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Renewable energy activities have increasingly become the central component of China's proposed green Belt and Road Initiative. Yet, scaling up these activities requires significant institutional changes of the current Chinese state and financial-industrial complex. Informed by a conceptual framework that builds on multi-level institutional analysis, we assess the institutional challenges constraining the scalability of Chinese renewable energy projects in South Africa and Ethiopia. Our study reveals that the institutional fragmentation and vacuum in China have led to the lack of a clear engagement strategy with African markets. In addition, the development of wind and solar energy projects in Africa is often taking place amid the ongoing and fast-changing energy sector governance, which is not yet appreciated by the key Chinese actors. We argue that promoting Chinese-backed renewable energy projects in Africa requires new institutional arrangements that can adapt to competitive and divergent local market conditions and regulatory changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Green Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by the Chinese government to address the environmental challenges related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC), a flagship initiative of the Green BRI, aims to promote the BRI's environmental performance through transnational governance measures. In this study, we analyzed the BRIGC from the perspective of orchestration theory. We developed a model of causal pathways to understand the micro-steps linking orchestrators, intermediaries, and targets. Furthermore, drawing on first-hand evidence collected through participatory observation, interviews, and focus groups, we identified four key pathways of green orchestration: green consumerism, green infrastructure, green finance, and green governance. We found that the orchestration processes were hampered by the lack of substantial input from the BRIGC, which undermined the intermediary-target relationship. We concluded with recommendations for the BRIGC to strengthen its orchestration capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for international cooperation projects to comply with the principles of green development has become an important international norm. At present, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is being further promoted. In this process, how the initiative can fol⁃ low green norms and lead global green development has become an important research subject. This article argues that advancing the Green Belt and Road Initiative has multiple, far-reaching strategic implications: First, the Green Belt and Road Initiative helps avoid risks in international cooperation. Therefore, this initiative serves as the foundation for BRI and must be further advanced. Second, from the perspective of international environmental cooperation, the Green Belt and Road Initiative helps to form a uniform pattern for the ecological civilization construction at home and abroad, and promotes the low-carbon transformation of the economy with green concepts, which is an important part of the domestic and international ‘dual circulation’ development paradigm. Third, from the perspective of diplomatic practice, it is an important field for China to participate in global ecological governance and build a human community with a shared future, and it is conducive to the promotion of China’ s international image. In the context of developing China’ s systems, green norms have set guidelines for the governance mechanisms of the BRI in an effort to integrate ecological and environmental factors into the whole process of the initiative’ s construction. By learning from China’ s local green development experience, the mechanism design based on co-construction and volunteerism will enhance the effectiveness of global ecological environment governance. So far, a soft and flexible approach has been adopted in the cooperation within the framework, which has yielded some preliminary results. From the perspective of the promotion paths, the construction of the Green Belt and Road Initiative should rely on effective institutional construction, promote market-oriented means, and form a more effective framework for international environmental cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – China's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure program across 138 countries and counting – has provoked concern among observers that China is exporting its polluting model of development. Others, however, claim that the BRI is well-positioned to drive "green development" through investments in low-carbon infrastructure and technologies. This review article argues that discussions about "greening" the BRI can overlook the politics that infuse how green development is conceptualized and implemented, and for whose benefit. Taking a political ecology approach, I distinguish between green BRI activities that invest in low-carbon infrastructure and those that mitigate environmental risk – the latter of which are often selectively enforced, leading to "greenwashing." I then apply this distinction to three key sectors of the green BRI: green finance, green energy, and green cooperation mechanisms. I find that low-carbon investments are currently concentrated in higher-income countries and regions, while risk mitigation activities are currently concentrated in lower-income countries and regions. This article thus highlights the need for attention to how the green BRI is defined and implemented, with implications for efforts toward building an equitable and sustainable Belt and Road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International attention on the environmental impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is increasing, but little is known internationally about the large corpus of Chinese BRI environmental research. We present the first systematic review of the Chinese and English-language BRI environmental research, supported with text mining and sentiment analysis. We found that the research is dominated by Chinese authors writing about BRI routes within China in Chinese, even though concerns around BRI are largely about impacts and benefits within host countries, and the volume of publications in English is recently catching up. Different disciplines and methods are well-represented across languages, apart from specific types of Chinese social science papers. The sentiments of academic research are largely neutral and less polarised than media discourse. We recommend that scientists and practitioners should pay more attention to BRI environmental impacts in developing countries and proactively engage local voices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of "Green Belt and Road", exploring the transition path from "high energy consumption and high pollution" to green development in regions along the "Belt and Road" is of great significance for achieving the healthy and sustainable development of the economy. The current study decomposes the industrial eco-economic system into manufacturing subsystems and environmental protection subsystems, separately establishes the eco-efficiency evaluation index system of the two subsystems, and introduces the grey system theory's "small sample and poor information" uncertainty problem into the TOPSIS-DEA crossefficiency model to construct Grey TOPSIS-DEA model to measure the ecoefficiency of China's key provinces along the "Belt and Road" from 2005 to 2016. On this basis, this paper analyzes the differences in the contribution rate of production factor to eco-efficiency growth in various regions. The results show that: the eco-efficiency of the whole industrial eco-economic system and the manufacturing subsystem of China's key provinces along the "Belt and Road" presents a general downward trend, with a slight fluctuation in the middle, and the eco-efficiency of the "One Belt" regions is lower than that of the "One Road" regions. The eco-efficiency of environmental protection subsystems in most regions along the line shows an increasing trend, and it is significantly lower than that of the industrial eco-economic system and the manufacturing subsystem. In addition, for High Manufacturing-High Environmental Protection areas, the contribution of labor to the improvement of eco-efficiency is the largest, and for other three types of areas, capital plays the most crucial role in improving eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China in 2013 has been seen as one of the most ambitious initiatives to enhance infrastructure connectivity within and across countries. However, the initiative has attracted some controversy over the last five years. On the one hand, it is commended for responding to the urgent needs of many developing countries in building up basic energy and transportation infrastructures; on the other hand, it is questioned for the environmental, social, and fiscal impacts brought by large-scale infrastructure projects. The Chinese government proposed a green BRI in 2016. It is critical to understand whether greening the BRI will be translated into action, especially by the Chinese companies who fund and construct BRI projects. This article examines the pressures and incentives Chinese companies face alongside their capacity to green BRI projects. Gaps are identified in these three aspects and policy recommendations proposed to the key stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid expansion of the high-speed railway infrastructure in China, conflicts arise between the interests of local citizens living along the planned tracks and the national interests of governmental authorities and project developers. This paper addresses questions of why and how Chinese citizens mobilize for and participate in protests against high-speed railway projects and to what effect. To this end, a comprehensive study was conducted on the decision-making process, public opinions, and protest actions regarding the plans and site choices for the Beijing–Shenyang high-speed railway from 2008 to 2013, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. In general, local residents are supportive of high-speed railway project construction, but they contest the closed decision-making process and the poor design and siting choices for the track by governmental authorities and companies. After four years of resident protests through formal complaints, lobbying, protest demonstrations, organizing alternative opinion polls, and discussions with authorities, citizens were partially successful in changing the siting of the track, adding protective measures (e.g., tunnels and sound screens), and saving green belts. Two conclusions can be drawn from this case study. First, regardless of the growing legal requirements, public participation in major projects in China is far from a standard practice. Final citizen participation is often preceded by serious conflict. Second, with defined good governance boundaries, there is increasing room for public participation in environmental movements, which does influence final decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the ETM remote sensing images of Guangzhou City in 2014, the spatial distribution results of three environmental factors including vegetation coverage (NDVI), soil index (vegetation index of bare soil) and slope were obtained. By using comprehensive index method, the normalized environmental factors were weighted and superimposed, and the final evaluation results of ecological environment in Guangzhou City were obtained. The results showed that overall situation of natural ecological environment in Guangzhou was not optimistic, that is, the area of land with bad, moderate, good and superior environment accounted for 59.70%, 35.79%, 4.50% and around 0.01% of total area of land in Guangzhou City respectively. Ecological environment was generally poor in the central urban districts in the south of Guangzhou City, while it was relatively better in the north and northeast Attaching importance to the construction of greenbelts and greenways is an effective way to improve regional environmental quality and natural ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is vital to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the efficiency of the green economy and draw parallels alongside emissions cuts, to attain the goal of sustainable green economic advancement. In this vein, this research examined the impact of expenditure from the state on the performance of the green economy of varied nations under the industrialized and emerging projects. The study makes use of panel data ranging from 2008–2018 concerning the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations. The findings lead credence to the assertion that expenditure on research and development adds directly to cuts of carbon dioxide pollution levels for the industrialized nations. Concerning the regions, the corrective impact of the industrialized and emerging nations relative to the statistics within the BRI is brought to light. Similarly, the financial development is correlated to the growth of carbon dioxide pollution, implying that an increment in energy consumption results in an expansion in pollution. Furthermore, the advanced, as well as emerging nations, is where the impact of this variable is benign, next to the United States that has more polluting consumption sources. The findings for China are unique, owing to its ecological and economic performance. • Assessing emission mitigation from a government expenditure perspective. • Changes in expenditure disparity explain the change in emission mitigation. • Quantifying the impact of technological progress on national emission inequality. • Policy enforcement will weaken once the mitigation goal has been accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a first statistical study of a planning authority's reasons for rejecting development proposals, this study examines hydraulic and transport engineering reasons adopted by the Town Planning Board for dismissing development applications for 'small house' use in Green Belt and Agriculture Zones in Hong Kong to verify the hypothesis that both hydraulic and traffic matters are not zoning-class dependent. The findings, from contingency table analysis of 127 sets of official nonaggregate planning data over a period of more than eight years, appear to affirm the supposition that engineering reasoning has not been swayed by nontechnical planning considerations in either the Green Belt or Agriculture Zones. However, a textual analysis of the objections from all available government records suggests that policy concerns broader than technical considerations were in fact decisive. The study sheds light on the mode of use of technocratic considerations in public policy decision making and articulates with the concept of zone separation based on the Coase theorem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the distribution of seven heavy metals and As in typical municipal greenbelt roadside soils in Pudong New District, Shanghai, China. As and Ni showed no significant accumulation compared with the background values of the local soils, but there was strong evidence of accumulation of Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb and Zn in the roadside soils. However, only Zn and Cd contents were higher than the pollution thresholds of the Chinese National Soil Quality standard. The concentrations of heavy metal(loid)s in the soils were significantly affected by the length of time since the roads were constructed. Soils from areas adjacent to an older road had higher levels of Cu, Pb, Cd and Zn. In terms of spatial distribution, more Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn were found in the soil from the green areas of median between carriageways than from those of the roadside verges. Vertical distribution analysis shows that the contents of Pb, Cd, Cu and Zn had maximum values in the topsoil and were substantially lower in the deeper layers of the soil profile. Moreover, correlation analysis reveals that these four heavy metals originated from the same pollution sources and their contents were directly associated with the traffic density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International land-use concepts are transformed to suit local circumstances. What is truly common after local adaptation becomes arguable. This paper examines application of a British land-use planning concept, green belt, in the ex-colonial city of Hong Kong. Through examining its local history and planning decisions for village housing development within such zones, this study reveals the ambiguity and flexibility of this land-use concept in conserving the natural landscape and open countryside. It highlights the conflicts and compromises of green belt planning policy in connection with countryside protection, local politics and development pressures. The conclusion is that the green belt zone coincides with its overseas counterpart in name only; its substance and implementation are drastically diverse across cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the heat island effect can make cities warmer than their surroundings, it can make urban dwellers uncomfortable and even affect their health, which is particularly pronounced in developed cities in southern China. To reduce the heat island effect and improve the environment, various types of vegetation have been planted in the urban green belt. Though previous studies have been conducted on the beauty, air purification functions and cooling effect of vegetation, little is concentrated on the different cooling effects and control factors of various common shrubs on the heat island effect in cities. In this study, five of the most regionally common shrubs were selected to study the cooling effect in Guangzhou, southern China. The maximum surface temperatures of five shrubs and pavement were compared using infrared temperature sensors from April 1st 2019 to October 31st 2019. Results show that (1) All five shrubs showed noticeable seasonal variation, and the average surface temperatures of the five shrubs were between 38.0 and 42.2 °C during May–August and 30.7–34.1 °C during the other seasons (April, September and October);. (2) Murraya exotica L. exhibited the best cooling effect on the maximum surface temperature. Its value was 44.7 °C, and the absolute difference values of Murraya exotica L. (10.3 ± 1.7 °C) were higher than any other shrub during the study period; (3) Both the LAI (R2 = 0.57, p < 0.01) and plant height (R2 = 0.13, p < 0.01) are control factors of the cooling effect on vegetation surface temperature for the five shrubs. This study revealed the differences in the cooling effect and influencing factors of five regionally common shrubs on the heat island effect. Research on the functional characteristics of plants and plant selection in urban green belts has both theoretical and practical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]