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This paper analyzes the theoretical mechanism by which urbanization and consumption structure upgrading exert an impact on carbon emissions in the context of promoting higher quality and efficiency in urbanization, advancing the transition and upgrading of consumption structure, and achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (“dual carbon”) goals. By establishing an extended STIRPAT model and an intermediary model, this paper takes nine prefecture-level cities in Fujian Province from 2011 to 2021 as samples to investigate the effects of urbanization and consumption structure upgrading on carbon emission reduction in Fujian Province, revealing the interrelationship and transmission mechanism among the three. The results of this study show that: (i) The relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions in Fujian Province from 2011 to 2021 shows an inverted U-shaped curve, i.e. urbanization accelerated carbon emissions in the early stage and inhibited carbon emissions in the later stage; (ii) the regional heterogeneity analysis shows that under the current urbanization background, the upgrading of consumption structure in western and southern Fujian can significantly reduce carbon emissions, while the relationship between consumption structure upgrading and carbon emission reduction in eastern Fujian is not significant; (iii) the upgrading of consumption structure can help achieve and promote carbon emission reduction through increasing the proportions of the tertiary industry and immaterial consumption and enhancing the level of culture and education, while exerting little effect on carbon emission reduction through consumption in transportation, communication and health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first proposed a statistical test for the detrended multiple moving average cross-correlation coefficient DMMC (s). The DMMC (s) mainly was used to analyze the correlation between the dependent variable y and other n independent variables x i . We proved that DMMC (s) approximately obeys the chi-square distribution. We studied the statistical properties of the DMMC (s) between normally distributed random sequences and power-law ARFIMA long memory random sequences. Furthermore, we discussed the influence of the cross-correlation among the target variable and independent variables on DMMC (s). Finally, we further study the application of DMMC (s) to China's stock markets and China carbon emission trading markets to investigate multiple cross-correlation. The empirical results show that there is a strong multiple correlation between China's Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock markets, while the correlation between China's carbon markets is not significant. This paper provides new ideas and theoretical support for exploring the correlation between multiple variables, which has implications for investors and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of technology, more and more cities and highways are installing light reducing structures at the tunnel openings to improve traffic safety and reduce the "black hole effect" and low-angle sunlight glare effect. However, the existing scrims have poor road surface uniformity, bright and dark streaks and uneven road surface brightness, which can bring negative impact on driving. In order to balance the safety and comfort of tunnel light sheds, a new technique is proposed to reduce the negative effects of light sheds based on the multi-source effect of light diffusion panels. The results show that by arranging light diffusion panels on the top of the scrim, the daylight is fully diffused and then irradiated to the road surface under the scrim, avoiding the undesirable phenomenon caused by direct sunlight on the road surface. After the indoor test and numerical model analysis, the effectiveness of the technology is proved to be in compliance with the design specification, and the undesirable phenomena such as bright and dark streaks are avoided, thus ensuring the safety and comfort of traffic at the tunnel entrance. In addition, the average brightness of the road surface of the top arrangement of light diffusion panels is better than that of the two sides, and the light intensity distribution curve of No. 2 panel among the four light diffusion panels used in this paper is the best. The technology can also control the brightness level of the road surface under the shed through the area of light diffusion panels, thus reducing the carbon emission of the tunnel lighting system and achieving the unity of safety, comfort and low carbon environment protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the dynamic influence of provincial tourism development on carbon emissions and ecological efficiency in China. For this purpose, the paper first develops a new index to evaluate the ecological efficiency and then utilises the SYS-GMM method by using the provincial data during 2004–2017. Besides, we explore the heterogeneous, asymmetric, and mediating impact effect in the tourism–carbon–ecological efficiency nexus. The following findings are highlighted: (1) An inverted U-shaped nexus exists between tourism development and carbon emissions, which confirms the existence of the tourism–environment Kuznets curve; (2) tourism development can promote ecological efficiency, and this positive impact of tourism on the economy is enhanced by the tourism infrastructure; (3) the impact of tourism development on carbon emissions is heterogeneous and asymmetric, while its influence on ecological efficiency is consistent; and (4) investment effect is the significant mediator. This paper puts forward several policy suggestions based on the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now, China has made it clear that it will strive to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 (the "dual carbon" goals), based on the logic that carbon peaking is a prerequisite for carbon neutrality. The year 2021 is the first year of China's 14th Five-Year Plan period. As the main battlefields to achieve the "dual carbon" goals, cities are also required to build on their pathways towards such goals under new conditions. Based on the progress China has made with pilot cities for low-carbon development and the discussion on 60 cities by category, this paper identifies the commonalities and differences between Chinese cities' pathways towards carbon peaking, and concludes that Chinese cities need to peak their carbon emissions in an organized and step-wise way on the basis of classification and according to their own development level and emission characteristics. In light of the above conclusion, this paper provides feasible suggestions for Chinese cities' carbon peaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering two theories of Halo and Haven and annual data from 1994 to 2021 for the country of Vietnam, this paper has tried to consider two types of foreign direct investment (to Vietnam from abroad and from Vietnam to abroad) to study the impact factor of investment on carbon dioxide emissions in this country. The significant findings reveal that FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), both inward and outward, is an efficient factor in mitigating carbon emissions in the short term in Vietnam. The enhancements in the inward and outward flows of FDI in Vietnam will likely lead to a reduction in carbon emission increase which is in line with the environmental protection policy. In addition, it confirms the Halo pollution hypothesis in Vietnam, meaning that the Vietnamese government can mitigate CO2 emissions by improving FDI flows (both inward and outward). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the factors that lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions in the 18 countries of the APEC. We apply the LMDI multiplicative decomposing method to 18 countries between 1971 and 2012. We summarize these factors that are as follows: (1) population increase and economic growth play a key role in increased carbon dioxide emissions. (2) All the 18 countries of the APEC have improved their energy efficiency as manifested in the change of energy intensity (Δ I), which is less than 1 in the 42 years; (3) In terms of energy substitution effect (Δ M) and fuel coefficient effect (Δ C E), the decomposition results point out that Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia witnessed growth in Δ M and Δ C E , indicating the only factor to reduce the emissions for these three countries is intensity effect, which gives rise to relatively higher emission for these three countries during the period. In the case of Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, we witnessed increases in Δ M , but decreases in Δ C E ; In the case of Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the US, there seem to decrease in Δ M , but increases in Δ C E during the 42-year period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to study the production of consumption goods within a price floor carbon emission trading scheme. A stochastic Stackelberg game is set up between the environment authority (Player 1), and the manufacturer/producer (Player 2). In such a hybrid emission trading scheme, the authority sets an emissions target and producers will choose to participate in carbon trading on this basis, subject to a stochastic demand with information delayed. When the stochastic demand is determined by the market sale price and the scale of carbon emission reduction, we apply the maximum principle to obtain both the optimal production and market price. We show when the demand is determined by both the market sales price and carbon emission reduction, manufacturers are persuaded to set the market sales price first (ex ante incentive) and then proceed to a carbon trading scheme, thus providing a backward-looking advantage to manufacturers. Consequently, the manufacturer and the environmental authority can find a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium via backward induction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the carbon emission issue of combined heat and power (CHP) units in park-level integrated energy system (IES), this paper proposes an optimization scheduling model of park-level IES by considering combined weights. Firstly, a park-level IES is established within a designated park area, incorporating gas storage (GS), power to gas (P2G), carbon capture and storage (CCS), CHP units, wind power and photovoltaic power stations. Based on the analysis of the operational characteristics of GS, P2G, CCS, and CHP, an optimal scheduling model of the GS–P2G–CCS–CHP integrated system is proposed to optimize CHP with low carbon. Secondly, to achieve economic viability and the accommodation of renewable energy, a combined weights approach is proposed for the objective function, considering subjective and objective weights. Finally, to verify the feasibility of the proposed method, four operational strategies are compared, and based on the operational characteristics of GS, P2G, CCS, and CHP, the optimal capacities of P2G and GS are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Journal of Theoretical & Applied Finance published a preface discussing the Workshop on the Impacts of Climate Change on Economics, Finance, and Insurance, which was held in September 2022. The workshop brought together experts from academia, policy makers, and the financial and insurance industries to discuss mathematical modeling of climate risk and the consequences of climate change for financial markets, insurance, and the broader economy. The papers in this volume cover various topics, including the impact of decarbonization on equity prices, the pricing of temperature derivatives, spatial interpolation methods for weather index insurance, hedging carbon risk, analyzing the optimal use of abatement and removal to limit the future temperature impact of climate change, and studying the climate risk faced by utilities. These papers demonstrate the importance of mathematics and statistics in addressing the challenges of climate change. The authors express their gratitude to the conference attendees, organizers, and authors and referees for their contributions. [Extracted from the article]

While single-period stochastic inventory problems have been studied in academia and industry, the impacts of both carbon emissions reduction and partial distribution information have not been investigated. In this paper, we consider carbon emission reduction in a single-period inventory problem where both product price and demand are stochastic. When only partial information on the first and second moments of the two stochastic elements is specified, we use the max–min criterion to construct two optimization models under cap-and-trade and carbon tax policies. For each model, we prove the existence of the optimal robust decisions on production quantity and cleaning equipment investment. By comparing the profit and carbon emission between these two models, we identify certain conditions that improve the economic and environmental performance of the manufacturer. Finally, we conduct a numerical study to test the robustness of the optimal operational decisions under each carbon policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By adopting the consumption-based accounting (CBA) method of carbon emissions based on national carbon intensity (NCI), using the International Trade Centre (ITC) database, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), and the World Bank database, and taking 13 countries and regions including the European Union (EU) countries and the United States (US) as research samples, this paper conducts an accounting of the embodied carbon in trade between China and other major economies in the world, clarifies the responsibilities China has taken for foreign consumption-based carbon emissions, and analyzes the various driving factors of China's embodied carbon in exports. The findings are as follows: (i) Most of the developed economies have higher consumption-based emissions than production-based emissions, which is contrary to most of the developing economies, with developing countries bearing responsibilities for 15–20% of the consumption-based carbon emissions for developed countries; (ii) the carbon emissions of countries and regions are closely related to the embodied carbon in trade, with a correlation coefficient of 0.96. (iii) China has taken responsibility for a large amount of carbon emissions from foreign consumer demand, most of which are from the US, the EU, ASEAN, and Japan, respectively accounting for 3.8%, 3.5%, 2.3%, and 1.2% of China's production-based carbon emissions in 2019; (iv) technique effect is the main driving factor for China's embodied carbon in trade, while the specific driving factors vary by industry. Based on the above analysis, it is suggested that China should: (i) consider the trade factor in its efforts to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality; (ii) adopt differentiated measures to reduce trade-related emissions for specific industries; (iii) fully consider China's demand for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in international negotiations; (iv) give more support to the research on and measurement of consumption-based carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the new progress in building China's national carbon market since 2020, and analyzes the connotation of China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) and its significance to socio-economic development in China. Through case analysis, this paper expounds the role of China's recent carbon trading activities in promoting the transition toward green and low-carbon socio-economic development. On that basis, this paper conceives a top-level design for building the national carbon market that serves the "dual carbon" goals: building and improving the national carbon market that fundamentally serves as an emission reduction tool, developing the institutions and systems of the national carbon market with a focus on emission cap, creating a multilevel and diversified carbon trading scheme centered on the national carbon market, exploring a mechanism that takes carbon emission reduction as the core and promotes the synergistic effect of the carbon market with other environmental rights trading markets, and pursuing the healthy and orderly development of carbon finance that aims to serve carbon emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power industry is the largest carbon emission sector in China. Therefore, this industry will play an important role in achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) for the whole society. For this purpose, it is critical to balance four relationships, i.e. relationship between carbon mitigation and energy security, carbon peaking in the short term and carbon neutrality in the long term, the coordinated carbon mitigation in power industry and other industries, and technical feasibility and economic efficiency. This paper proposes the China's Energy Interconnection scenario to promote carbon peaking and carbon neutrality of the society, which can be divided into three stages, i.e. peaking carbon emissions before 2030, rapid emission reduction during 2030–2050, and comprehensive carbon neutrality before 2060. It is expected that the power system will achieve zero emissions before other industries and contribute negative emissions afterwards, providing emission space for carbon neutrality in other industries across the society. Looking into the future, China's electricity demand will continue to grow. Clean energy will become the main power source, the use of coal-fired power will be gradually reduced, and gas-fired power will undertake the function of peak-load regulation. Faster progress will be made in forming an overall grid pattern with ultra-high voltage (UHV) grid as the backbone and featuring "west-to-east and north-to-south power transmission, a balanced energy mix, and transnational power interconnection." Finally, this paper discusses a new-type of power system characterized by a high proportion of electricity generated from clean energy, high ratio of electric and electronic equipment, and a high proportion of power transmission and reception, together with summer and winter high load periods, and points out the challenges faced by the new-type power system with a high proportion of renewable energy sources in terms of flexibility, safety, and economic efficiency, and proposes corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The price of carbon emission rights in the market fluctuates greatly due to various factors from economy, finance, and climate. For an enterprise that needs to conduct carbon trading activities, it is extremely necessary to fully grasp the price of carbon trading in the future period. Thus in this paper, a deep neural network-based assistive decision model for financial risk prediction in carbon trading market is proposed for this purpose. Specifically, the dynamic risk spillover effects of domestic and international carbon trading markets are studied, and a frontier time-varying model is utilized to measure the risk spillover effects. Then, the deep neural network is used for quantitative research and to construct an intelligent decision scheme that outputs financial risk prediction results. Four perspectives, energy price, climate environment, carbon market price, and macroeconomics, are selected as the input to analyze the influence factors of carbon emission rights price. Finally, several linear regression models are adopted as the baseline methods for comparison, and experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve better prediction performance compared with baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's declaration to the international community to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 is of great significance in advancing the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and has a positive and far-reaching impact on China's high-quality development. This paper expounds on responsibilities and ambitions in tackling climate change, analyzes the high-quality development opportunities brought about by CO2 emissions peak and carbon neutrality, and discusses the net zero carbon emissions transformation in the new era of ecological civilization. This paper is of the view that development towards net zero carbon emissions provides a new impetus for building a Beautiful China, and promoting ecological civilization and green development. The essence of carbon neutrality should be correctly understood so that the world will work together to improve climate resilience. China should also deepen the understanding of the principles and methodologies of climate change economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most conventional air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2) are simultaneously emitted from the same sources, providing a sound theoretical basis for the synergistic governance of these emissions. At present, China faces severe challenges in protecting the eco-environment, such as reducing conventional pollutants, improving environmental quality, and peaking CO2 emissions. Internationally, the control of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been incorporated into the comprehensive environmental management system in major developed economies such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), where, based on GHG emissions monitoring and statistical data, decision-making support is provided for the national governments in the form of policy evaluation, thus forming a management mode that enables overall planning, coordination, and unified regulatory at the national level and participation of multiple departments under the national government. The synergistic control of conventional air pollutants and GHGs is becoming an important measure to strengthen the environmental management and achieve low-carbon development. This paper summarizes the synergistic effects of reducing air pollution and carbon emissions from the aspects of synergistic policies, strategic planning, and institutional systems, and conducts an analysis based on existing synergistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between household income disparity and CO2 emissions based on a panel dataset in China over the period from 1995 to 2010 by employing a two-step, generalized method of moments estimation (GMM-3SLS estimator) to estimate the simultaneous equation model (SEM). The main findings of this study reveal that there is a U relationship between per capita CO2 emissions and income in China. The indirect effect that household income inequality affects CO2 emissions through household consumption is positive. The reasons for this positive effect are as follows: (1) an increase in household income inequality results in lower consumer demand and higher scale of investment, which leads to excess capacity, a rise in the waste of energy consumption and an increase in CO2 emissions. (2) The total consumption amount is inhibited and the consumption structure is influenced by household income inequality. The energy-intensive and low-quality-preferred consumption structure is an obstacle to the upgrading of the industrial structure and to technological innovation from the demand side. Thus, reducing CO2 emissions by upgrading the industrial structure and developing energy-saving technologies is inhibited by the consumption structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the low-carbon development of 176 Chinese cities in 2018 using the Low-carbon City Evaluation Indicator System developed by Research Institute for Eco-civilization, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The evaluation shows an overall improvement of low-carbon development of cities in China, with 10 cities scoring 90 points and above, and 106 cities scoring 80–89 points. From the perspective of city category, the low-carbon development scores present an order as follows: service-oriented cities > comprehensive cities > ecology -prioritized cities > industrial cities. Geologically speaking, eastern cites perform best, western cities come second and central cities come last. Of the three batches of low-carbon city pilots, the scores follow the pattern of Batch 1 > Batch   2 > Batch 3. Most cities are characterized by high carbon consumption and reduced efforts in low-carbon management and capital investment. Finally, this paper proposes to attach more importance to low-carbon development and strengthen capacity building for low-carbon governance; intensify efforts for constructing low-carbon pilots in order to help achieve the goal of carbon emission peak during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period; and to improve the Low-carbon City Evaluation Indicator System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a basic industry in the country's development, the transportation industry has a significant relationship to its normal operation for developing and constructing the national economy. The increase in carbon emissions from transport is an increasingly growing problem, and countries worldwide are also taking measures to reduce emissions. Using time series data over the period from 1990 to 2016, this paper applies the visibility graph approach to transform it into a complex network and excavate some information about the data, then evaluates all countries based on the TOPSIS method. We find that the development of transportation is an important symbol to measure the degree of modernization of a country's transportation, and low-income countries have lower carbon emissions due to slower transportation development. The results of transportation carbon emissions are especially encouraging for the Chinese government given its long-term and sustained efforts to expand railway and waterway infrastructure, and provide a new perspective for further research on the development trend of global transportation carbon emissions. Meanwhile, it is urgent to speed up the development and use of clean energy for economically developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically analyses the prospective impact of global demographic change on the time path of the optimal carbon price, global emissions and global carbon abatement. The approach is to apply a simple Ramsey model in order to examine the effect of global demographic change on the fundamental drivers of the optimal carbon price and optimal abatement. The results suggest a policy trade-off to some extent between mitigating population ageing and mitigating climate change. The lower fertility scenario, which implies an older future population, results in lower carbon emissions and therefore a lower optimal carbon price. Policies to mitigate population ageing would therefore increase carbon emissions and increase the carbon price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After setting the goal of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060, it has become an irresistible trend for China to decouple carbon emissions from its economic growth. Since cities play a central role in reducing carbon emissions, the issues such as whether and when their carbon dioxide emissions can be decoupled from economic growth have become the focus of attention. Based on the carbon dioxide emissions of 264 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2017, this paper uses the Tapio decoupling index to measure the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth of cities, analyzes the space–time evolution characteristics of carbon emissions and decoupling indexes by stages, and explores the relationship between carbon emissions and socio-economic development characteristics such as per capita GDP and industrial structure. The main conclusions drawn therefrom are as follows: (i) From 2000 to 2017, the city-wide carbon emissions rose from 2.484 billion tons in 2000 to 7.462 billion tons in 2017, registering a total increase of 200.40%. But the growth rate of carbon emissions within cities has been significantly reduced. (ii) As years passed by, the number of cities that achieved strong decoupling saw a significant increase, from zero in the 10th–11th Five-Year Plan period to 14 in the 12th Five-Year Plan period and the first two years of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, accounting for 5.3% of the total number of cities. (iii) There is an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between per capita carbon emissions and per capita GDP, which is consistent with the EKC curve hypothesis, but Chinese cities are still in the growth stage of the quadratic curve currently. The correlation between per capita CO2 emission and the proportion of the secondary industry was positive. The results of this study are expected to provide experience for the low-carbon development of cities in China and other developing countries, and provide references for the formulation and evaluation of policies and measures related to low-carbon economic development based on the decoupling model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies on the effects of carbon emissions on population health are still in their infancy and its true implications have not yet been fully understood. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis on the relationship between carbon emissions, energy consumption, income and public healthcare expenditure in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. The empirical research employs the dynamic common correlated effects of mean group (DCCEMG) and two-stage least square estimators. The findings indicate that carbon emissions increase healthcare spending only in non-OECD countries. The relationship between energy consumption and health expenditure varies significantly between OECD and non-OECD countries. Income increases health expenditure; however, the correlation is more robust in the OECD than in non-OECD countries. As a result, the findings recommend that non-OECD governments implement strategic environmental management policies that prioritize clean and healthy air to reduce healthcare costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has investigated the connections between foreign direct investment (FDI), carbon emissions (CO2), and foreign trade openness. However, these past studies did not specifically focus on industrial sectors in China and their carbon emissions, thus leaving a gap in understanding this relationship. In our study, we aim to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by employing a threshold regression model with a threshold variable. This model calculates how strongly carbon emissions are produced to assess the impact of the industrial sector on carbon emissions. Our findings reveal that foreign trade openness and FDI have a threefold threshold impact on industrial carbon emissions. The effect of FDI on carbon emissions in the industrial sector shows a pattern of initially lowering and then increasing the emissions, indicating potential harm. Conversely, the impact of foreign trade openness on carbon emissions exhibits both positive and negative effects. While foreign trade openness exacerbates carbon emissions in economic sectors with lower carbon intensity, it helps mitigate emissions in sectors with high- carbon emission levels. Furthermore, our study identifies that the intensity of economic activity, per capita GDP, and the number of employees all significantly influence the industrial sector's carbon emissions. By employing the latest cutting-edge methodology, our research opens the door for extrapolating these findings to other nations for a comprehensive analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the drivers of environmental degradation in ASEAN + China. It focusses on three unresolved questions: (i) Does the inclusion of China in ASEAN panel aggravate environmental degradation, given that China is a high carbon emissions country? (ii) Does financial development moderate the impact of energy consumption on environmental degradation in ASEAN? (iii) Does urbanization moderate the impact of energy consumption on environmental degradation in ASEAN? It employs empirical strategies that account for heterogeneity, endogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The results show that economic growth, energy consumption and non-renewable energy aggravate environmental degradation, whereas renewable energy, foreign direct investment and trade openness mitigate it. The inclusion of China in ASEAN panel weakens the EKC hypothesis. Financial development favorably moderates the effect of energy consumption on environmental degradation in ASEAN, but adversely moderates the effect in ASEAN + China. Urbanization adversely moderates the impact of energy consumption on environmental degradation in both panels. Hence, efforts to address environmental degradation should consider these different drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the principle of minimum information, new information priority, and difference information, most existing grey forecast models and their improvement are inconsistent with the grey theory. Therefore, a novel discrete multivariable grey model with unequal fractional-order accumulation is proposed. To improve the accuracy and stability of the model, an optimization algorithm for unequal fractional-order is proposed. The proposed model and algorithm are evaluated with four actual cases. The results show that the novel model has better performance and the proposed unequal fractional-order accumulation operator is better than other existing accumulation operators. Considering the energy consumption, the carbon dioxide emissions in the USA have been forecasted to decrease but remain at a high level by using the novel discrete multivariable grey model. Reducing energy consumption is conducive to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's organized manufacturing sector experienced a 11% fall in its carbon di oxide (CO2) emissions intensity during 2009-2012, while a majority of the manufacturing plants achieved over a 30% fall during the corresponding period. How did such a reduction in CO2 emissions intensity affect the export competitiveness of Indian manufacturing firms? Using firm-level data for 2009-2013, this paper attempts to empirically answer that question. It is found that large firms and capital intensive firms have achieved a relatively faster decline in CO2 emissions intensity and that containment of CO2 emissions in manufacturing firms did not cause any major loss in their export competitiveness. Rather, it is found to be positively associated with increases in exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions trading is a major innovation in the practice of using market mechanism to control and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promote green and low-carbon development. It is an important way to achieve China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals (the "dual carbon" goals) at a relatively low cost. Starting late and having gone through three development stages, China's national carbon market has entered a new stage. However, given the problems such as incomplete institutional, regulatory and carbon emissions verification systems, less balanced and vibrant market, limited transaction entities and trading products, and lack of voice due to insufficient participation in relevant international affairs, continuous efforts are still required to further improve this market by deepening reform, strengthening capacity building and increasing international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lighting energy consumption occupies a large proportion in the building electricity consumption. It cannot only save energy, but also reduce the uneven and constant illumination of the working face, which makes full use of the natural lighting and combines with the intelligent lighting control. An office building in Zhengzhou of China has been selected as an example for analyzing the climatic factors that influence building daylighting and the factors of the building itself, the illuminance of working faces in different sky models and at different times has been simulated and calculated to analyze the illuminance variation law in the direction of room depth and parallel direction of side Windows. Partition and point combined constant illumination control strategy for the lamps in different areas has been put forward and realized by BP neural network algorithm. By controlling the dimming of artificial light source and adjusting the curtain opening degree intelligently, uniform and constant illumination has been achieved. Energy saving effect in combination with natural lighting has been evaluated to prove that the control strategy cannot only maintain constant illumination in every working face but also significantly reduce the electric energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasonably and fairly allocating carbon intensity reduction targets among Chinese provinces is a key problem in effectively controlling and reducing CO2 emissions. This study establishes the ZSG-DDF model combining the Zero-Sum Gains DEA and the Directional Distance Function to study the CO2 emission allowance allocations from the perspective of maximum efficiency. This model can discriminate desirable and undesirable outputs and solve the problem of total CO2 emission amount control. Then, we add the equity principle to the constraint conditions, namely, the proportion of carbon emission allowance approaching the proportion of GDP. Finally, we establish a CO2 emission allocation scheme based on the equity-efficiency tradeoff while considering the relationship between economic development and carbon emissions as well as achieving maximum efficiency. We use this new model to allocate CO2 emission allowance during the Chinese 13th Five-Year Plan, and compare it with the other two allocation schemes, including National allocations during the 13th Five-Year Plan, allocation scheme from the perspective of efficiency maximization. The results have a certain significance for government departments to formulate the allocation scheme of CO2 emission allowance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the statement of President Xi Jinping at the general debate of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, China aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030. Regions are the major units undertaking carbon emissions control. The achievement of the national emission peaking target requires the participation of all regions. However, regions still need to rationally judge their peaking targets and paths and enhance their basic capabilities while promoting carbon emissions peak. Besides, China should step up its macro-guidance for regions to peak carbon emissions in terms of top-level design, mechanisms improvement, and overall coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to realise the goal of the Paris Agreement, China has announced to enhance its nationally determined contributions (NDCs), demonstrating its determination to adopt more rigorous policies and measures to achieve a peak in carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. China's pledge to carbon neutrality not only has a profound impact on its economic reforms, but also spurs the country to be more proactive in global climate governnance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an analytical framework for studying the characteristics of changes in things and their action mechanisms, the decomposition analysis of greenhouse gas emissions has been increasingly used in environmental economics research. The author introduces several decomposition methods commonly used at present and compares them. The index decomposition analysis (IDA) of carbon emissions usually uses energy identities to express carbon emissions as the product of several factor indexes, and decomposes them according to different weight-determining methods to clarify the incremental share of each index, in which way it is possible to decompose the models that contain less factors, process time series data, and conduct cross-country comparisons. It mainly includes the Laspeyres index decomposition and the Divisia index decomposition. Among them, the LMDI I method has been widely used for its advantages such as generating no residuals and easy to use. The structural decomposition analysis (SDA) can be used to conduct a more systematic analysis, decompose models with more influencing factors, and analyze the impacts of various factors on emissions, but this method has higher requirements for data collection. The biggest difference between the SDA method and the IDA methods of carbon emissions is that the former is based on an input–output system, while the latter only needs to use sectors' aggregate data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nexus between trade openness and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions remains unsettled in the existing literature. Using a balanced panel dataset for 76 countries from 1990 to 2019, this study empirically investigates the non-linear relationship between trade openness and CO2 emissions. Given the potential cross-sectional interdependence in the panel, we employ the system-generalised method of moments. We also conduct a mediating effect analysis to explore potential mediation effect in the trade openness-CO2 nexus. Finally, the regional heterogeneity is discussed. The empirical results revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between trade openness and CO2 emissions, indicating that CO2 emissions increase initially with an expansion of trade openness, then decline after trade openness crossing the turning point. Furthermore, three mediation effects (i.e. scale effect, technique effect and composition effect) exist in the nexus between trade openness and CO2 emissions. Additionally, the impact of trade openness is heterogeneous across different regions. The main research results show that technique spillover is an important way to achieve a win-win situation in emission reduction and trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emission reduction is the focus of and difficulty in addressing climate change. In choosing emission reduction targets, China needs to examine the historical trajectory of carbon emissions in developed countries and learn from their target orientations. During the evolution of the world development pattern, the status of China changed fundamentally. The goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan to address climate change should not only be pragmatic but also demonstrate moral responsibility, and should not only achieve international leadership but also achieve domestic reverse actuation. The goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan do not need to exclude reaching the peak of carbon dioxide emissions. China has advantages in the goals of the speed and scale of renewable energy development. Although the goal of net-zero carbon is impossible to achieve in the whole country, it can be tried in some regions first. On the side of demand, the target orientation of pure electric vehicle has leading value. The indicators of climate resilience, especially resilient carbon reduction and ecological carbon sequestration, etc., are also the goals of ecological civilization transformation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the panel data of 30 provinces in China between 1997 and 2011, we employed the extended STIRPAT model and spatial panel econometrics methods to investigate the relationship between financial development and carbon emissions and test the influence of financial development as well as other factors on provincial carbon emissions per capita among Chinese provinces. The estimation results show that: (i) spatial spillover effects play a role in provincial carbon emissions in China; and (ii) the sum of technical effect and structure effect of financial development surpass its' sum of direct effect and wealth effect in China, which suggests that financial development reduces carbon emissions per capita. China should pay more attention to the integration of green finance policy and environmental regulation, and establish appropriate mechanisms to strengthen inter-provincial interaction and coordinated development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do demographic factors influence the environmental impacts of households? A major two year study used the ecological footprint technique to measure the environmental impacts of over 1000 UK households. Energy and transport were the biggest contributors to the 'footprint' of households. Rural, and adult households and households with few members had significantly larger per capita ecological footprints than urban/suburban households, households with children and households with several members. Although 11% of these UK households could be regarded as environmentally sustainable, the majority would require a reduction of 60% in ecological footprint to achieve a globally sustainable footprint per person. Consideration is given to the policy implications of demographic influences on household ecological footprints, including personal carbon allowances and house planning and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]