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Tourism has become an engine for economic growth, but its rapid expansion has also triggered global ecological issues. Tourism ecological security has become a crucial constraint on urban sustainable development. In this context, "all-for-one" tourism leverages its advantage in driving regional resource integration, promoting coordinated urban-rural development, and advancing the implementation of China's rural revitalization strategy. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the tourism ecological security of the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration from an "all-for-one" tourism perspective. It further dissects this framework into production and tourism ecological protection stages, evaluate the tourism ecological security level of this urban agglomeration from 2011 to 2020 through the dynamic super-efficiency network SBM (Slack-Based Measure) model, and explore the driving factors of the two stages by using geographical detectors. And the Dagum Gini coefficient is used to identify regional disparities. The results indicate that Chongqing has the highest tourism ecological security efficiency at 1.41, while Chengdu scores only 1.0, suggesting that Chengdu needs to prioritize ecological concerns compared to Chongqing. Furthermore, five cities have efficiency values below 1, highlighting the need for secondary cities to tap into their potential and strive for balanced development within the urban agglomeration. The paper proposes improvement frameworks tailored to each region's unique circumstances and offers relevant recommendations for governments, businesses, and the tourism industry, aiming to provide guidance for the sustainable development of urban ecology and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A safe and effective medical waste transport network is beneficial to control the COVID-19 pandemic and at least decelerate the spread of novel coronavirus. Seldom studies concentrated on a two-phase COVID-19 medical waste transport in the presence of multi-type vehicle selection, sustainability, and infection probability, which is the focus of this paper. This paper aims to identify the priority of sustainable objectives and observe the impacts of multi-phase and infection probability on the results. Thus, such a problem is formulated as a mixed-integer programming model to minimise total potential infection risks, minimise total environmental risks, and maximise total economic benefits. Then, a hybrid solution strategy is designed, incorporating a lexicographic optimisation approach and a linear weighted sum method. A real-world case study from Chongqing is used to illustrate this methodology. Results indicate that the solution strategy guides a good COVID-19 medical waste transport scheme within 1 min. The priority of sustainable objectives is society, economy, and environment in the first and second phases because the total Gap of case No.35 is 3.20%. A decentralised decision mode is preferred to design a COVID-19 medical waste transport network at the province level. Whatever the infection probability is, infection risk is the most critical concern in the COVID-19 medical waste clean-up activities. Environmental and economic sustainability performance also should be considered when infection probability is more than a certain threshold. • Two-phase COVID-19 medical waste transport with infection probability is studied. • A mixed-integer programming model to optimise sustainability is formulated. • A hybrid solution strategy is designed to solve the proposed multi-objective model. • The priority of sustainable objectives is society, economy, and environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the energy transition of rural households in mountainous areas is an important step to improve energy poverty and mountain ecosystems and to help achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. This paper explores the transformation of rural cooking energy in mountainous areas based on field investigation data from six villages in Chongqing. It systematically reveals the transformation process, driving factors and carbon emission changes in household cooking energy consumption in mountainous areas in the past 20 years by using mathematical statistics, multinomial logit models and the emission coefficient method. The results are as follows. (1) There has been a significant transition in the consumption of rural household cooking energy in mountainous areas. There has been a significant change in the proportion of different energy sources, including fuelwood (59.2%–1.9%), coal (16.5%–0%), gas (12.6%–15.5%), natural gas (6.8%–51.5%) and electricity (4.9%–31.1%). (2) The main driving factors of the household cooking energy transition in mountainous areas are income per capita, householder age, and householder education level. (3) The average annual household carbon emissions from rural household cooking energy decreased remarkably. The average annual household carbon emissions decreased from 6.80 t to 2.62 t in fuelwood (5.40–0.91 t), electricity (0.19–1.28 t) and natural gas (0.03–0.25 t) emissions during the study period. The contribution of this study is to investigate how the household cooking energy transition contributes to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality from a micro perspective. At the same time, this paper explores the mechanisms between the cooking energy transition and the ecological dividend of urbanization and proposes future reform initiatives for rural energy in mountainous areas to help achieve the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel integrated approach incorporating grey relational analysis, corresponding correlation test, with vector autoregression and panel vector autoregression models to examine the representativeness heuristic and anchoring effects in carbon markets. The grey relational analysis and corresponding correlation test measure the representativeness heuristic in eight pilot carbon markets. The vector autoregression and panel vector autoregression models detect the anchoring effects in eight pilot carbon markets and the overall carbon market. The study first explores the representativeness heuristic and anchoring effects in China's carbon markets. Taking the 2014–2021 United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP20–COP26) as an event, the proposal of China's carbon emissions peak and carbon-natural targets, as well as the establishment of China's national carbon market as three events, the empirical results demonstrate that Hubei, Guangdong, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing six pilot carbon markets were found to exhibit the representativeness heuristics for the COP21. Hubei, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Chongqing carbon markets were found to exhibit the representativeness heuristics for the proposal of China's carbon emissions peak and carbon-natural targets, and the establishment of China's national carbon market. Anchoring effects were found to exist in Guangdong, Tianjin, and Chongqing carbon markets, while no anchoring effect has been found to exist in the overall carbon market. Investor sentiment is one of the crucial factors affecting carbon prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large quantities of food waste challenge sustainable development and there is significant value in the proper treatment of such waste. There are several food waste treatment technologies available, and food waste valorization requires planning for the collection, transportation, pre-treatment, treatment, and product sales. Managers need comprehensive system management objectives and strategies to promote the circular economy. To determine the optimal network design for food waste management systems, this paper develops a multi-objective mixed integer non-linear model from economic, energy, environmental, and social perspectives that integrates different treatment technologies into the three-phase separation pre-treatment. The proposed model was applied to a food waste management system in Chongqing, China, and the effects of different decision preferences of the managers, the water and grease proportion in the food waste on the optimization results were analyzed and discussed. It was found that different grease and water proportions influenced the optimal application of the technologies and system management decisions. With a 10% to 15% grease proportion, composting was seen to be more suitable than incineration or anaerobic digestion treatments, and the simultaneous application of multiple technologies was seen to be beneficial for food waste management systems. • A food waste system management model that integrates economic, environmental, energy, and social objectives is proposed. • Multi-technology integration based on three-phase separation pretreatment is beneficial. • Grease and water proportions in food waste affect the optimal management strategies. • Appropriate technology application can positively contribute to the achievement of objectives. • Decision-making preferences of decision makers can affect food waste recovery rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shale gas development in China helps to improve the structure of energy supply and reduce energy dependence on foreign countries. However, the environmental risks of shale gas development, especially groundwater pollution, are non-negligible. The external cost of such groundwater pollution can be estimated by quantifying the increased domestic water consumption before and after shale gas extraction. We implemented a Difference-in-Difference estimation in Fuling, Chongqing of China to obtain the monetary cost of domestic water pollution of shale gas development with the survey data of household water consumption. We found that shale gas exploitation increased the expenditure of domestic water consumption by 16.43–17.00 yuan per household per month, aggregated to 203.94 yuan per household for the annual averting cost and accounting for 2.17% of household annual income in poverty-stricken areas in 2017. The paper contributes to the literature by estimating residents' preference for shale gas development in China with Averting Behavior Theory, thus enriching the literature on evaluating the environmental cost of shale gas exploitation in a region where per capita income and environmental awareness is relatively low. Our estimated results have great policy implications for ecological compensating for the residents adversely affected by shale gas wells and also have profound implications for environmental regulation and protection in China. • We estimated the averting cost of domestic water pollution of shale gas development. • We applied a DID model and Propensity Score Matching for model identification. • Economic cost of groundwater pollution is 16.43–17.00 Yuan per household per month. • The annual averting cost is about 203.94 yuan, 2.17% of household annual income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides insights into the spatial relationships among logistics agglomeration, technological progress, and air pollution in the sub-regions. From the perspective of new economic geography, the positive environmental externality of logistics agglomeration should outstrip its negative externality as the result of technological spillover. However, significant impacts of technological progress on the environment have not been identified in the logistics agglomeration sub-regions of many developing countries currently grappling with various environmental problems. This paper applies spatial econometrics and extended STIRPAT model to explore the roles the logistics agglomeration (LA) and technological progress (T) play in air pollution (I) using panel data from sub-regions of Chongqing in China between 2009 and 2019. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) In a global context, logistics agglomeration is a meaningful way to reduce air pollution under the interaction effect of technological progress. (2) In a sub-regional context: first, the suppressive effect of logistics agglomeration on air pollution gradually rebounds with the increase in agglomeration degree; secondly, the rebound effect of technological innovation is also evident in air pollution, and the rebound area gradually spreads from the metropolitan area to the peripheral sub-regions; finally, the interaction effect of logistics agglomeration and technological progress has a noteworthy suppression effect on air pollution, especially after the occurrence of the rebound effect of the logistics agglomeration and technological progress. In this regard, local governments should suppress the negative externalities of agglomeration with the interaction effects of technological progress while strengthening logistics agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]