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In 2019, New York State passed aggressive new climate legislation to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and laid out major changes for how emissions are reported. One change is the inclusion of emissions from outside of the boundaries of the State if they are associated with energy use within NY; the traditional inventory considered emissions only within the State. The new legislation also mandated that methane emissions be compared with carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame rather than the 100-year time frame previously used by NY and still used by virtually all other governments globally. This reflected the desire of NY's policymakers for a tool that evaluates emissions from the standpoint of energy consumption and that more heavily weighs the role of methane as an agent of warming over the next few decades. This paper compares emissions based on the new approach for GHG reporting with the traditional inventory. The traditional inventory is driven almost entirely by carbon dioxide emissions. As of 2015, these carbon dioxide emissions had declined by 15% since 1990 due to an 88% decrease in coal consumption and a 27% decrease in consumption of petroleum products, although consumption of natural gas had increased by 57%. Methane emissions increased by almost 30% between 1990 and 2015, largely due to the increased consumption of natural gas. According to the new GHG reporting rules, methane contributed 28% of all fossil-fuel emissions in 1990 and 37% in 2015. Total GHG emissions remained virtually unchanged from 1990 to 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of green technology is imperative to realise sustainable development. Considering the same, this study explores the drivers of Green Innovation (GI) based on the theoretical foundation of the Triple Bottom Line (environmental, social, and economic factors) with the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) and institutional governance (INST) in Pakistan. This study employs a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) framework on quarterly data from Q1-1996 to Q4-2019. The results reveal that positive shocks in human capital (HCI) instigate GI by 1.05%, while negative shock undermines GI by 0.93%. Similarly, positive shocks in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increase GI by 0.63%, while any negative shock undermines GI by 0.01%. On the other hand, positive shock in ICT leads to 0.55% advanced GI; however, this effect turned stronger in negative shocks, which leads to reduced GI by 0.78% in the long-run. These results confirm the asymmetricity because positive and negative shocks in HCI, CO2 emissions, and ICT instigated GI differently. Finally, INST and GDP contribute to enhancing GI by 0.12% and 1.69%, respectively. The results indicate that the Pakistan government should improve institutional governance, adapt, and focus on sustainable practices with ICT integration to promote green technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to investigate the impact of income inequality and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission through the moderating role of innovation in China at national and regional levels. To test the hypothesised relationships, this study took the data from 1995 to 2015 and employed panel estimation. Findings of the whole analysis show that income inequality and economic growth influence CO2 emission in China. Moreover, technological innovation moderates the proposed link. However, the findings at the regional level are mixed, thus confirming the existence of regional differences. Policy implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]