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South China’s Guangdong Province, the Chinese largest provincial economy and the global 14th biggest economy, has been facing a huge challenge of achieving economic growth without emission growth. Developing new strategy for making economic growth compatible carbon reduction requires better understanding of the decoupling carbon emission from economic growth. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive decoupling and decomposition analysis of carbon emission from economic output in Guangdong Province from a sector perspective. We firstly calculate carbon emission in six sectors based on the energy consumption of each sector and carbon coefficient of 13 types of fuels during 2000–2014, and then quantify the decoupling status between CO2 emissions and economic growth in those six sectors by using the Tapio decoupling index, finally, investigate the influencing factors of emissions by using the decomposition techniques. The modeling results show that agricultural sector has strong decoupling, industrial, transport and others sectors are weak decoupling; construction and trade sectors are expansive negative decoupling. We also find that energy intensity and economic output are the major factors influencing carbon emission, also the effects of energy structure and emission factor among six sectors are studied. Some policy recommendations finally are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the significance and importance of urban sustainability in China and China's history of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, this paper aims to incorporate the investigation of climate change and air pollution in urban sustainability research in China through a driver-pressure-state-impact-response model. The model has 12 indices: population, enterprise, registered vehicles, energy consumption, emissions and concentrations of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, land use change, annual temperature, tropical nights and reforestation were selected. It was used in the analysis of 14 cities in the Liaoning Province. The results show that the model is an effective tool for urban sustainability research, allowing for the investigation of interactions of climate change and air pollution and contributing to the body of knowledge by aiding generation of realistic and practical measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of energy consumption in China has led to increased emissions of CO 2 . As a response, the Chinese government has proposed a series of carbon mitigation strategies, such as switching the production structure and implementing energy-saving and emission–reduction technologies in energy-intensive sectors. In this paper, an integrated assessment approach was developed by combining the Stock-based model, the China-TIMES model and the co-benefits analysis model. The approach was applied to China’s steel sector to simulate the trends of energy consumption and air emissions (CO 2 , SO 2 , NO x , and PM 10 ) during 2010–2050, under a reference scenario and three alternative carbon mitigation scenarios. The model quantified the air emission reductions, water conservation, and associated co-benefits during the study period. The modeling results show that by switching the production structure and implementing energy-saving and emission–reduction technologies, China’s steel sector can achieve significant co-benefits of carbon mitigation, water conservation, averted mortality and averted morbidity. Despite certain limitations and uncertainties associated with the elements of the integrated assessment approach, the results demonstrate that substantial social benefits and health effects could be realized through carbon mitigation strategies in China’s steel sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth in the world economy has resulted in an increase in environmental pollution and ecological destruction in many parts of the world. In particular, economic development in mainland China in recent years has seen a massive rise in environmental pollution such as particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NO2) in many cities; as a result, there has been an increased focus on air pollution and carbon dioxide emission control in recent years. This study used 2013–2017 energy consumption data from 31 cities in China to examine overall and specific efficiencies, for which employees, fixed assets, and energy consumption were taken as the input indicators, and gross domestic product (GDP) and the PM2.5, SO2, and NO2 levels as the output indicators. It was found that from 2013 to 2017, only four cities (Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanning, and Shanghai) had total efficiency scores of 1, with all other cities needing efficiency improvements. The efficiency scores for the different pollutants varied widely, with the NO2 efficiencies being generally higher with less improvement needed, while the SO2 and PM2.5 efficiencies required significantly greater governance measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]