Search

Since adoption of the policy of reform and opening-up in 1978, China has achieved spectacular success in economic growth, which mainly driven by abundant consumption of natural resources and resulted in serious environmental problems. Based on Emergy approach and Rescaled Range analysis, this paper aims to examine the decoupling condition in economic growth nexus environmental pressure both at specific and aggregate level and track the changing trend and the corresponding socio-economic cost in decoupling process. The results show that: the decoupling performance of waste emission (includes waste water, SO 2 and solid waste) is better than energy consumption at a specific level which implies that the policies focused on end-of-pipe treatment has been succeeded in meeting the targets of emission reduction. But at aggregate level, the situation is opposite which suggest that China need more efforts in life-cycle management. The weak decoupling condition of resource use and waste water discharge may continue in the future, so as the strong decoupling condition of SO 2 and solid waste, but for the aggregate environmental pressure induced by waste emission, the decoupling performance may be getting worse in the future. The investment cost of decoupling increased, whilst the job-cost of decoupling decreased. The decoupling performance can be influenced by environmental policies substantially, such as the polices of circular economy, rigorous emission reduction and waste recycling which have brought about the strong decoupling of SO 2 emission and solid waste discharge from economic growth, whereas the less rigorous policies on resource exploitation and waste water discharge didn’t achieve the same result. Therefore, China needs to intensify the unity among various environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines four phases in bicycle evolution in China from initial entry and slow growth (1900s to 1978), to rapid growth (1978 to 1995), bicycle use reduction (1995 to 2002), and policy diversification (2002 to present). Two bicycle innovations, electric bikes, and public bikesharing (the shared use of a bicycle fleet), are also explored in this article. Electric bikes could provide a transitional mode on the pathway to bicycle and public transportation integration or to small battery electric cars. Four lessons have been learned from China's electric bike experience relevant to government policy and management. Public bikesharing represents an important step towards integrating the bicycle with bus, metro, and rail systems. Five early operational lessons have been identified from China's limited public bikesharing experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, The People's Republic of China proposed goals for peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, in the 15 counties (districts) of the Main Stream Area of the Yellow River Basin in Gansu that plays an important role in ecological protection and green development. Next the CO2 equivalents were converted according to the IPCC2 standard, the total agricultural GHG emissions was calculated, the relationship with the agricultural output value was analyzed, and the discretization of the space was analyzed by the coefficient of variation and standard deviation. Firstly, the total agricultural GHG emissions in 15 counties (districts) of the Main Stream Area of the Yellow River Basin increased 55.54% in 2000–2019, and 2.35% annually, roughly divided into three stages: the rapid growth period (2000–2008), the slow decline period (2009–2014) and the rapid decline period (2015–2019). The economic efficiency is significantly improved, with an average annual decline of 6.49%, roughly divided into three stages: the slow-descent stage (2000–2004), the period of slow-growth stage (2005–2008) and the period of fast-decline (2009–2019). Secondly, based on the characteristics of the total GHG emissions, Maqu County has the largest GHG emissions increase, from 26.8842 kt in 2000 to 38.9603 kt, in 2019, an increase of 44.92%, while the smallest GHG emissions, in Anning District, decreased 87.33% from 111 t in 2000 to 14.1 t in 2019; In the rate of increase in the total GHG emissions, Dongxiang County had the largest rate of increase from 2000 to 2019, an increase of 160.28% and an average annual increase of 4.90%. The smallest rate of decrease in GHG emissions was seen in Chengguan District, where they decreased 92.11% from 2000 to 2019, an average annual decrease of 11.93%. The characteristics of agricultural GHG emissions intensity is a significant declining trending and agricultural production efficiency has been significantly improved. Finally, to provide a basis for the formulation of differentiated agricultural energy conservation and emissions reduction policies, reduce agricultural GHG emissions intensity and reduce the use efficiency of resources by formulating differentiated emission targets, tasks and incentive measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Carbon emission accounting method at county level. • Spatially explicit method of multi-source carbon emission data. • Method for optimum spatial resolution of carbon emissions. The county is the basic economic spatial unit in China, and is also an integrated spatial carbon emitter. Focusing on a county, especially the developed counties in the Yangtze River Delta, it is of typical significance and enlightenment to conduct an in-depth and detailed dissection. The spatialization of a county's carbon emissions is crucial for exploring the spatial pattern of carbon emissions, which is fundamental information needed to reduce carbon emissions through the optimization or reorganization of the spatial pattern. This study systematically calculated the carbon emissions of Changxing county from four aspects (including energy; industrial processes and product use; agriculture, forestry, and other land use; and wastes), based on a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Subsequently, we constructed ten carbon emission spatial datasets with a resolution of 50–500 meters (m). According to landscape metrics and the information loss evaluation model, we analyzed the scale effect of carbon emissions at different resolutions and determined the optimal resolution of the spatial carbon emissions at the county scale to be a 200 m × 200 m grid. A reasonable scale of spatial carbon emission data provides support for low-carbon spatial planning and emission reduction policymaking. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a large agricultural country with a high level of agricultural carbon emissions. Whether market prices can be used in agricultural production as a means of agricultural carbon emissions reduction is of great significance to improve the allocation of agricultural production factors and expand large-scale production. This paper applies an autoregressive distributed lag–pooled mean group(ARDL–PMG) model to evaluate the relationship between agricultural production factor prices, food consumption prices, and agricultural carbon emissions, using Chinese provincial panel data from 1994 to 2018. The results show that agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural production factor prices show environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) characteristics; agricultural carbon emissions and food prices show a U-shaped curve; and agricultural production factors are positively correlated with food price in both directions in the long-term. The results of Granger causality tests show that price is the cause of agricultural carbon emissions; the price of agricultural production factors and the price of food consumption are mutually causal. Such results have implications for price, agriculture, and environmental policies. The analysis implies that the market price can be applied to agricultural carbon reduction, which will help policymakers to implement effective price policies in order to reduce agricultural carbon emissions. One implication is that promoting the marketization of agricultural production factors and reducing price distortions will be conducive to carbon emissions reduction in agriculture, which in turn will increase food consumption prices. Therefore, subsidies are needed at the consumption end, which will eventually achieve further carbon emissions reduction at the production and consumption ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household energy consumption has been a major contributor to the increase in global energy demand and carbon emission, and the household sector has also become one of the most crucial factors shaping the management of developments towards sustainability. However, there is still a knowledge gap regarding the household energy consumption in China. Due to the vast territory and the differences among regional conditions, it is critical to conduct a systemic review to illustrate the overall situation as well as the detailed mechanisms of the household energy consumption in China. By employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, two key features of the household energy consumption in China are presented; one is regarding the total amount and the structure of the household energy consumption, and the second is the significant urban-rural gap. The driving forces are investigated from the perspective of external determinants and internal determinants, which consist of seven key factors; finally, the transition roadmap towards the sustainable energy system for the household level are presented based on the text analysis from the four key policy documents. Weaknesses in the current research on the energy geography of household level also exist, such as the lack of single factor research and the lack of integration and comprehensive analysis. Therefore, future studies need to strengthen the research of regional household energy consumption structure, spatial-temporal process, and its motivation mechanism, and sustainable development of energy, so as to explore space-social structure of household energy consumption and spatial-temporal interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]