Search

The synergic reduction of VOCs and CO 2 emissions is significant for achieving sustainable development. The logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, scenario analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation are used to investigate the socio-economic influencing factors of VOCs and CO 2 emissions and predict the future trends of VOCs and CO 2 emissions. The results show that during 1995–2020, the per capita GDP effect contributed the most to VOCs and CO 2 emission increase, followed by population effect. On the contrary, the energy intensity effect was the largest contributor for VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease, followed by energy structure effect. The synergic effect was evident in VOCs emission decrease, indicating that achieving a co-reduction in VOCs and CO 2 emissions has been increasingly possible. During different Five-Year Plan periods of China, per capita GDP maintained the largest driver of VOCs and CO 2 emission increase, while energy intensity kept the crucial driver of VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease. During 2020–2035, the synergic reduction of both VOCs and CO 2 emissions will be realized under lower-emission (LU) scenario, while the trajectories of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will show a synergic growth under higher-emission (HU) scenario. The future trends of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will show an opposite direction under business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. Based on such results, several policy implications are proposed, including developing energy-saving technologies, clean energy utilization, eco-friendly way of life, and optimized government management mechanism. • Key socio-economic drivers of VOCs and CO 2 emissions in China are uncovered. • Scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation are used for projecting the emissions. • Energy intensity and energy structure effects drove VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease. • Synergic reduction of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will be realized under LU scenario. • Policy implications are proposed for synergic emission abatement of VOCs and CO 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing worldwide demand for Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction has led to a new age of energy saving. Besides the energy saving extent, the costs of energy saving measures as well as the environmental and social impacts are also necessary to be evaluated in order to make sure that the application of these measures can also meet sustainable development requirements. Thus, a sustainability evaluation method based on Life Cycle Theory is innovatively designed in this study. We present its new aspects, describe its working steps in detail and also test this new method by means of a case study on Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP), which is a renewable technology that is widely applied in the building sector in China. Data for the case study is collected by literature review and site investigation. Results show that the energy consumption of the investigated GSHP cases has an energy saving rate as around 40.2%.The main environmental impacts of GSHP are found to be global warming, acidification and eutrophication in the production process, and soil temperature change in the operation process. The prevention cost of the environmental impacts is around 15.84 RMB/m 2 in the production process, and 5 RMB/m 2 in the operation process. The payback time of our cases is around 4 years, and it will rise to 4.29 years if accounting the environmental prevention cost. We conclude based on the case study that our assessment method proofs to be useful as it can demonstrate comprehensive characteristics of sustainability for energy saving measures in the whole life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of promoting the development of a low carbon society, economic incentive policies play an important role. In order to see the effectiveness of implementing the economic incentive policies, we put forward two questions in this study: How effective are economic incentive policies in the building industry in China and Japan? What are the obstacles preventing these policies from being effectively applied and how to overcome them? Considering the energy consumption in the building industry accounts for a significant proportion in both China and Japan, economic incentive policies for promoting building energy saving in the two countries have been chosen as case studies. Policies discussed in this article are divided into national and city levels, in which the city level policy analysis mainly focused on the active Carbon Trading Programs. Methods of stakeholder investigation and literature review are applied in exploring the economic incentive polices' effects and constraints. Based on the outcomes of our research, policy recommendations for overcoming the barriers of economic incentive policies in the building industry are worked out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energy security has become one of the growing concerns of many countries as well as the policy makers and decision-makers. This study aims to investigate the energy security performances of 30 Chinese provinces within the period of 2008–2017 by proposing a hybrid model that integrated Fuzzy Best-Worst Method, Data Envelopment Analysis and Assurance Regions. The dynamic trend of energy security performances of these provinces during this period has also been analyzed by using Malmquist Productivity Index. It was found that China's provincial energy security has shown great variance, and the eastern and southern coastal provinces have experienced better energy security performance than that of the western and northern regions. In addition, China still improved its energy security performance during this period even it has been the country with the fastest growth in world energy consumption in recent decades. Specifically, energy security performance in the middle and western provinces seems to have made more progress than the coasts. Technological progress and energy innovations can help to improve China's energy security by diversifying the energy supply sources/pathways and improving the energy efficiency, which is of great significance for the development of clean and sustainable energy. • An innovative DEA was developed for energy security quantitative assessment and enhancement. • Criteria for assessing energy security of China was developed. • Energy security performance of 30 Chinese provinces were investigated. • The trend of China's energy security in the period of 2008–2017 was obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strew pellet production not only contribute to regional sustainable development and localized energy transition, but also help to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions. With the development strew pellet products in China, it is critical to uncover the embodied emissions, land use and economic cost effectiveness from producing strew pellet. In order to reach such a target, two main categories of biomass pellet production including a large-scale centralized factory and a small-scale distributed workshop are investigated. Compared with raw coal production, the unit co-benefits in terms of per gigajoule of straw pellets from centralized factory are 1687 kg CO 2 , 8.65 g SO 2 , 3.21 g NOx, and 3.897 g PM 10 , and 0.33 m2 land use, and those for straw pellets from centralized factory are 1352 kg CO 2 , 8.46 g SO 2 , 3.12 g NOx, and 4.22 g PM 10 , and 0.33 m2 land use. Cost-effectiveness for the two straw pellets production system were also uncovered so that the relevant interested agents such as decision makers, business investors or environmental researchers can see the potential economic performance from developing such kind biomass plants. We conclude that environmental performance of the straw pellets whether from centralized factor or decentralized workshop have attractive alternatives to coal production. Image 108297 • LCA-based co-benefits approach was applied to investigate biomass pellet production. • The analysis framework includes energy consumption, equipment and infrastructure. • Emission factors and land demand for producing one-unit products are presented. • Environmental performance of straw pellets has attractive alternatives to raw coal. • Electricity is an important factor affecting the performance of pellets production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the high growth urbanization and increasing new urban population, the huge demand for infrastructures and dwellings has become a great challenge for the sustainable development in Chinese cities. The building sector shares one fourth of total energy consumption in the country and plays an important role in reducing the energy consumption and the consequential green house gas (GHG) emissions. Some policies have been issued for promoting the low carbon sustainable development in China's buildings. However, existing barriers especially the investment barriers substantially prevent the low carbon technologies and service from being employed effectively. The carbon trading scheme of cap-and-trade is now widely accepted as one cost-effective way to deal with the climate change issue in the world, and it can be utilized for overcoming the barriers to carbon reduction activities in China's building sector. A new Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) energy performance based method is designed for reducing transaction costs in implementing CDM projects in China's buildings before 2020. And then a “step by step” approach is formed to establish the domestic and international carbon trading mechanism to effectively reduce GHG missions in China's building sector after 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]