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Typical public institutions such as government offices, hospitals, and schools play important leading and exemplary roles in the green and low-carbon development of the whole society. This paper analyzes the business and energy consumption characteristics of public institutions, as well as the characteristics of personnel travel, and constructs a carbon accounting model for public institutions. It innovatively proposes a methodology for carbon accounting of personnel travel related to public institutions and validates and analyzes it using a comprehensive hospital as an example. The paper analyzes the carbon emission characteristics of various energy types, systems, and types of travelers in hospitals, provides schemes for the transformation of main energy systems, and corresponding emission reduction effects, thereby providing technical support for the full-chain carbon accounting of public institutions. Additionally, this paper explores the carbon reduction pathways for hospitals to support the peak carbon and carbon neutrality goals of public institutions, and promote the high-quality development of public institutions in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public institutions, emblematic of public infrastructure, exhibit extensive reach and operational scope, positioning them as vanguards in China's dual carbon initiatives and serving as exemplars. Electricity and natural gas predominantly fuel the operations of public institutions. Notably, the fixed commute routes and consistent procurement patterns of office personnel yield a standardized energy consumption profile within these entities. Researching carbon emissions related to commuting and evaluating procurement strategies for reducing carbon footprints in public institutions demonstrate a precision-tailored approach. This paper, through an analysis of the energy consumption characteristics, utilization structure of public institutions, and the commuting behaviors and procurement practices of office personnel, establishes a bespoke carbon accounting model specifically designed for public institutions, seamlessly embedded within a comprehensive platform. By providing fundamental methodological frameworks and advanced technological foundations for carbon accounting in public institutions across China, this work propels the nation's efforts towards carbon peak and ultimately carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proposal of the carbon neutrality target, China's attention to carbon emissions has been further enhanced. Effective prediction of future carbon emissions is important for the formulation of carbon neutralization target and action plans in the region. Many factors affecting carbon emissions, cause their development trends may be nonlinear. To forecast the carbon emissions of coal and natural gas in the industrial sector more accurately, a new MGM(1,m,N|γ) model considering nonlinear characteristics is proposed in this paper. The new model introduces power function γ as nonlinear parameter, and the γ value is solved by nonlinear constraint function. We further deduce the simulation and prediction formula and then apply the improved model to the carbon emission forecast. The comparisons show that the nonlinear parameters can modify the trend of sequences and improve the prediction accuracy, which verifies the validity of the model. Finally, according to the influencing factors and forecast results, this paper analyzes the causes of high carbon emissions and puts forward reasonable suggestions for China's carbon governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have launched the carbon emission trading scheme (ETS), attempting to limit carbon emissions through total amount control, and thus accelerating the improvement of emission reduction technology. However, the role of the ETS in emission reduction technical change (ERTC) is still controversial. To clarify the role of the ETS in ERTC, this paper firstly proposes an endogenous growth equilibrium model to theoretically analyze how the ETS induces ERTC, and extracts the corresponding influencing factors. Then, the emission reduction technology is further decomposed into the source, process and end-of-pipe emission reduction technologies by the whole process decomposition method. Last, taking China's carbon pilot market as a sample, we use the time-varying difference-in-difference method to empirically estimate the impacts of the ETS on ERTC. Results show that: (1) the ETS is conducive to ERTC, but whether the effect is significant is depends on the technology accumulation in the early stage, research efforts, success probability of technology research, and carbon trading effect; (2) China's ETS significantly improved the process emission reduction technology, but has no obvious effects on the source and end-of-pipe emission reduction technology. (3) China's ETS has heterogeneous impacts on technical change concerning different regions. Accordingly, three suggestions are provided, including laying out new technologies for energy conservation and emission reduction, expanding the industry coverage of the ETS, and correcting the distortion of carbon trading price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the gradual increase of international willingness to reach the carbon peak and carbon neutrality, this paper decomposes the influencing factors of China's carbon emission changes from 2008 to 2019 using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model (LMDI), and analyzes the contribution amount and rate of each influencing factor. The results found that: for the whole country, the cumulative growth of carbon emissions during the study period is about 416,484.47 (104 tons), among which the economic growth effect plays a major role in promoting, with a cumulative contribution rate of 284.16%; The increase in regulation intensity and the optimization of industrial structure, however, suppress carbon emissions well, with a cumulative contribution rate of about – 199.21% and − 64.75%, respectively, during the study period. For economic regions, the cumulative influence direction of each driver is the same as that of the whole country, while the population size effect in the northeast economic region and the regulation input effect in the eastern coastal economic region act in the opposite direction from other economic regions, and the carbon emission reduction direction of the energy intensity effect varies from one economic region to another. Accordingly, this paper proposes policy recommendations to enhance regulatory intensity, optimize industrial and energy consumption structure, implement localized emission reduction strategies, and promote synergistic emission reduction in economic zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reduce industrial carbon emissions, various industries have been seeking ways to reduce their own emissions. Implementing carbon trading system measures is one way to effectively control industrial carbon emissions. However, in different industrial sectors, carbon trading systems have different impact. The 14-year provincial panel data (2005–2019) were analyzed by using the propensity score matching and the difference-in-difference model to evaluate the role of the emission trading system (ETS) in reducing emissions from different industries. According to the study, ETS has reduced carbon emissions from the agricultural production sector by 1.6876%. Secondly, it also had a significant inhibitory effect on the manufacturing sector, about 24.0489. Mining, electricity production, wholesale and other industrial sectors are insignificant disincentives, and construction and transportation are insignificant facilitators. China's ETS, therefore, mainly acts as an inhibitory force for different industries, which can effectively reduce their carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays environmental issues have been of great concern to the world, among which the problem of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions is particularly prominent. All countries in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement have committed to control greenhouse gas emissions, and China, as the largest carbon emitter, has assumed a heavier burden. China has been striving to develop low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen, nuclear, wind, and solar energy, but the most attention should be paid to CCUS, which many scholars have high expectations that CCUS can help China reduce emissions to some extent. Therefore, this paper presents a prediction that CCUS can reduce 3.8% of carbon emissions for China in 2040 when CCUS emission reductions increase at a rate of 30%. The power and chemical industries could reduce carbon emissions by 2.3% and 17.3%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant industrial transformation in China's tourism sector is currently taking place in response to carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets. This paper applies the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to calculate the efficiency of the tourism industry under carbon emission constraints and further investigates its influencing factors through the Tobit regression. The results are as follows: (1) The tourism efficiency under carbon emission constraints of China from 2000 to 2019 showed a trend of first rising and then declining, and there were obvious regional differences; (2) from 2000 to 2019, the total factor productivity of tourism in China increased significantly, while the contributions of technical progress, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency decreased sequentially; (3) the factors of industrial structure, transportation convenience, economic development level, degree of opening to the outside world, and the level of scientific and technological development have varying degrees of influence on tourism efficiency. Based on the analysis results, this paper puts forward several policy suggestions on tourism efficiency and low-carbon development. The findings of this paper have some bearing on developing nations' efforts to boost tourism efficiency and realize high-quality industry growth within the framework of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many developing countries are facing the difficulty of choosing between economic growth and energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER). China has strengthened the implementation of ECER by setting environmental accountability as the development goal of local governments, hoping to have better governance effects. To evaluate the actual intervention effect of this approach, this paper constructs panel data covering 46 countries from 1995 to 2014 and uses the difference-in-differences (DID) method and the composite control method to quantitatively analyse the policy effect. The results show that China can effectively curb energy consumption and carbon emission intensity per unit of GDP by adding ECER targets to the government's five-year plan, which has significant effects on ECER. Furthermore, we use an intermediary mechanism to test and identify low-carbon alternatives and an ECER promotion mechanism for technological advancement. The conclusion shows that economic development is compatible with low carbon and energy consumption. Combined with China's long-term goals for ECER, it can be considered that on the road to achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in the future, the economy and tertiary industry should be rationally developed, the degree of urbanization should receive more attention, and the proportion of thermal power generation should be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon sink is the process of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, through forests, wetlands, grasslands, and oceans. Through this process, greenhouse gases can be absorbed from the atmosphere. In order to analyze the contribution of carbon sinks to carbon neutrality, three parts of works were carried out on carbon sinks in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. Firstly, the regional carbon sinks were calculated based on actual data. Secondly, the macro-factors were selected related to carbon sinks, on which the econometric analysis was carried out. Finally, a carbon sink prediction model was constructed based on partial least squares regression. After that, three carbon sink development scenarios with different intensities were set up. Under these three scenarios, the carbon sink potential of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region was forecasted from 2020 to 2030. The results show that under the strong carbon sink scenario, the carbon sink in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei can neutralize 388.6901 million tons/a of carbon emissions by 2030, whose contribution rate to China's carbon emission reduction can reach 10.48%. Compared with the baseline scenario and weak carbon sink scenario, the strong carbon sink scenario can achieve greater carbon sink potential and contribute more to China's carbon neutrality. As a conclusion, the target of carbon neutrality of China can be easier to achieve under the strong carbon sink scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does regional corruption exacerbate regional carbon emissions? To answer this, based on the spatial Durbin model, this study empirically examines the impact of regional corruption on carbon emission, using panel data from 30 provinces in China during the period 2002–2017. The results show that: (1) there is an indistinctive N-shaped relationship between regional corruption and carbon emissions at the national level. Regional corruption tends to initially aggravate carbon emissions, then contributes to emission reduction, and then finally boosts carbon emissions. However, this effect is not statistically significant. The results suggest that the role of regional corruption on carbon emissions is twofold. Corruption can exacerbate and can also inhibit regional carbon emissions. (2) Pronounced regional heterogeneity exists with regard to the influence of corruption on carbon emissions. Regional corruption and carbon emissions show a significant N-shaped dynamic relationship in China's central region, while the relationship is not significant in the eastern and western regions. (3) The impact of regional corruption on carbon emissions varies with time. For 2002–2009, regional corruption did not have a significant effect on carbon emissions. For 2010–2017, the direct effect became significant, and an apparent N-shaped relationship formed between regional corruption and carbon emissions. Based on the empirical results, this paper proposes several policy recommendations regarding corruption and carbon governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though interfirm collaboration on carbon emission reduction, the cross-enterprise flow of emission reduction resources and improved efficiency in greenhouse gas reduction can be realized. Especially in the context of big data, enterprises can find suitable partners for emission reduction faster and more accurately through interfirm collaboration. However, similar to other cooperative modes, revenue allocation is the key to ensuring the stability of the collaborative emission reduction system. Based on the premise of carbon trading, this paper discusses revenue allocation among enterprises participating in the collaborative emission reduction process under complete information in a big data context. Specifically, we constructed a Shapley value analysis model of revenue allocation for interfirm collaboration on carbon emission reduction, and amended this model with investment cost and risk-bearing. Consequently, this research provides not only a theoretical basis for solving the problem of revenue distribution in the process of collaborative emission reductions among enterprises but also a theoretical guide for enterprises countermeasures following the completion of China's future carbon trading mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of green economy development, efforts and measurements aimed to balance the relationship between the economy and environment have been vigorously promoted. Among these regulations, the policy of China's carbon emissions trading (CET) pilot, one of the market-based environmental regulations, is favorable for China to take a path that can trigger both improvement of environmental quality and optimization of economic structure. In this paper, we adopt the slacks-based measure and data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model considering the undesired output and the Luenberger function to measure and decompose the green total factor productivity (GTFP) and verify the policy effect of CET on environment, economy and productivity through difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The results showed are as follows: (1) the policy of CET has promoted the reduction of carbon emission, whereas its impact on the industrial output is not significant. (2) We show that in the short turn, the CET policy does not immediately contribute to improvement of GTFP, whereas its effect on technological progress decomposed of GTFP is positive. The results indicate that CET regulation has produced environmental dividend and improved the technological progress, but there is no Porter effect. Overall, our results provide actual evidence for deepening the nationwide carbon emission trading system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the impact of carbon emissions trading policy and elucidating the underlying mechanisms are crucial for enhancing policy effectiveness and refining related systems. This study examines the impact of carbon emissions trading policy by constructing a difference-in-difference model utilizing unbalanced panel data from China's provinces spanning the period from 2005 to 2019. Additionally, a mediating effect model is employed to delve into the underlying mechanisms. The key findings are as follows: Firstly, the implementation of carbon emissions trading policy has a notable inhibitory impact on carbon emissions. Secondly, both the upgrading of industrial structure and the reduction of energy intensity play mediating roles in carbon emissions reduction. However, the development of clean energy industries does not exhibit a significant mediating effect. In conclusion, this study offers policy recommendations aimed at facilitating carbon reduction. These include enhancing the market-based trading mechanism for carbon emissions, optimizing and upgrading industrial structures, fostering innovation in green and low-carbon technologies, and promoting the development and utilization of clean energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though China has mapped out different policies targeting the mitigation of its environmental degradation, the country still occupies the 1st position in the ranking of carbon emissions due to excessive utilization of non-renewable energy sources in its domestic economic activities. From a theoretical and empirical point of view, factors like economic growth, financial development, export diversification, technological innovation, and renewable energy can be considered to play a vital role in environmental quality. Therefore, this study exposes the environmental performance of China amidst export diversification, financial development, innovation, and clean energy use. Due to the non-availability of data, the annual data of China are converted to quarterly data from 1995Q1 to 2018Q4, and autoregressive distributed lag-(ARDL) and Granger causality approaches are adopted in this study for quantitative and insightful analysis. The findings from both approaches expose the environmental implications of the selected variables (renewable energy, financial development, technological innovation, and export diversification) to China's sustainable development. ARDL approach has confirmed the inverted U-shaped link between financial development and emissions of carbon for China, a negative link between renewables, technologies, and carbon emissions, and a direct association exists between the diversification of export, economic growth, and emissions of carbon. This pattern points toward mitigating environmental dilapidation with renewable energy, technology, and financial development. The Granger causality output lends support to the ARDL findings; hence, a policy initiative that will promote the renewable energy sector and technological innovation through financial programs is advised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global greenhouse gas emission, major factor driving climate change, has been increasing since nineteenth century. STIRPAT and CEVSA models were performed to estimate the carbon emission peaks and terrestrial ecosystem carbon sinks at the provincial level in China, respectively. Utilizing the growth characteristics and the peak time criteria for the period 1997–2019, the patterns of energy consumption and CO2 emissions from 30 Chinese provinces are categorized into four groups: (i) one-stage increase (5 provinces), (ii) two-stage increase (10 provinces), (iii) maximum around 2013 (13 provinces), and (iv) maximum around 2017 (2 provinces). According to the STIRPAT model, the anticipated time of peak CO2 emissions for Beijing from the third group is ~ 2025 in both business-as-usual and high-speed scenarios. For Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region from the first group and Zhejiang province from the second group, the expected peak time is 2025 to 2030. Shaanxi province from the fourth group is likely to reach carbon emission peak before 2030. The inventory-based estimate of China's terrestrial carbon sink is ~ 266.2 Tg C/a during the period 1982–2015, offsetting 18.3% of contemporary CO2 emissions. The province-level CO2 emissions, peak emissions and terrestrial carbon sinks estimates presented here are significant for those concerned with carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for Chinese prefecture-level and above cities from 2003 to 2017, we employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method to explore whether innovative city constructions reduced carbon emissions. The results show that innovative city constructions significantly curb carbon emissions in Chinese cities, which is supported by a series of robustness tests. Specifically, we found that innovative city constructions could reduce carbon emissions by 5.21%, which is equivalent to a total of about 5.46 million tons. In addition, we provided evidence that innovative city constructions curb carbon emissions by promoting technological innovation, industrial upgrading and industrial green development, ecological improvement, and government intervention. Furthermore, heterogeneous results indicate that the carbon reduction effect of innovative city constructions is mainly found in eastern cities and cities with better industrial development and human capital base. Our findings further enrich the study on the environmental benefits of national innovation incentives and public policies and provide important insights in carbon neutrality and achieving sustainable development, especially for developing and emerging market countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achievement of national climate targets and the corresponding costs would entirely depend on regional actions within the country. However, because of substantial inequalities and heterogeneities among regions, especially in developing economies, aggressive or uniform actions may exacerbate inequity and induce huge economic losses, which in turn challenges the national climate pledges. Hence, this study extends prior research by proposing economically optimal strategies that can achieve national climate targets and ensure the greatest local and national benefits as well as regional equality. Focusing on the biggest developing country China, we find this strategy can avoid up to 1.54% of cumulative GDP losses for approaching carbon neutrality, and more than 90% of regions would obtain economic gains compared either with existing independently launched targets or with the uniform strategy that all regions achieve peak carbon emissions before 2030. We also provide optimal carbon mitigation pathways to regional peak carbon, carbon intensity and energy consumption. Aggressive or uniform actions on climate targets may exacerbate regional inequality and induce economic losses in China. The proposed collaborative strategy for carbon neutrality can avoid up to 1.54% of GDP losses while 90% of provinces would gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental decentralization is an important prerequisite and institutional foundation for China's carbon and haze co-control. Prior research has answered the influence of environmental decentralization on carbon mitigation or haze control. Few studies have analyzed the influence of innovation efficiency on carbon and haze co-control in the context of environmental decentralization. Research on how to achieve the optimal allocation of environmental decentralization is rare. Based on an analysis of the dynamic evolution trends in China's carbon emissions, haze pollution, environmental decentralization, and innovation efficiency from 2006 to 2018 by exploiting kernel density estimation, this study examines the environmental decentralization threshold effect of innovation efficiency on carbon and haze co-control by employing dynamic threshold model and investigates reasonable allocation of environmental decentralization. The results revealed that, first, China's provincial carbon emissions and environmental decentralization performed an increasing trend. Haze pollution and innovation efficiency demonstrated a downward trend. Second, when environmental decentralization increases, the influence of innovation efficiency on carbon emissions presents a W-shape, whereas the influence of innovation efficiency on haze pollution follows an inverted N-shape. Third, there are remarkable heterogeneous environmental decentralization threshold effects on the influence of innovation efficiency on carbon and haze co-control. Fourth, appropriate environmental decentralization can enhance carbon and haze co-control effects of innovation efficiency. The central government entails appropriate empowerment of local governments in environmental administration and supervision authority but decreases the environmental monitoring authority of local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Conducting an extensive study on the spatial heterogeneity of the overall carbon budget and its influencing factors and the decoupling status of carbon emissions from economic development, by undertaking simulation projections under different carbon emission scenarios is crucial for China to achieve its targets to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. There are large disparities in carbon emissions from energy consumption, the extent of land used for carbon absorption, and the status of decoupling of emissions from economic development, among various regions of China. Results: Based on night light data and land use data, we investigated carbon budget through model estimation, decoupling analysis, and scenario simulation. The results show that the carbon deficit had a continuous upward trend from 2000 to 2018, and there was a significant positive spatial correlation. The overall status of decoupling first improved and then deteriorated. Altogether, energy consumption intensity, population density of built-up land, and built-up land area influenced the decoupling of carbon emissions from economic development. There are significant scenarios of carbon emissions from energy consumption for the study area during the forecast period, only in the low-carbon scenario will the study area reach the expected carbon emissions peak ahead of schedule in 2027; the peak carbon emissions will be 6479.27 million tons. Conclusions: China's provincial-scale carbon emissions show a positive correlation with economic development within the study period. It is necessary to optimize the economic structure, transforming the economic development mode, and formulating policies to control the expansion of built-up land. Efforts must be made to improve technology and promote industrial restructuring, to effectively reduce energy consumption intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: China's high-quality economic development depends on achieving sustainable economic development, reaching peak carbon emissions, achieving carbon neutrality, and intensifying the development of an industrial and energy structure that saves resources and protects the environment. This study used the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and the Malmquist productivity index to measure the economic development performance of mainland China under carbon emission constraints. Then, it described the spatiotemporal evolution of economic development performance and analyzed its influencing factors using the Tobit model. Results: The results revealed that there were obvious differences in the trends of the static and dynamic performance of economic development. On the one hand, the static performance of economic development exhibited an upward trend from 2008 to 2020. Its distribution characteristics were dominant in the higher and high-level areas. On the other hand, the dynamic performance had a downward trend from 2008 to 2016 and then an upward trend from 2016 to 2020. In most provinces, the dynamic performance was no longer constrained by technological progress but rather by scale efficiency. It was found that the main factors influencing economic development performance were urbanization level, energy efficiency, vegetation coverage, and foreign investment, while other factors had no significant influence. Conclusions: This study suggests that China should improve its economic development performance by increasing the use of clean energy, promoting human-centered urbanization, increasing carbon absorption capacity, and absorbing more foreign capital in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the carbon neutrality goal, coal enterprises must seek breakthroughs from abandoned mines, develop new resources in the new era, turn problems into countermeasures, and participate in the carbon emissions market, for contributing to the accomplishment of the national strategic goal of carbon neutrality. To this end, we investigated the relevant national policies and regulations to clarify the boundaries disclosed by the carbon information of enterprises, understood the development direction of carbon storage in abandoned mines, and clarified the transformation and development of carbon storage in abandoned mines. We made a few suggestions: (1) China should learn from its past experience and other countries to develop the energy industry with Chinese characteristics and reform the economic system. (2) Coal enterprises must actively respond to the national carbon information disclosure policy, clarify their own responsibilities and carbon emission boundaries. (3) It is necessary to proactively obtain advanced knowledge and plan carbon storage pathways for abandoned mines. (4) Development problems of coal enterprises should be deduced using cases. The 'dual carbon' goals should be achieved steadily step-by-step. (5) Three measures, i.e. improving the existing resource structure, coordinating the information of abandoned mines, and promoting the cultivation of scientific and technological talents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-pandemic era, there is a need to achieve the dynamic and coordinated development of growth in the logistics industry, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China's four major economic regions to ensure the high-quality development of green logistics in China. Using the data indicators of growth in the logistics industry, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and fixed asset investment in 30 Chinese provinces from 2004 to 2018, a panel vector autoregressive model was established for the four major economic development regions of central, east, west, and northeast China. The model coefficients were estimated using the systematic generalized matrix estimation method (System-GMM), which was evaluated by a Granger causality test. The model coefficients were estimated using the System-GMM method, and the dynamic relationships between growth in the logistics industry, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions was obtained through a Granger causality test, impulse response analysis, and variance decomposition. The results showed that the growth of the logistics industry in the four major economic regions had a positive impact on energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with the degree of contribution being smaller in the east and central regions, and larger in the west and northeast regions. Fixed asset investment had a negative impact on energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with the degree of contribution being largest in the northeast, larger in the east than in the central region, and smallest in the west. Finally, according to the conclusion and analysis of the results, from the aspects of government guidance and policy support, low-carbon logistics technology innovation, and infrastructure investment, we propose the need to pay attention to the role of government guidance, accelerate the pace of energy adjustments using the structure of the logistics industry, and increase the investment in renewable energy infrastructure, while focusing on strengthening the cooperation between regions and exploring new models of low-carbon logistics development between regions. This will ensure that the country achieves its goal of reaching peak carbon by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have investigated agricultural carbon emissions peaks, especially from the financial development perspective. This study focuses on the effects of financial scale and efficiency to achieve an agricultural carbon emissions peak in China's Henan Province. Using an extended STIRPAT model and scenario analysis, we find: (1) with the inverted U-shaped influence mechanism of rural financial scale and incorporating rural financial efficiency, agricultural carbon emissions in Henan will peak at 14.17 million tons in 2040, 12.50 million tons in 2034, and 11.73 million tons in 2023 under the baseline low-carbon, moderately accelerated low-carbon, and stringent low-carbon development scenarios; (2) without financial efficiency improvements, carbon emissions will peak five years, three years, and six years later, and the peak value will increase 0.97 million tons, 0.65 million tons, and 0.30 million tons. Therefore, agricultural carbon emissions will peak earlier with continuous and strong financial policy adjustment to facilitate financial development. We also find that agricultural carbon absorption exceeds emissions, achieving carbon neutrality. The policy implication is that financial development matters to sustainable agricultural development. Developing countries could learn from the financial development experience (i.e., gradual financial reform and a stable financial environment) in Henan and China in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national policy of peak carbon dioxide emission and carbon neutrality has pointed out the technological direction for the development of the petroleum industry in China. In order to efficiently utilize CO2 gas source to enhance oil recovery, n-butylamine is taken as the plugging channeling agent for experiment study to plug the produced channeling-path during the process of CO2 flooding in ultra-low permeability reservoir. The contents of the experiment included three parts: reaction mechanism of n-butylamine with CO2, evaluation of the injection performance of n-butylamine, and the extent of enhanced oil recovery after plugging the gas channeling by using n-butylamine. Reaction product of n-butylamine and CO2 is white solid, which is a type of organic urea so that it can be used to plug the gas channeling. N-butylamine has a good injection performance after adding protecting slug on the condition of high temperature. 80% of the whole volume of core can be spread after injecting 0.3 PV of n-butylamine. During plugging and displacement experiment of heterogeneous cores, oil recovery can be greatly enhanced by 25–30% after injecting n-butylamine. Experimental results show that it can provide a new train of thought for the gas injection development of fractured, heterogeneous and ultra-low permeability reservoirs by using n-butylamine to plug the high permeability area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Urbanization is a critical factor affecting regional carbon emissions. Clarifying the linkage between urbanization and carbon emissions can provide a decision-making reference to realize China's goal of carbon neutrality. This article examines the spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization and carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration from 2008 to 2018. A complete set of variables is considered to construct relevant land and ecological urbanization variables, and the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model and spatial Durbin model (SDM) are adopted to explore the impact of various driving factors on carbon emissions. The results indicate that (1) during the study period, the carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration exhibited a fluctuating increase and that the incremental carbon emissions followed a downward trend. (2) Carbon emissions exhibited a positive spatial correlation. Cold- and hotspot areas indicated a three-gradient pattern from west to east, and a concentric circle radiation pattern occurred with Shanghai as the core. Carbon emissions were spatially imbalanced, but the centre of gravity slightly fluctuated, with a total migration distance of 38.48 km, indicating a migration trend towards the southeast. (3) Regarding the two considered dimensions of urbanization, all driving factors except urbanization played a role in carbon emission enhancement. Consequently, for every 1% increase in economic factors, the carbon emissions correspondingly increased by 0.43–0.57%. Hence, economic factors are the most important factors promoting increased carbon emissions. In the ecological urbanization dimension, urbanization caused a non-significant decrease in carbon emissions, while there was no spillover effect on carbon emissions in neighbouring areas. Accordingly, carbon emission reduction efforts should promote the transformation of urbanization from a land-driven process to an ecologically driven process and realize the synergies among carbon emission reductions, urban development, and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 80% of the world's carbon emissions coming from urban areas and most part of the world still experiencing ever accelerated process of urbanization, China faces huge pressure to achieve the carbon emission peaking in 2030 and realizes the goal of carbon neutrality before 2050. Therefore, this study explored the spatial variability of CO2 emissions from urban construction land among 30 provinces in China, analyzed its driving factors and estimated their potentials for emission reductions from 2000 to 2018. The results demonstrate that: (1) according to the IPCC model, both the carbon emission amounts and carbon emission intensity from urban construction land showed an upward trend from 2000 to 2018. (2) Decomposition analysis of logarithmic mean Divisia index revealed that economic level has positive impact on carbon emissions. Energy efficiency and energy structure are the negative contribution factors to the carbon emissions, and the energy efficiency effect played a more important inhabiting factor. (3) The carbon emission reduction potential indexes was provided to estimate the carbon emission reduction potential of 30 provinces in China; it indicated that 17 provinces have their carbon emission reduction potential indexes less than 1, and they confront with mandatory push to reduce carbon emission under the current national policy. Finally, promoting clean energy and applying internet of things into energy transport corridor system and more low-carbon land planning policies are suggested to facilitate more effective implementation of carbon emissions reduction actions in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the world's most carbon-emitting country, and the coal-fired power industry (CFPI) dominates China's carbon emissions. Stimulating the carbon emission reduction potential of China's CFPI is important for reducing global carbon emissions and mitigating global warming. To explore the potential for reducing carbon emissions in the CFPI, this study constructed a model based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, considering profit motive and the cost of regulatory policy. To analyze the factors influencing carbon reduction potential (CRP), the Kaya-LMDI (Kaya Identity-Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index) method was also applied. Some policy implications for the regions in China came out. The results show that: (a) China's coal power industry generation process has not yet reached its optimal profit. When China's CFPI realizes the optimal profit, a CRP will also decrease industrial carbon emissions by 3.54%. (b) At the carbon costs ranging from 16.8 to 95.2 Yuan/ton caused by carbon regulation policy, the total CRP of China's CFPI would be further enhanced to 4.32%. (c) The coal-fired power output rate and industry scale had a positive effect on CRP, while the labor productivity had a negative effect. Carbon costs caused by carbon regulation policies could promote the CFPI to realize a greater carbon emission reduction potential by adjusting labor productivity and the industry scale effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence shows that carbon emissions in China are likely to peak ahead of 2030. However, the social and economic impacts of such an early carbon peak have rarely been assessed. Here we focus on the economic costs and health benefits of different carbon mitigation pathways, considering both possible socio-economic futures and varying ambitions of climate policies. We find that an early peak before 2030 in line with the 1.5 °C target could avoid ~118,000 and ~614,000 PM2.5 attributable deaths under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 1, in 2030 and 2050, respectively. Under the 2 °C target, carbon mitigation costs could be more than offset by health co-benefits in 2050, bringing a net benefit of $393–$3,017 billion (in 2017 USD value). This study not only provides insight into potential health benefits of an early peak in China, but also suggests that similar benefits may result from more ambitious climate targets in other countries. Understanding benefits of carbon mitigation is an important impetus for governments to adopt more ambitious climate targets. Here, the authors show positive air quality and health co-benefits are possible if China's CO2 emissions peak before 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]