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Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality have become key agendas for countries to participate in global climate change governance. Research on China's carbon peaking has a guidance significance for the actions to achieve a nationwide carbon peaking by 2030. This paper builds a STIRPAT model which, in combination with a scenario -setting method, predicts the carbon peaking time of eight comprehensive economic zones in China, and analyzes the possible path of achieving carbon peaking at national level. The result shows a disparity in carbon peaking time among the zones--there are zones that can achieve carbon peaking under baseline scenario; zones that can achieve carbon peaking under conditional scenarios; and zones that cannot achieve carbon peaking under any scenario. In the first group, the zones can achieve carbon emission through both active path (southwest and eastern coastal comprehensive economic zones) and passive path (northeast comprehensive economic zones) according to characteristics of regional socio-economic development. The second group includes two economic anchors (northern coastal and southern coastal comprehensive economic zones) and an energy-exporting center (the middle reaches of Yellow River comprehensive economic zone). Zones in the third group generally witness a late development (the middle reaches of Yangtze River and northwest comprehensive zones). Based on characteristics of regional economy, population, industry, and energy of each zone, this paper proposes an initiative that the achievement of a nationwide carbon peaking should take regional development equity into consideration, and presumes that making each zone adopts differentiated peaking strategies may have a stronger effectiveness in controlling carbon emission growth than making all zones adopt strategies constraining on single factors on industry or energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to achieve the "double carbon" goal in energy systems has been the concern of governments. Integrated energy system (IES) is affected by climate change during his operation, in order to study the impact of climate change on IES and achieve the "double carbon" goal in energy systems, this paper proposes an integrated machine learning(IML) to forecast the long-term load, then investigates IES costs and carbon emissions in relation to climate, followed by the establishment of carbon peak energy system(CPES) and carbon neutral energy system(CNES), finally the honey badger algorithm is used to optimize the configuration of CPES and CNES. The results show that: IML can accurately make load forecasts. Under climate change, changes in load reduce the cost and carbon emissions of IES, and changes in equipment efficiency increase the cost and carbon emissions of IES. When both are considered, the cost and carbon emissions of IES increase by 1.18% and 0.92% per decade respectively. The costs of CPES and CNES increase by 0.93% and 1% respectively for every 10 years earlier than the year of achievement. To meet China's "double carbon" goal, CPES and CNES need to increase their costs by 1.97% and 2% respectively. • Integrated machine learning proposed for long-term load forecasting. • Studied the impact of system equipment efficiency and load with climate change. • Proposing carbon peaking energy system to achieve the carbon peak goal. • Proposed carbon-neutral energy system to achieve carbon neutrality goal. • The increased costs of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutral were studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the climate is warming up and climate disasters occur more frequently, China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets are gaining attention, with provinces starting to set carbon peak targets and constantly exploring low carbon economic development opportunities. However, the existing evaluation index system mainly focuses on low carbon cities and green cities, and there is no evaluation index system for carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This study adopts a combination of theoretical and empirical research and draws on domestic and international research results to construct the first index system for evaluating China's provincial carbon peak and carbon neutrality. The evaluation index system includes 18 indicators from three dimensions: climate ambition, low carbon status, and emissions trends. Using this index system, we calculated the carbon peak and carbon neutrality indices of 30 Chinese provinces. Further, the 30 provinces were classified into six categories, and corresponding policy recommendations for achieving the "Dual carbon" targets were put forward. The evaluation index system constructed in this paper can provide a reference for future carbon peak and carbon neutrality assessments. By disclosing the integrated index of each province, we hope to effectively curb the increasing local carbon emissions; avert inaction in areas with good natural endowments; and motivate the advancement of the latter, to boost the implementation of the "Dual carbon" targets coherently for the whole country. [Display omitted] • An integrated evaluation system on China's Provincial "Dual carbon" was proposed. • 30 provinces in mainland China were ranked based on the integrated index. • 6 groups were classified to show provincial differences on dual carbon performance. • Policy recommendations to fulfill China's climate commitment were put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has put countries around the world under great pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese government has proposed that China will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. A low-carbon lifestyle is becoming a new trend in China. Therefore, the products of firms that actively respond to climate change are more popular for consumers in China. In the Internet era, the carbon information disclosed by firms has become an important way for consumers to understand the behavior of firms in responding to climate change. In the existing literature on the influencing factors of carbon information disclosure, the psychological factors of executives are seldom investigated. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in low-carbon pilot provinces and cities during the period of 2015–2019, this study explores the influence of government regulation and executive overconfidence on the quality of carbon information disclosure. The results show that government regulation has a significantly positive impact on the quality of carbon information disclosure. The results also reveal that executive overconfidence negatively affects the quality of carbon information disclosure. Moreover, executive overconfidence negatively moderates the relationship between government regulation and the quality of carbon information disclosure. Our findings make a significant contribution to the role of executive's psychological factors in firm's behaviors and provide new insights and policy implications for government, firms, consumers, and other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an economic means to cope with climate change, carbon trading has become an important measure to reduce carbon emissions in China. It has been over seven years since the initiation of seven pilot carbon markets, but has the implementation achieved the goal of controlling carbon emissions in the region? Are the effects really resulted from the carbon market other than other energy-saving and emission reduction policies? Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2005 to 2016 this paper conducts an empirical study on the emission reduction effects of pilot projects using the Difference-in-differences model (DID). The results show that: (1) The implementation of carbon markets in Beijing, Shanghai and Hubei exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on local carbon emissions, but a promoting effect in Guangdong, and no significant effect was found in Tianjin; (2) In terms of time lag effect, no significant inhibiting effect on the local carbon emissions is found during the first year of opening of Shanghai carbon market but the effect grew significantly from 2015 to 2016; while for Hubei and Beijing, significant effect was shown from the first year of running. Being an experimental program to see whether the carbon trading policy would work in China or not and if it does, under what conditions and settings the policy becomes effective, the 7 pilot markets provide important experiences and lessons to the upcoming nationwide market in China. Based on the empirical result that the carbon trading system in Beijing, Shanghai and Hubei effectively reduced carbon emissions, it is suggested that the national carbon market should actively learn from the experiences of these three pilot markets particularly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]