all the indexes and found that:(1) managers focus more on the affordable input of the beginning stage and the management control in the middle period of the innovation, instead on the output performance in the later stage . This indicates, that the management control during the front stages is more essential than this during the later ones; (2) the constructed evaluation framework, from the system perspective, can properly reflect the integrity, multi-level stakeholder structure and technology integration in low carbon projects , which could support the decision-maker into considering the complexity of construction and evaluation of the technology innovation performance from multi-level perspective; (3) the combined methods, adopted with exploratory factor analysis and rough set evaluation to determine the evaluation index and its weights, could well reflect the overall performance of low carbon project evaluation, the selected indicators have certain scientific and practical effectiveness , which could provide references for enterprise on LCT innovation management. as an industry with a multi-level technologies integration, the single Technological adoption or innovation cannot satisfy the economic transformation requirements of the modern construction industry development. An integration innovation management evaluation model is needed for the sustainability evaluation in the construction practice. Its development is the main scientific objective of this study, by taking into consideration the entire life cycle assessment and various other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouse gases are the prime cause of climate change, to which India is a significant party. Globally the issue of sub-national or local emissions is increasingly gaining relevance, particularly post-2009, when greater-half of the world has become urbanized for the first time in the human history. International Energy Agency, in its World Energy Outlook report estimates that 70% of the greenhouse gases are produced within the cities. But, there is limited empirical evidence to substantiate such claims in the Indian context. It being a developing country with a large rural population base, the carbon footprint of cities goes unnoticed. On the other hand, unreeling economic growth and rapid urbanization during the last two decades, coupled with limited data in the subject pressingly seeks a systematic determination of urban emission baseline. This research analyzes historic trends of urbanization, thermal power generation and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, and evaluates their growth trajectories for the imminent future. This paper is also a first time investigation of urban India's (covering over 7000 Indian towns and cities) contribution of GHG emissions. In absence of any international protocol or a standard methodology to estimate urban GHG burdens of a nation, this paper deals with theoretical issues evident while allocating city emissions like methodological differences, defining ‘urban’ and its boundary and the need to consider downscaling of nationally reported emissions using spatial analysis based on production or location perspective of the most significantly contributing sector namely, energy. Dataset of 454 thermal units reported by Central Electricity Authority for 2011–12 from over hundred coal, diesel, gas and liquid fuel based gas turbine plants has been assessed. The individual plants are verified for their name, capacity, generation and local address from their respective state generation corporations or electricity boards, as applicable. They are then spatially located real time, using universally available (and verifiable) web-based mapping tool of Google Earth and Wikimapia. The information has been assessed on the urban-rural gradient, using population based Census definition for class/hierarchy of towns and their location with respect to the urban boundary. The thermal power plants have eventually been classified within the urban area, on the periphery, transitional or rurban and absolutely rural. The results present an array of emissions, across the urban hierarchy and location in space, underpinning how substantial GHG emissions are attributable to urban and urbanizing areas. The research puts forth, with strong evidence, that in contrast to the general postulation, urban settlements radically contribute to national carbon footprint, which is further bound to increase with urbanization. The findings bear significance to influence research, policy and action in energy and urban sectors and greater cross-sector integration for co-benefits in climate change mitigation at the local city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the gradual scarcity of terrestrial resources and the increasingly fierce competition for global marine resources, the task of green development of marine economy and green transformation of marine industry is imminent. Carbon finance is a product of low-carbon economic development and a derivative of green finance. It is an effective way to alleviate the global climate crisis and promote the transformation of the global economy to a low-carbon economy to achieve sustainable development. Studying the mechanism of carbon finance on the development of marine economy will help to grasp the influencing factors of the green transformation of the marine industry in an all-round way, better promote the sustainable development of China's marine economy, and realize the strategy of marine power at an early date. Based on this, this paper selects China's data from 2006 to 2020, and uses the AHP-entropy method to select 26 indicators from five levels: economic growth, energy conservation and emission reduction, marine ecology, structural adjustment and scientific and technological innovation to construct a comprehensive evaluation index system for the green transformation of China's marine industry. Based on the PLSR model, the impact of carbon finance on the green transformation of China's marine industry is empirically analyzed, and the results show that: (1) The comprehensive score of China's marine industry green transformation from 2006 to 2020 fluctuates and rises: from 2006 to 2009, the comprehensive score of China's marine industry green transformation is low, and the transformation effect is not obvious. From 2009 to 2012, the comprehensive score of green transformation of the marine industry improved significantly. From 2012 to 2018, the comprehensive score of China's marine industry green transformation fluctuated little and showed a slow growth trend, while China's marine economic transformation grew steadily at a low speed. In 2019–2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, the speed of transformation has decreased again. (2) The carbon ratio and the green credit balance of commercial banks have a role in promoting the green transformation of China's marine industry, while the carbon trading volume and carbon intensity have a restraining effect on the green transformation of China's marine industry. From the perspective of effect, carbon intensity has the strongest effect, followed by carbon ratio, carbon trading volume is slightly weaker, and the role of green credit balance of commercial banks is the weakest. Based on the research conclusions, relevant policy recommendations were put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of renewable energy is the key to deal with climate change and low-carbon economy development in China. Here, based on a balanced panel dataset of 30 provinces in China cover the period of 1996–2013, this paper explores the effect of economic growth, CO 2 emissions, foreign trade (exports or imports) and urbanization on renewable energy consumption at the national and regional levels by using a dynamic system-GMM panel model. The empirical results show that the influence of economic growth, CO 2 emissions, foreign trade and urbanization on the renewable energy consumption is heterogeneous across regions. First, economic development has an important positive impact on renewable energy consumption in the four panels we consider and the impact is the greatest in the eastern region, follows by the national, central and western regions. Second, CO 2 emissions have a significant positive impact on renewable energy consumption in the central and national regions. However, CO 2 emissions have a weak negative impact on the consumption of renewable energy in the eastern region, and have no impact in the western region; Third, per capita exports are found to have a positive effect on the renewable energy consumption, with the greatest impact in the central region, followed by the eastern and national regions and have a weak negative impact in the western regions; Fourth, per capita imports have a negative effect on renewable energy consumption in the eastern, western and national regions and have a weak positive effect in the central region; Finally, the changes in the urbanization level significantly affect the renewable energy consumption in the four panels we consider and the impact is the greatest in the eastern region with high level of urbanization, follow by the central and western regions. On the basis of this study, we put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to achieving sustainable development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few years the world has witnessed severe climatic conditions, be it in the form of unprecedented droughts or devastating floods, tornadoes, landslides along with major earthquakes and Tsunamis. Are these natural calamities natural and normal or are these the manifestation of man's adverse impact on the environment? If the nature and frequency of numerous geo-climatic upheavals that the earth is experiencing is compared to the worst case scenario of the climate change advocates, the resemblance seems amazingly similar. A plausible explanation for this could be the fact that mankind does not know how to reign in its need for continuous economic growth without adversely affecting ecological sustainability! This problem of achieving and maintaining sustained economic growth seems to be a problem that is unique to the modern post industrial economy. It is being increasingly realized that the ancient civilizations may have economic systems and practices that was based on living in harmony with nature. Hence, there is a growing clamor to learn from the wisdom of the ancients and incorporate their ideas and practices or in other words learn from the philosophies that have stood the test of time. That tribal wisdom may be better equipped to deal with natural calamity was vividly displayed a few years ago in India. When the massive Tsunami of December 26th, 2004 ravaged Asia, one of the hardest hit region was the remote chain of some 500 islands known collectively as the Andaman and Nicobar. Inhabited by hunter gatherer tribes that have little contact with the outside world, anthropologists initially feared the tribes could have been completely wiped out. However it was soon discovered that the tribal community used their ancient knowledge of nature to escape the Tsunami. One of the tribes that lives there are the Onge. They are estimated to have lived in the islands for 30000–50000 years. Numbering some one hundred individuals, they are on the verge of extinction. However, in the Tsunami, they suffered no casualties as their folklore speaks of large waves that follows earthquakes, so all of them retreated to the high grounds. As north east India is home to numerous traditional societies that have followed old age practices up to the modern times, this region could make significant contribution to the sustainability discourse. Tribal communities and indigenous religions the world over are accepted repositories of ancient knowledge and wisdom. Significantly, with the tribal communities, such knowledge systems are living traditions. Thus such living knowledge systems could be an important source of guidance for modern man in his quest for sustainability. For the purpose of this paper, the Khasi sacred forest were used as a case study to understand what lessons it can offer in our quest to conserve our forests and also achieve sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]