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China's fast industrialization and economic expansion has led to environmental degradation, prompting the government to implement a slew of environmental regulations and laws. This article examines how China's stringent environmental policies and legislation have impacted the development of environmental technology. The study's panel of Chinese companies confirmed that more stringent regulations really spurred innovation in green technology. This research lends credence to the premise that stricter environmental regulations are helpful in inspiring the development of cleaner technology that may help mitigate environmental issues. Research also shows that tighter environmental legislation increases environmental policy's effect on technological development. According to these results, environmental law may improve the efficiency of environmental policy by providing a hospitable framework for the application of technological innovation. The findings of this research have significant implications for Chinese policymakers committed to fostering sustainable development. The need of rigorous environmental rules to support comprehensive environmental policies that promote the development of greener technology is emphasized. The results shed even more light on how crucial it is to enforce environmental laws in order to ensure that environmental policies are effectively implemented. In essence, this study contributes to the expanding body of knowledge on the link between environmental policy and technical advancement by illuminating the potential for China's environmental policy and law to work together to encourage sustainable development. China's investment in green tech research and development may mitigate the environmental damage caused by its rapid economic growth., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Government attention and policy implementation are important for achieving environmental goals. This study uses 257 cities in China from 2013-2019 as the sample and measures local government attention through text mining, thus exploring the carbon emission reduction effect of government attention. Threshold regression is further used to examine the role and nonlinear relationship that environmental policies assume in the effect of government attention on carbon emission reduction. The conclusions are as follows: first, government attention can significantly reduce carbon emissions: with a 1% increase in local government attention to environmental protection, China's urban CO2 can be reduced by 0.04%. Second, the impact of government attention on carbon emissions is more significant in cities in non-air pollution prevention areas, in non-SO2 and acid rain control areas, with longer tenure of officials, and with female officials serving during the sample period. Third, the effect of government attention on carbon emission reduction can be significantly increased under policy influence, especially when two policies are implemented in concert. Fourth, market incentive policies play a stronger role in the first place, while traditional energy-saving policies have strong sustainability. In general, the study concludes that municipalities should allocate more attention to the environment, and it gives some reasons supporting policy choices., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The literature on policy implementation has primarily focused on regime type, institutional capacity, and leadership will in explaining policy success, while giving less attention to the details of policy design. This article argues that, when explaining unevenness in policy implementation, the devil is in the details. It turns to four Chinese environmental policies: Pollution Penalty, Cap-and-Trade, Coal-to-Gas, and Environmental Protection Tax. Despite involving similar stakeholders and sharing the same goal of pollution control, the outcomes of these policies vary enormously: over-implementation of Coal-to-Gas, sporadic implementation of Pollution Penalty, symbolic implementation of Cap-and-Trade, and effective implementation of Environmental Protection Tax. Uneven implementation is best explained by the varying costs associated with the ‘start-up’ and ‘maintenance’ of these policies. This study contributes to the literature on developmental states and institutional change by calling attention to the importance of policy design for explaining otherwise puzzling variation in policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy has made remarkable achievements in the past 40 years. However, the economic development is accompanied by serious environmental pollution. Chinese government has promulgated many policies to reduce environment pollution. However, it is doubtable whether the increased uncertainty in environmental policies inhibits enterprise development. Therefore in this study we use Mathematical Derivation, Stepwise Regression Method and Regulated Effect to investigate the impact of environmental policy uncertainty on enterprise productivity. The results show that (1) environmental policy uncertainty significantly inhibits the improvement of enterprise productivity. (2) environmental policy uncertainty inhibits enterprise productivity by enterprise innovation, human capital and foreign direct investment; (3) environmental policy uncertainty has heterogeneous impact on enterprise productivity. According to this study we also provide some beneficial environmental policy suggestions for the Chinese government. Such as the government should build a stable economic environment, maintain the sustainability of local environmental regulation policies and formulate more detailed measures to adapt different types of enterprises., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Le et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Environmental sustainability is an umbrella approach depending on various climatic and economic policies. In doing so, the current study empirically evaluates the role of green finance, eco-innovation, and environmental policy stringency on the ecological footprint in China. To meet the objectives, the novel quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) approach was employed from 2000 to 2017. The outcomes reveal heterogeneous associations between the proposed variables. Manifestly, the QARDL estimation results demonstrate a positive impact between eco-innovation, green finance, and environmental policy stringency with the ecological footprints of China; however, the extent of the relationship is quantile dependent. The outcomes are further validated through the Wald test of parameter constancy. The bi-direction causality is observed among all variables at several quantiles. The current study offers policymakers helpful suggestions on enhancing the positive effects of environmentally supported innovation, green finance, and stringent environmental policies on the ecosystem., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The importance of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and environmental policy stringency (EPS) in affecting environmental quality is gaining great attention in the literature. However, none of the existing studies has thought to investigate their combined effects on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. Additionally, the individual investigations into the nexuses EPU-emissions and EPS-emissions primarily took a symmetric assumption between these variables into consideration. The current paper is an early attempt to close these gaps by examining the combined effects of economic policy uncertainty and environmental policy stringency on CO 2 emissions within asymmetric (nonlinear) frameworks in China and the United States (US). The empirical findings indicate that an improvement in EPU degrades the environmental quality in both countries. However, a negative shift in EPU decreases emissions in China while increasing them in the US. In terms of EPS, the estimates in the two nations led to similar results. A positive change in EPS is conducive to fewer emissions, whereas a negative change worsens environmental damage. These findings still hold with the sensitivity analysis using ecological footprint as an alternative gauge of environmental destruction. This study, therefore, suggests that both nations adopt stricter environmental policies. Additionally, Chinese policymakers should work to lessen uncertainty shocks, while the US government should promote more transparent economic policies., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As environmental concerns continue to grow worldwide, the role of environmental policy in promoting sustainable development has become increasingly important. This study examines the impact of environmental policy on the innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China, a country where environmental regulation has been rapidly expanding in recent years. The analysis employs a regression model that controls for various firm-level and environmental factors that may affect innovation. A loan guarantee may boost an SME's chances of acquiring borrowed funds, the number of loans obtained, expenses, capital equipment expenditures, and TFP by 2%, 17.4%, 7.6%, 6.16%, and 5.26%, respectively. Furthermore, the influence of information networks on performance is examined. Environmental policy and open innovation activity, opposite transfer, investor interactions, and SMEs' success are all examined, with a focus on Chinese SMEs. The findings suggest that policymakers should consider designing more targeted and flexible environmental policies that provide incentives for SMEs to innovate and adopt sustainable practices, while minimizing potential negative impacts on their competitiveness and financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental stringency policy shocks and environmental tax have become fundamental policy tools for mitigating the degradation of the environment. The study explores the effects of environmental tax and environmental stringency policy shocks in the reduction of pollution emissions in China for the time 1993 to 2019. This study is a pioneer in assessing the simultaneous impact of these two policy instruments on pollution emissions in China. For empirical investigation, the study employed NARDL estimation techniques. The NARDL results show that positive shocks in environmental tax reduce N2O emissions by 0.03%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.13%, CO 2 emissions by 0.18%, and GHGs emissions by 0.01%, however, negative shocks in environmental tax increase N 2 O emissions by 0.01%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.07%, CO 2 emissions by 0.28%, GHGs emissions by 0.17% in the long run. The long-run results also show that positive shocks in environmental policy stringency reduced CO 2 emissions by 0.94%, GHGs emissions by 0.77%, while negative shocks in environmental policy stringency increased N 2 O emissions by 0.17%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.50%, CO 2 emissions by 0.63%. The findings suggest vigorous policy implications., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The purpose of the article is to study how the shift in the developing philosophy of China's central leadership has impacted the management style of China's local governments and, in turn, the country's economic and environmental equilibrium. We use a real business cycle model with environmental variables and divide governments into those with/without environmental concerns and into those with long- and short-term policy horizons. We find that forcing local governments to plan in the long run is effective only when those governments are simultaneously mandated to consider the environment to be as important as the economy. Theoretical results show that both output and pollution levels are highest under governments without environmental obligations, intermediate under long-term governments with environmental obligations, and lowest under short-term governments with such obligations.

This study aims to examine the effect of carbon dioxide emission and air pollution on agricultural productivity while accounting for the effect of renewable energy use, ICT, technological innovation, environmental policy stringency, and democracy for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) during the period 1990-2019. Several econometric procedures including mean group estimates are employed. The result suggests that both carbon dioxide emission and air pollution negatively affect the productivity of the agricultural sector. The effects of renewable energy, ICT, technological innovation, and democracy are found to be increasing agricultural productivity. Environmental policy stringency coefficient confirms the porter hypothesis. The result from the causality test suggests that bidirectional causality exists between CO 2 , PM 2.5 , renewable energy, technological innovation, ICT, and agricultural productivity. Finally, the study provides several policy suggestions for the governments of the BRICS economies in order to increase agricultural productivity while tackling the environmental vulnerability., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

How to choose environmental policy instruments within a clearly defined scope of the market mechanism and government intervention will profoundly affect the policy effectiveness. Through a systematic review of 111 representative literature, this paper traces the theoretical development of environmental policy instruments, empirical analyses based on the CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) model, and globally practical experience. We find that the reflections on environmental policy instruments have shifted from command-based to market-based, from trade-offs between quantity-based and price-based instruments within the scope of market-based instruments to combining both, and finally a reasonable allocation of both command-based and market-based instruments. The CGE model promotes the shift, deepens the theory, and accelerates the transformation from theoretical thinking to practical application. By providing approaches to recognize and measure the overall economic costs of environmental policies, the CGE model plays an important role in validating efficiency theories, identifying efficiency losses, and amending policy instruments. It also promotes the implementation of environmental tools through region-pertinent settings and simulations. Based on reflections and discussions upon existing literature, we propose that the market should play a dominant role in allocating resources to obtain long-term environmental goals with corresponding environmental regulations as supplementary; under the circumstances with market efficiency losses, command-based instruments should be employed to cope with market failures. The results in this paper can facilitate the expansion of the environmental policy theory and also assist governments with better selection and formulation of environmental policy instruments relying on a solid theoretical basis and rational practical approaches., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The topic of air pollution and its effect on public health has become a hot policy issue that has attracted worldwide attention, but this attention has seldom been extended to the causal relationship between atmospheric environmental policy (AEP), air pollution, and public health. This paper uses panel data from 30 provinces in China to construct spatial econometric models that analyze the impact of AEP on air pollution, the impact of air pollution on public health, and the mediation effect that air pollution may have between AEP and public health. The results demonstrate that there is a significant positive spatial spillover effect of soot and dust (SD) emission intensity and the overall air pollution level as measured by the Air Pollution Index (API). The AEP has significant inhibitory effects on the intensity of sulfur dioxide and SD emissions, as well as on overall air pollution. An increase in the overall air pollution level has a significant detrimental effect on public health as measured by average life expectancy. Air pollution as measured by API is a mediating factor in the relationship between AEP and public health. The study results could help to effectively control air pollution and promote public health by leading to improvements in regional pollution prevention and control mechanisms and strengthening of the central government's policy formulation and local governments' policy implementation process., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Economic and social development, the state of the environment and a propensity for disasters are closely intertwined. Therefore, environmental policy integration (EPI) across development and disaster management (DM) policies and plans is important. Pakistan as a country is highly vulnerable to climate-induced environmental changes and associated disasters. In this paper, the extent to which its national environment and climate change policy, disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy as well as disaster management (DM) plans are aligned is established, based on a review of government documents and expert opinions. In this context, a particular emphasis is put on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that led the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Plan (CPEC; 2017-2030). While environmental assessment (EA) is currently not conducted for any DM policies and plans, DM and EA are well integrated into provincial environmental protection acts, in national as well as most provincial DM plans. It is concluded that a regulatory framework to guide EPI in DM for BRI and CPEC projects is needed., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Various targets need to be accomplished before the dream of sustainable development comes true. Among these targets, increasing renewable energy demand, reducing carbon intensity, and achieving green growth are the most noticeable. Therefore, the present study focuses on capturing digital financial inclusion's impact on renewable energy demand, carbon intensity, and green growth in the presence of ICT trade and environmental policy stringency in China. To empirically estimate the model, we have applied ARDL covering the time span from 1995 to 2020. The results state that the estimated coefficients attached to education, ATMS, and environmental policy stringency are positively significant in the renewable energy and green growth model and negatively significant in the carbon intensity model. From these results, we confer that education, digital financial inclusion, and environmental policy stringency are good for increasing renewable energy demand, reducing carbon intensity, and achieving green growth in China. In the short run, some of the estimates are negative; hence, we conclude that the results are inconclusive. The results recommend some imperative policy suggestions., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental technological innovations and environmental policy stringency on green economic growth in China. The empirical analysis of the study is based on the ARDL model. Findings confirm that environmental technology positively impacts green economic growth in the short and long run. In the robust model, the estimates of all technologies appeared to be significantly positive in the short and long run. Conversely, the estimated coefficients of environmental policy stringency, in the basic and robust model, have only negatively impacted the green economic growth in China in the short run. In the long run, the environmental policy stringency has not shown any significant impact on green economic growth in China in the basic and robust model. China needs to increase environmental technology and environmental policy stringency for achieving green growth and sustainability targets., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The pollution control effect of seasonal environmental regulation policies in developing countries still lacks empirical evidence. In 2017, China implemented its first Atmospheric Environmental Policy in Autumn and Winter (AEPAW) to coordinate efforts among cities in reducing air pollutant emissions. Taking the daily panel data of 174 cities in northern China from July 2017 to July 2020 as samples, this paper empirically examines the pollution control effect of the AEPAW using a difference-in-differences model, a difference-in-difference-in-differences model, and a regression discontinuity design. The results show that the AEPAW significantly improves air quality in autumn and winter, with the air quality index decreasing by 5.6% on average by reducing PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 , and O 3 emissions. However, the AEPAW only creates a short-term "policy-induced blue sky", and there exists a phenomenon of "retaliatory pollution" after the AEPAW ends. Besides, the pollution control effect of the AEPAW is moderated by the heterogeneity of the national "Two Sessions" and the Central Environmental Protection Inspection. The implementation of the AEPAW also has a significant spillover effect on air pollution control in surrounding areas. The net benefit from the AEPAW is estimated to be approximately US$ 670 million per year. These findings not only have practical significance for strengthening the comprehensive control of air pollution in China, but also give some important references for other developing countries., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Environmental technology and the stringency of environmental policies have a certain effect on green growth in the country, and the sustainable development of the environment under the influence of green growth requires the effective application of the environmental technology based on such institutional policies related to the environment. In this paper, the mutual effect of green growth on the ecological environment is fully analyzed to identify an intrinsic link between them. Based on the intrinsic link, policies related to environment protection and environmental technology are conducive to facilitating green growth while at the same time playing a continuous role in the improvement of the environment. Driven by the factors of scientific and technological innovation, it can boost the harmonious development of the economy and the environment. The empirical evidence has demonstrated that the appropriate environmental policy and environmental technology model can be identified with full understanding of the environmental policy and environmental technology. At the same time, the industry drive and technological innovation can also be taken as a strong support for the environmental policy and the environmental technology in accordance with the market demand through research from the perspective of the government, the market, and the general public. The stringency of environmental policies has substantially increased the requirements of environmental technology, and the innovation of environmental technology, the structure of economic organizations, and the level of development have a great effect on the green growth in the country., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Yiming Wu and Yichao Zhang.)

This paper examines the impact of shadow economy and environmental policy stringency on energy consumption and economic growth in the case of China for the period 1993 to 2019. Asymmetric ARDL empirical findings show that positive shocks in shadow economy and environmental policy stringency have a significant and positive impact on energy consumption and economic growth in the long run. However, the negative shocks in shadow economy exert positive and significant impacts on energy consumption and economic growth in the long run, but magnitudes are small compared to positive shocks. The long-run findings report no significant effect of negative shock in environmental policy stringency on energy consumption and economic growth. China should use environmental policy stringency as economic tools to maintain green economic growth and clean energy demand for sustained economic expansion. Policymakers should focus on the inclusion of environmental policy stringency in any future environment strategy., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In response to the global call for emission reduction, China has assumed international responsibility for energy conservation and emission reduction by enacting several environmental policies to save energy and reduce consumption. However, it is debatable whether the increased uncertainty in environmental policies negatively affects firms' emission reduction. Few studies have examined this relationship based on micro-level data. Therefore, this study constructs a theoretical framework of environmental policy uncertainty affecting firms' pollution emissions. Based on comprehensive data from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database, the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Pollution Emission Database, and the Chinese Patent Database from 2002 to 2014, we empirically analyzed the impact of environmental policy uncertainty on firms' pollution emissions. The results show that (1) environmental policy uncertainty significantly aggravates the pollution emission intensity of industrial enterprises; (2) environmental policy uncertainty inhibits the improvement of enterprises' innovation capacity, reduces their human capital stock and foreign investment, and aggravates their pollution emission; (3) environmental policy uncertainty has significant heterogeneity on enterprise pollution emissions, that is, environmental policy uncertainty has a greater impact on non-export enterprises, large enterprises, young enterprises, capital-intensive enterprises, state-owned enterprises, and enterprises in polluting industries and central regions. This study provides a useful reference for the improvement of environmental policy and the green transformation of enterprises.

Straw used to be an important raw material for heating, cooking, and raising livestock in rural areas. However, with the development of the economy, straw burning poses a great threat to the environment. Straw return is of great significance for realizing carbon peaks and carbon neutrality because of its ecological value and economic value. Based on the survey data of 540 households in Sichuan Province, China, the Probit model and CMP model are used to empirically analyze the influence of environmental policy on farmers' active straw return and its mechanism. The results show that: (1) 65.9% of farmers actively return straw to the field, and 34.1% of farmers passively return straw to the field. (2) environmental policies significantly promote farmers' initiative to return straw to the field, in which the influence of economic rewards and punishments is greater than that of administrative guidance. (3) Government propaganda and government training in government administrative guidance can promote farmers' active straw return by raising their awareness, with intermediary effects of 76.05% and 60.14%, respectively. (4) Female heads of households, high education level of heads of households, and high family income can also positively promote farmers' active straw return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrestrial ecosystems can benefit from environmental protection policies; however, their impact on marine ecological efficiency deserves further exploration. This study uses China's Ecological Civilization Pilot Zone (ECZ) policy as an example of a quasi-natural experimental study, with data from 11 coastal provinces in China from 2006 to 2019 as the initial sample. First, a Super-SBM model considers undesired outputs to measure marine eco-efficiency, while a synthetic control method (SCM) investigates the effect of environmental regulations on marine eco-efficiency. The results show that ECZ policies can promote marine eco-efficiency and the effect mechanisms of these policies are discussed from national and regional perspectives. This study contributes to the current literature by theoretically evaluating the impact of ECZ policies on the marine environment in coastal areas, enriching the mechanism of integrated environmental policies on marine ecological protection, and providing references for formulating and implementing environmental policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In recent years, China has embarked on a remarkable journey toward greater environmental sustainability, investing in a vast protected area system, ecocompensation programs, and a more protectionist regulatory framework. The result is a model program in the making, with progress and future prospects for China's environmental health that few could have foreseen a few short decades ago. Paralleling and sometimes preceding this environmental revolution, much of China's environmental attention focused on its "national treasure"—the giant panda. We explore developments, progress, and shortcomings in the emerging protections and environmental ethos alongside the rich history of giant panda conservation, culminating in the recent downlisting of the panda from Endangered to Vulnerable. We make the case that recent advancements in environmental progress, such as the development of a more harmonious relationship between humans and nature (termed ecocivilization) have been, in part, underpinned and inspired by efforts to conserve the panda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government has implemented environmental regulations to address the deterioration of air quality associated with rapid industrialization. However, there is no consensus on whether environmental regulations are beneficial to environmental performance. The technical challenges related to endogeneity and spatial correlation may bias the estimation of the emission reduction effect of regulations. In this study, we comprehensively evaluate the environmental performance of sulfur dioxide regulations in Chinese cities using a novel stochastic frontier model that introduces the single control function to correct estimation errors caused by spatial spillovers and endogeneity. Our analysis emphasizes that insufficient resolution of endogeneity or spatial spillovers may lead to underestimation or neglect of the environmental performance improvements achieved by these regulations. On the contrary, our revised research results indicate that regulations aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide emissions not only successfully control sulfur dioxide emissions, but also have a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions. In addition, we conduct in-depth research on the mechanisms by which environmental regulations improve performance by stimulating green technology innovation and promoting industrial structure upgrading. Based on our research findings, we propose policy recommendations to establish a city cooperation mechanism of technology exchange to achieve synergistic emission reduction and strengthen regional factor circulation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Amidst escalating global concerns over climate change and the pressing need for sustainable development, this study conducts a comparative analysis across 24 nations that have successfully achieved carbon peaking, evaluating their socioeconomic characteristics and carbon reduction strategies. Simultaneously, it examines China's policy evolution and strategic responses within the context of its economic and urban development. The analysis reveals that countries with successful carbon peak outcomes typically exhibit high GDP per capita and advanced urbanization rates. Critical to their success are comprehensive adjustments in energy consumption structures and industrial transformation, which are supported by robust environmental policies and technological innovation. The study categorizes global carbon reduction policies into three primary categories and seven sub-categories, reflecting the dynamic evolution of policy approaches driven by global climate agendas and varying stages of national development. Strategies including legal frameworks, carbon pricing mechanisms, international cooperation, and technological innovation are critically assessed for their potential to refine China's carbon policies. Significant challenges in policy implementation are identified, particularly in aligning ambitious environmental strategies with economic objectives and managing transition costs in critical sectors such as energy and transportation. The study emphasizes the necessity of a phased policy implementation approach, which begins with enhancing public and corporate environmental awareness, advances through the promotion of low-carbon technologies, and concludes with the establishment of stringent legal and regulatory frameworks., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xu, Wang. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The imperative to enhance corporate environmental performance is not only pivotal for a company's growth but also crucial for fulfilling societal responsibilities and protecting global environmental interests. Recognizing the inadequacies of standalone environmental policies, our study delves into the synergistic effects of incentive-based and regulatory approaches on the environmental performance of listed firms in China. We meticulously examine the interplay between environmental punishment and subsidies over the period of 2015-2019. Our analysis reveals that a strategic combination of punishment and subsidies can substantially improve firms' environmental performance. This effect intensifies with the increasing amounts of fines and subsidies. Additionally, we explore the dynamic effects of policy implementation. Our results indicate that subsidies implemented either a year before or after the imposition of punishment might diminish the effectiveness of standalone environmental penalty policies. Furthermore, our findings suggest that diverse regulatory policies enhance firm environmental performance by promoting investments in environmental protection and fostering green innovation. This discovery highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of policy mixes and their implications for corporate environmental strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

China's carbon emission trading policy plays a crucial role in achieving both its "3060" dual carbon objectives and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) on climate action. The policy's effectiveness in reducing pollution and mitigating carbon emissions holds significant importance. This paper investigated whether China's carbon emission trading policy affects pollution reduction (PM 2.5 and SO 2 ) and carbon mitigation (CO 2 ) in pilot regions, using panel data from 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2005 to 2019 and employing a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model. Furthermore, it analyzed the heterogeneity of carbon market mechanisms and regional variations. Finally, it examined the governance pathways for pollution reduction and carbon mitigation from a holistic perspective. The results indicate that: (1) China's carbon emission trading policy has reduced CO 2 emissions by 18% and SO 2 emissions by 36% in pilot areas, with an immediate impact on the "carbon mitigation" effect, while the "pollution reduction" effect exhibits a time lag. (2) Higher carbon trading prices lead to stronger "carbon mitigation" effect, and larger carbon market scales are associated with greater "pollution reduction" effects on PM 2.5 . Governance effects on pollution reduction and carbon mitigation vary among pilot regions: Carbon markets of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin show significant governance effects in both "pollution reduction" and "carbon mitigation", whereas Guangdong's carbon market exhibits only a "pollution reduction" effect, and Hubei's carbon market demonstrates only a "carbon mitigation" effect. (3) Currently, China's carbon emission trading policy achieves pollution reduction and carbon mitigation through "process management" and "end-of-pipe treatment". This study could provide empirical insights and policy implications for pollution reduction and carbon mitigation, as well as for the development of China's carbon emission trading market., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Exploring whether informal environmental regulations (INER) can achieve carbon reduction in the context of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, as well as how to achieve carbon reduction, can help solve the dual failures of the market and government in environmental protection. Based on the polycentric governance theory and considering the characteristics of social subject environmental participation, the Stackelberg game is used to demonstrate the impact mechanism of INER on CO 2 . In addition, using the panel data of China's 30 provinces from 2003 to 2018, this paper validates the effectiveness of INER by Pooled Ordinary Least Square (POLS) and threshold panel model. Then, the mediating effect model is used to test the mechanism of INER's effect on carbon reduction. The results show that corruption is not conducive to CO 2 reduction. The reduction effect of INER on CO 2 exhibits heterogeneity with changes in other non-greenhouse gas pollutants. While INER effectively reduces local corruption, its more substantial indirect impact on CO 2 reduction is prominent when levels of other pollutants are lower. Comparative analysis reveals that there are still biased governance behaviors to cope with INER's pressure in some regions nowadays. The findings show that for countries facing the dual task of pollution control and carbon reduction, the key to leveraging the supervisory role of INER should be focused on mitigating information asymmetry caused by the characteristics of CO 2 . Therefore, in the process of environmental protection, the public environmental participation system should be improved, and the process of disclosing polluters' carbon information should be accelerated., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The joint participation of multiple subjects is crucial for environmental governance. Using panel data for 273 Chinese cities during 2013-2019, this study investigates the impact and mechanism of public demands on environmental pollution. The results demonstrate that public demands measured by the number of environmental complaints placed on government leaders significantly reduce environmental pollution. Furthermore, increases in the rate and speed of government responses improve the effect of public demands on environmental governance. Public demands placed on provincial leaders reduce local environmental pollution to a greater extent than public demands placed on prefectural and county leaders. Province-level governments are more willing to consider public opinions and attach more importance to environmental governance; Prefecture-level governments prioritize province-level governments' attention to the environment when implementing environmental governance. Moreover, strong political ties between provincial and prefectural leaders and long tenures among prefectural leaders strengthen the pollution reduction effect of public demands placed on provincial leaders. The reduction effect of environmental complaints on pollution emission is more significant in cities with high level of Internet construction and environmental disclosure. Our results illustrate the role of public demands in environmental governance, offering a reference for developing effective environmental policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This perspective paper elaborates on how the burden of environmental issues on public health and the economy led China's government to declare its revised environmental policies or "war on pollution". It explains the importance of photovoltaic solar (PV), electric vehicles (EV), and carbon capture and storage (CCS) in helping China to mitigate its environmental concerns while maintaining economic growth. China already leads PV solar and EV manufacturing; however, it has not made a tangible contribution to CCS technology yet. On the other hand, CCS is far behind its envisaged role in contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and supporting countries to meet their net carbon zero targets. China's existing coal power plants are good candidates to be retrofitted with CCS. Similar to PV and EV technologies, China could influence this technology globally, by reducing the uncertainties, demonstrating the viability, and driving the costs lower. China's revised policies have been effective and shown global impacts, but their implementations remain as strong as the political will behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with stifling levels of airborne pollution, Chinese citizens hold the state accountable, demanding solutions through effective environmental policy. To reduce emissions, the state has set up experimental pilot carbon markets, where potential failure is cast as integral to continuing improvement. Those in charge of conceptualizing and implementing these experiments, namely carbon bureaucrats, consultants, and developers, feel their public responsibility acutely, sharpened by personal anxieties about pollution and health. But they also often perceive these carbon markets as doomed to fail, in absolute terms, in delivering decarbonization goals. Those charged with realizing carbon markets are therefore caught between, on the one hand, policy failure being folded into continual, pragmatic experimentation and, on the other, their embodied knowledge that such progressive, positively freighted failure is in fact terminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital economy is playing a crucial effect in the field of environmental governance. Digital and intelligent management is an essential means to fully realize the "zero-waste city" construction. The present paper investigates the impact of digital economy on China's provincial "zero-waste city" construction. The results indicate that digital economy can contribute to "zero-waste city" construction. The digital economy has a positive nonlinear effect on the construction of "zero-waste city," but the marginal effect is diminishing. The digital economy can facilitate "zero-waste city" construction by improving industrial structure upgrading and green technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that digital economy contributes to the construction of "zero-waste city" in the eastern and western regions and high-level environmental regulation regions, while this impact is insignificant in the central region and low-level environmental regulation regions. The digital economy exerts the most significant positive influence on waste resource recycling followed by waste final disposal and then waste reduction at the source. These findings underscore the effect of digital economy in fostering "zero-waste city" construction and promoting sustainable waste management. The present study provides new ideas for the "zero-waste city" construction in emerging developing countries such as China., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In China's rapid industrial development, the adoption and impact of green supply chain practices (GSCP) have become pivotal. This research employs a non-radial, non-angle SBM-DEA model to examine the intricate relationship between environmental sustainability and economic advancement. The observation suggests that companies adopting the global sustainable consumption and production (GSCP) framework demonstrate a more substantial alignment with China's sustainable goals. However, this alignment is accompanied by a fundamental conflict between the need for economic growth and the need for environmental caution. This study highlights China's sincere efforts to adhere to global ecological norms, as the environmental outcomes (ENVO) demonstrated. The findings on organizational culture (O.C.) present a complex depiction of China's direction, highlighting the intersection between its longstanding traditions with the pressing demands of modern environmentally sustainable corporate practices. The presence of regulatory variations across provinces highlights the regional differences within the nation, thus causing organizations to adopt adaptable environmental policies. The complex network of supply chains in China and the careful management of financial resources underscore the diverse range of difficulties and opportunities that firms face. This research ultimately provides a comprehensive understanding of the crucial balancing process that characterizes China's path toward environmental sustainability. It highlights the importance of effectively managing these factors, since it is essential for enterprises to achieve enduring and sustainable success., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The lower price of energy leads to higher coal consumption in China. The idea of an "environment-for-trade policy" could be used to achieve an international competitive advantage, which, in turn, has important implications. To address the issue, we develop properties to examine the link between the low price of energy and strategic environmental policy in China and investigate the choice of policy instruments in a strategic environmental policy model with vertical contracts. In addition, to contribute to the literature on strategic environmental policy, this paper also develops properties to investigate different choices of instruments for the environmental policy and includes the degree of energy marketization for the wholesale price in the study. To do so, we assume that the wholesale price of the polluting input increases with the market price. By using this assumption, this paper analyzes the effects of two instruments of the environmental policy on social welfare and concludes that there is no reason to expect both downstream and upstream firms to establish a high wholesale price. Due to the low level of marketization, when the government selects an emission tax as the policy instrument, the optimal tax rates should be higher than the marginal damage of emissions. However, the optimal resource tax is uncertain when its effect on environmental damage is taken into account. In other words, the resource tax is ineffective as a policy instrument. Our results can be used to draw some practical policies for countries to use their energy effectively. To promote energy sustainability, governments should liberate resource prices and reform the system to get efficient environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political‐ideological assumption postulates that different political parties have different preferences toward the urgency of environmental sustainability. This article examines the relationship between political ideology and environmental policy stringency. I employ robust econometric specification on 23 OECD countries over 23 years. Results show a significant relationship between political ideology and environmental policy stringency. However, contrary to expectation, I find that environmental policies are less stringent in leftist governments. The findings suggest that leftist governments have not successfully incorporated their perceived environmentalism ideology into stringent environmental policies due to their lesser preference for law and order. I also find that the electoral politics view theory does not hold in the relationship between political ideology and environmental policy stringency. The findings, which are robust to various econometric identifications and alternative measurement of variables, add new insights on partisan politics and environmental sustainability. Related Articles: Murray, Gregg R., and Matthew K. Mulvaney. 2012. "Parenting Styles, Socialization, and the Transmission of Political Ideology and Partisanship." Politics & Policy 40(6): 1106–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2012.00395.x Winburn, Jonathan, and Amanda Winburn. 2020. "The Role of Political Ideology in Public Opinion toward Enumerated Antibullying Policies in Public Schools." Politics & Policy 48(3): 442–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12355 Zang, Xiaowei. 2021. "Environmental Accidents and Environmental Legislation in China: Evidence from Provincial Panel Data (1997–2014)." Politics & Policy 50(1): 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12446 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to investigate how the rapid development of China's environmental policy contributes to the changes in China's labour market. We first categorise the environmental regulations into (i) command-and-control policies, (ii) economic incentive policies, and (iii) voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs). Then, we use the provincial panel data over the 2000-2015 period to estimate the effect of alternative environmental regulations on employment in China. The results show that alternative environmental regulations have different impacts on employment. This difference even exists within the same group of environmental policies. Amongst the command-and-control policies, the three simultaneities policy leads to less employment, while the deadline governance systems increase employment. For economic incentive policies, higher environmental tax leads to lower employment, while more funding for environmental research promotes employment. The results also show that more VEAs reduced labour demand. In addition, the dynamic impact and regional heterogeneity of environmental regulations on employment are confirmed by the empirical estimation. Specifically, the economic incentive policies significantly impact employment in Central and Western China, whereas they have a non-significant impact on employment in Eastern China. This finding confirms that economic development impacts the relationship between environmental regulations and employment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Since 2007, persistent green tides in the Yellow Sea of China (YSC) have inflicted substantial economic and social losses. In response, the Chinese government has enacted various policies to mitigate these impacts. This study introduced an evolutionary-multiple streams framework and employed Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Text Analysis from 2007 to 2023, tracing three phases of policy development: growth (2007-2012), stability (2013-2017), and explosion (2018-2023). Findings indicated that during the growth phase, the most of the policy themes were "monitoring" and "emergency"; in the stability phase, policy issuance by provincial and municipal agencies began to increase; in the explosion phase, a basic consensus was reached on source control and intergovernmental cooperation in the management of green tides. Themes such as "ecology", "extreme weather", and "green tide exploitation" have been emphasized. This analysis provides insights for future policy formulation in green tide control and broader marine environmental governance., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper engages with China's currently most prominent environmental policy concept: ecological civilisation. As this concept is becoming a cornerstone of China's strategy of socialist modernisation, we examine whether and how the term can enable ecological protection in China and beyond. We argue that ecological civilisation, while a recently emerged discourse, builds on established environmental governance practices in China that shape its manifestation in political action. To illustrate this argument, we explain how two philosophical principles central to ecological civilisation discourse, "holism" and "harmony", have been expressed in environmental political practice in Communist China. Building on this analysis, we suggest that ecological civilisation discourse may have a profound impact in certain policy domains (e.g., resource conservation and ecologi cal conservation redlines), but limited transformative capacity in others (e.g., environmental litigation and resource extraction). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the scientific way to promote the transformation and optimization of an industrial structure to promote the improvement of its green total factor productivity ( GTFP ) by formulating environmental regulation policies. Based on the GTFP panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper takes the "Air Pollution Control and Prevention Action Plan" (APCP Action Plan) as the proxy dummy variable of environmental regulation, and uses the difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the impact of the implementation of the APCP Action Plan on GTFP . In addition, by constructing the industrial structure optimization index, this paper analyzes how the APCP Action Plan policy affects GTFP through the transformation and optimization of industrial structure. The following basic conclusions are obtained: First, environmental regulation policies like the APCP Action Plan can improve GTFP . Second, the APCP Action Plan has regional heterogeneity in promoting GTFP in different regions. The policy only significantly affects the GTFP in the Pearl River Delta region in southern China. Third, the "quantity" and "quality" of the optimization of industrial structure will weaken the promoting effect of the APCP Action Plan on GTFP . In contrast, the rationalization of industrial structure will aggravate this promoting effect.

Carbon emissions have become a global challenge, and China, as the world's largest developing country, has a serious emissions problem. Developing green buildings is an important way of reducing carbon emissions. China's low-carbon city pilot policy may be an effective way of promoting green building development and reducing these emissions. This study uses the low carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employs the staggered difference-in-differences method to investigate its impact on green building development. The results show that the low-carbon city pilot policy promotes green building development, and this policy promotes it by enhancing regional green innovation capacity, improving green total factor productivity at the firm and regional levels, and reducing the financing constraints of firms in the construction and real estate sectors. In addition, the promotion effect of the policy on green building development is stronger in western and non-resource-based regions and large-scale cities in China. This study contributes to the literature related to environmental policy, green building, and carbon emissions and supports the promotion of green building development and the reduction of carbon emissions., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The key to controlling environmental pollution is to promote green innovation in relevant enterprises and achieve a healthy development of the environmental governance system. This paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of environmental protection enterprises, polluting enterprises, and governments, and conducts in-depth research on the influencing factors that promote green innovation in two types of enterprises. MATLAB software is used to analyze the impact of different degrees of influencing variables on system evolution. It has found that (1) increasing the intensity of environmental governance and the level of innovation subsidies by the government can effectively promote green innovation in both types of enterprises. (2) The varying degrees of innovation compensation from polluting enterprises to environmental protection enterprises have a significant impact on system evolution. (3) The initial intention and population size of two types of enterprise entities will have a significant impact on system evolution. In the initial state, subjects with more green innovation are less willing to change their strategies during the evolution process, while the willingness of the other party to green innovation will be suppressed., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Using NVivo12plus software, this study constructs a generation model of the policy implementation environment in China's grassroots digital construction by examining the data from interviews with 37 Chinese grassroots civil servants as its research object. At the same time, with the help of the csQCA method and on the basis of rooted coding, using Tosmana software, the model validation and model expansion of 37 cases were carried out. This study shows that the main components of the policy implementation environment in China's grassroots digital construction include five main dimensions: cognitive, emotional, behavioral, normative and control. At the initial stage of China's grassroots digital construction, the cognitive environment dimension is the most critical link in the environmental governance of policy implementation. The cognitive and normative environments dominate the effect pattern of China's grassroots digital policy implementation. There are six types of motivation patterns for the environmental effect of the implementation of grassroots digital policy: know-doing-norm, cognitive-dominant, know-doing-control, emotion-control, behavior-lacking and regulation-dominant types. Based on the above analysis, there are three main policy suggestions to promote the generation of a productive policy implementation environment and positive policy effects in China's digital construction: "degree", "force" and "sense". These suggestions include strengthening the top-level design, improving the integration and cooperation degree of the environment, taking the root at the grassroots level to improve the adaptability of the environment, as well as increasing publicity and promotion to improve the sense of environmental experience., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Li, Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper takes the establishment of the Green Financial Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone (GFPZ) in 2017 as a natural experiment, adopts the data of a-share industrial listed enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010 to 2020, and utilizes the difference-in-differences (DID) method to carry out empirical tests. The results show that (1) GFPZ policy significantly improves the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of enterprises, and the positive effect is mainly realized by improving the external financing ability and green-technology innovation level of enterprises. (2) There is heterogeneity in the impact of GFPZ policy on the ESG performance of firms with different equity natures and internal control levels. (3) Green finance promotes active corporate social responsibility, and it can further improve environmental governance in the regions where it operates. This paper provides a useful supplement to the comprehensive understanding of green-finance policy effects and ESG impact factors, and it is of great significance in mitigating the negative environmental and social externalities caused by the excessive pursuit of economic benefits by enterprises., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Wei. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Accompanying China's accession to the World Trade Organization, the rapid development of the Chinese economy has led to increasingly serious environmental issues. However, the inherent mechanisms underlying the impact of Environmental Information Disclosure (EID) policy and trade on the environmental effects of Chinese paper enterprises remain unclear in the context of the era's requirement for a resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society. The pollution problem in the papermaking industry has received attention worldwide, and how to balance the environmental and development issues of papermaking enterprises is an urgent issue that needs to be solved in the academic community. This study explores the impact mechanisms of EID policy and trade on the environmental effects of enterprises from the perspective of financial constraints. Utilizing the PSM-DID model, the study investigates the moderating effects of financial constraints on the EID policy and import-export trade. The findings reveal that both external and internal financial constraints have negative, detrimental effects on the environmental effects of the EID policy and trade. These constraints impede research and development investment and technological upgrades, hinder productivity improvement, and hamper the realization of "regulatory and trade innovation effects". This study enriches our understanding of the mechanisms by which trade affects the environmental effects of Chinese paper enterprises and further identifies the impacts of Chinese EID policy and trade on pollution emissions by enterprises, providing a theoretical basis and practical foundation for the government in formulating financial, environmental, and trade policies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has raised a wide range of concerns about its environmental impact. Therefore, from the perspective of environmental impacts, this study used the two-way fixed effect staggered differences in differences (TWFE Staggered DID) method to examine the impact of the BRI on the Environment Goods (EGs) intra-industry trade (IIT) between China and other Belt and Road (B&R) countries, including a sample of 191 countries, covering the period from 2010 to 2019 for eliminating the impact of COVID-19 and the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Because only 135 countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding between 2010 and 2019, this study treated these B&R countries as the study group, and the other 73 countries (non-B&R countries) as the control group. This study described EGs using the 54 6-digit code Environment Goods in Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System listed in the "APEC LIST OF ENVIRONMENT GOODS" published by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in 2012, and used the intra-industry trade index proposed by Grubel and Lloyd in 1971 to measuring dependent variable. The research results indicated that the BRI has significantly promoted bilateral EGs IIT. The mechanism test implied that, in addition to direct impacts, the BRI also has indirect impacts by boosting the energy restructuring of B&R countries. These results prove that the BRI has positive impacts on the environment. The heterogeneity test showed that there is a heterogeneous impact depending on the type of IIT, product categorization, B&R countries' income levels, and geographic environment. This study not only gives theoretical and empirical evidence of the positive environmental impacts of the BRI, but also provides practical guidance for the development of EGS IIT between China and B&R countries, thereby contributing to global carbon emissions reduction and environmental governance to some degree., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Life expectancy can reflect both health benefit and implementation cost of climate policy. Nevertheless, little research has quantified the relation between life expectancy and climate policy in literature. In this paper, we attempt to narrow the research gap by studying how life expectancy is related to the Chinese nationwide emission trading scheme (CNETS). To achieve this research target, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is employed to simulate the operation of the economic system and the policy shock from emission abatement. The CGE model results show that life expectancy is prolonged by GDP but shortened by emissions, and the GDP impact on life expectancy is larger than the emission impact. Climate policy has dual effects on life expectancy because it relieves both negative emission impacts and positive GDP impacts on lifespan; its net effect on life expectancy is positive. Life expectancy positively impacts GDP, and this impact is moderated by climate policy; specifically, climate policy reinforces the positive impact of life expectancy on GDP. Life expectancy minimally affects carbon emissions during climate policy implementation; in other words, it has minimal impacts on emission abatement. These findings imply that climate policy and life expectancy complement each other; the government could implement climate policy to increase lifespan or prolong life expectancy to facilitate policy implementation., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The issue of farmers neglecting environmental concerns in transferred farmlands poses a serious challenge, contradicting the long-term ecological goals of establishing resource-efficient and environment-friendly agriculture. Amidst the pivotal trend of moderately scaled agricultural operations, rural e-commerce holds promise as a catalyst and driving force for enhancing long-term environmental governance of transferred lands. The effectiveness and mechanisms of this potential, however, remain to be empirically examined. This study gathers panel data on environmental positive and negative externalities from six provinces in China, spanning the period from 2013 to 2022, encompassing 6372 farmers. A quasi-natural experiment of farmers' e-commerce participation is designed using difference-in-differences methodology (DID), propensity score matching (PSM), and moderating models. The primary findings are as follows: E-commerce participation increases farmers' positive environmental inputs on transferred lands, such as water-saving irrigation, adoption of social services, and preservation of traditional varieties. Simultaneously, it decreases negative environmental inputs, such as the consumption of fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural films. The environmental sustainability effects of e-commerce vary across the eastern, central, and western regions of China. E-commerce has a more pronounced impact on agricultural social services and chemical pollutants in the eastern and central regions, while its influence is more significant on water-saving irrigation and variety preservation in the western region. Land transfer forms and supply order contracts do not directly promote farmers' environmentally friendly cultivation practices. Instead, they catalyze the environmental effects of e-commerce through a significant positive interaction term. These conclusions hold after matching for e-commerce participation propensity, while passing sensitivity tests, parallel trend tests, and placebo tests. Consequently, rural e-commerce, without compromising farmers' income, enhances the proactiveness of farmers in environmental conservation, transforms agricultural management practices, and effectively reduces rural non-point source pollution. Policy recommendations include reducing institutional barriers to rural e-commerce participation at the national level, encouraging the establishment of region-specific agricultural environmental sustainability goals, and leveraging the rural e-commerce industry chain to establish a nationwide environmental credit database and incentive mechanism., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Balancing economic growth with environmental conservation poses a universal challenge for governments worldwide. This study investigates the intricate interplay between governments' economic-environmental trade-offs and their implementation of policies aimed at promoting Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER). Given the discretion of Chinese local governments in economic and environmental policy, we take China as a case study. To conduct this research, we first merge critical data on China's economic growth targets and environmental regulations with information on listed enterprises. Then, we employ a "U-shaped" relationship model to examine the impact of these trade-offs on CER implementation. The results reveal that: (1)The effective fulfillment of CER by enterprises is primarily driven by stricter environmental regulations. (2) Economic growth targets can, to some extent, diminish the policy effect of environmental regulations on CER fulfillment. (3)The crowding-out effect of economic growth targets is particularly pronounced within specific subsets of enterprises, including state-owned enterprises, heavily polluting firms, and those facing high profit pressure. These findings imply that when local governments implement contradictory policies, they must consider not only enterprises' political connections and economic contributions but also pay close attention to the survival dilemma of enterprises. This balancing act aims to harmonize conflicting policy objectives. This research deepens the understanding of how institutional and policy frameworks impact enterprise engagement in CER, especially within the context of governments' economic-environmental trade-offs. It sheds light on the strategies employed by China and other emerging economies to effectively leverage contradictory policies to foster sustainable green growth., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Climate change is a non-traditional security crisis affecting the global economy and diplomatic progress. In order to curtail carbon emissions and alleviate the perils of climate change at their roots, urban green innovation (UGI) has emerged as a pivotal technological solution. Using the expansion of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in China as a case study, this paper develops a quasi-experimental model to analyze the effects of regional integration policies on UGI. The main findings are: (1) Regional integration policies significantly enhance UGI and their impact is more pronounced with the expansion of urban agglomerations; (2) Regional integration policies contribute to the advancement of exploitative green innovation while tending to diminish exploratory green innovation; (3) The green innovation effects (GIEs) created by the expansion of regional integration policies are largely influenced by governmental mechanisms on environmental governance as well as residents' green preferences. Based on these findings, recommendations are put forward to promote UGI from the perspective of policy implementation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The environmental pollution and social well-being issue caused by the huge energy consumption in cities reflect the urgency of improving urban energy performance from multiple dimensions of economy, environment, and well-being. As a result, various countries and cities have promulgated a series of policies. However, the complexity of the policies makes the categories and utilities need to be further clarified, and the diseconomy caused by the lag of policy effect evaluation makes the focus of policy implementation need to be clear in advance. Therefore, based on public choice theory, this research follows the idea of "prior analysis" and takes Chinese cities as the research object. Firstly, the collected energy performance improvement policies of Chinese cities were analyzed and classified by the content analysis method, and the main utilities of all policies and the specific utilities of each category were summarized. Based on the multiple dimensions of urban energy performance research (namely, economy, environment and well-being dimensions), this research summarized the policy utilities that help to improve the urban energy performance of each dimension, and also preset the policy utility values. Secondly, the effect prediction model for urban energy performance improvement policies in each dimension was constructed by Back-propagation (BP) neural network. Thirdly, the energy performance of Chinese cities in 2020 measured by Data Envelopment Analysis method was taken as the benchmark value, and the energy performance of Chinese cities in 2025 measured by the policy effect prediction model was taken as the comparison value. According to the results of performance improvement, the energy performance improvement policies of Chinese cities were selected respectively from the dimensions of economy, environment and well-being. This research shows that: the energy performance improvement policies of Chinese cities mainly include six categories, namely energy conservation and emission reduction policies, energy development policies, ecological environmental policies, fiscal and tax policies, industrial policies and economic and social policies. It is needed to focus on ecological environmental policies, fiscal and tax policies and industrial policies to improve urban energy performance from the economic dimension. For the environmental dimension, the key and priority policies are ecological environmental policies. Compared with the economic dimension, the focus of implementing policies adds economic and social policies in the well-being dimension. In the implementation of policies, the differences of energy performance among cities can be reduced through multi-feature analysis of cities or regions, appropriate adjustment of specific measures and targets, and improvement of digital information management of urban energy performance. This research can effectively help cities clarify which policies require higher implementation intensity and attention before and during policy implementation, thereby maximizing multi-dimensional urban energy performance., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)