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The important role of spatial scale in exploring the geography of poverty as well as its policy implications has been noticed but with limited knowledge. To improve such limited understanding, we mainly investigated the spatial patterns and influencing factors of rural poverty (indicated by poor population and poverty incidence) at three different administrative levels in the Liupan Mountain Region, one of the fourteen poorest regions in China. Our results show that from a global perspective, poor areas are clustered significantly at the county-, township-, and village-level, and more greatly at a lower level. Locally, there is spatial mismatch among poverty hotspots detected not only by the same indicator at different levels but also by different indicators at the same level. A scale effect can be found in the influencing factors of rural poverty. That is, the number of significant factors increases, but the degree of their association with poverty incidence decreases at a lower level. Such scale effect indicates that poverty incidence at lower levels may be affected by more complex factors, including not only the new local ones but also the already appeared non-local ones at higher levels. However, the natural conditions tend to play a scale-independent role to poverty incidence. In response to such scale-dependent patterns and factors, anti-poverty policies can be 1) a multilevel monitoring system to reduce incomplete or even misleading single-level information and understanding; 2) the village-based targeting strategy to increase the targeting efficiency and alleviate the mentioned spatial mismatch; 3) more flexible strategies responding to the local impoverishing factors, and 4) different task emphasises for multilevel policymakers to achieve the common goal of poverty reduction. [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]

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]

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]