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This paper selected the data of 284 prefectural-level cities in China in the time range of 2011 to 2020 as the research sample, and established an index system of sustainable development consisting of 22 indicators including economic development, social progress, ecological environment and public institutions and so on, to comprehensive evaluate the sustainability of the cities. Total annual investment in pollution control is selected as the proxy variable of reform, and annual actual amount of foreign investment used is selected as the proxy variable of openingup, to empirically explore the impact of the two on sustainable development. The results of empirical analysis show that reform and opening-up has a significant positive impact on sustainable development. After fixing time and individual effect, it is found that the effect of reform is more prominent. Regional heterogeneity analysis shows that, the impact strength of reform and opening-up in the east is larger than that in the middle and west of China. To study the spatial auto-correlation and spillover effect, Moran's I was calculated and spatial Durbin model was constructed based on the weight matrix of geographical distance, which produced the results that spatial agglomeration is evident for sustainability, and that reform has a significant positive spillover effect. Further, considering the time auto-correlation of sustainability, a dynamic panel model is established, and dynamic threshold regression is carried out. Results show that lag effect of sustainability is significant, and a certain threshold must reform reach can sustainable development be promoted. This paper puts forward several policy suggestions in terms of formulating effective sustainable development strategy, to provide insights for new-pattern urbanization in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution has reached a critical state in China primarily due to its reliance on coal. The main goal of the government's plan is to reduce the use of coal and increase its energy supply, primarily clean and renewable energy. In the long term, China needs to seek new approaches to energy and environmental policies. Slowly moving away from coal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously improve air quality is based on ambitious programmes of prevention and control of air pollution. One of them is to convert large numbers of coalfired boilers to natural gas in northern China. The main purpose of this article is to show how China implements its programmes of prevention and control of air pollution. It focuses on the increasing importance of gas in China's energy mix as well as on coal-to-gas and coal-to-electricity switch in heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically analyzes individual attitudes on the tradeoff between environment and economy and factors that might influence such choice for two representative countries: China and the United States. Based on the World Value Survey, the Chinese are found more inclined to support environmental protection, while people from the United States choose economic growth as priority. Considering three sets of correlates of sociodemographics, environmental attitude and social context, variables such as education, political affiliation and environmental consciousness show significance in influencing personal preferences, and the effect of health, age, employment and marital status demonstrates heterogeneity across countries. Such micro-level evidence on how the public weighs the economy versus environment can provide policy guidance for the government to better respond to public opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]