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The global environment has been changing rapidly since the 21st century, and the harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature has been seriously challenged, and the green transformation of highly polluting enterprises has become a requirement of the times. Based on monthly corporate bond data and annual corporate financial data from January 2009 to December 2019 in China, this paper constructs a triple difference model to test the impact of carbon trading system on corporate bond credit spreads. The results show that, first, the carbon trading system has a reducing effect on the credit spreads of bonds of highly polluting companies in the carbon trading pilot region, and the implementation of the carbon trading system can promote bond financing in the green transformation process of highly polluting companies. Second, there is heterogeneity in the impact of the carbon trading system on the credit spreads of bonds of high-polluting firms, with private firms, small-scale firms and emerging firms having a greater reduction in corporate bond credit spreads than state-owned firms, large-scale firms and senior firms. Third, the carbon trading system exposes high-polluting firms to the risk of bankruptcy in the "carbon trading market" due to high operating costs and small net profits, thus incentivizing high-polluting firms to raise bonds in the "investment and financing market" to promote their green transformation.

The Three Gorges Project, a world-class water conservancy project, was built in 2020 and set a new world record in annual electricity generation. It is undeniable that it has brought considerable ecological benefits together with economic and social benefits to the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA). It is full of practical significance to evaluate the green development performance level (GDPL) in the TGRA, which is a new indicator reflecting the comprehensive performance of the Three Gorges Project. This study focuses on evaluating the GDPL in the TGRA. First, we established a novel evaluation system for GDPL in the TGRA, and then the GDPL of 26 regions in the TGRA from 2000 to 2020 were calculated by using overall entropy method and expert scoring method to analyze the development performance of environmental system, economic system and social system and their coupling coordination degree. Also, the temporal and spatial evolution process, regional disparity, and spatial correlation of GDPL in the TGRA were examined through exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA). The results show that: (1) the GDPL in the TGRA is in a medium level with a score of 0.3–0.4 and is growing stably. Ecological protection and development quality contribute greatly to the GDPL and the inter-regional differences between the head, the belly and the tail sections are narrowing. (2) The coupling degree between the environmental system, economic system and social system in the TGRA is as high as above 0.8, but the coupling coordination degree is only about 0.3. (3) The GDPL in TGRA varies with the region and is at a high level in the belly section, a medium level in the head and tail sections. The six regions in the belly section and one in the tail section, which are of a high level of GDPL, form a shape of the Big Dipper. (4) The global spatial correlation was not obvious in most years except the year of 2000, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The Lisa cluster map shows clusters only emerge in the head and the tail sections, the belly section, in which the GDPL is high, doesn’t show spatial agglomeration. These findings can not only provide references for promoting green development in the TGRA, but also enrich the study of the evaluation of GDPL.

The balanced ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin (YRB) has become a major national strategy in China in which low-carbon agricultural development in the region is crucial. In this context, studying the coupling and coordination between agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB is of great significance to promote low-carbon, green, and sustainable agricultural development. Therefore, based on the data of 30 cities in the YRB from 2010 to 2020, the super-efficient slacks-based measure (SBM) model with non-expected output was employed to effectively measure the agricultural carbon emissions efficiency in the YRB. Subsequently, the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB was further calculated. Finally, the Dagum Gini coefficient and kernel density estimation methods were adopted in order to comprehensively examine the spatial differences, as well as the dynamic evolution pattern of the coupled coordination in the YRB. The results demonstrate that there is a significant spatial non-equilibrium in the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emission efficiency and economic growth in the YRB, in addition to the decreasing trend of coupling coordination during the sample observation period. As such, there is still considerable room for improvement of the efficiency of agricultural carbon emissions and the degree of coupling and coordination in the YRB. This study may serve as a reference for improving the low-carbon development of agriculture and economy in the YRB, providing theoretical guidance for solving the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in this region.

Water supply services (WSSs) are critical to human survival and development. The Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model enables an integrated, dynamic, and visual assessment of ecosystem services at different scales. In addition, Geodetector is an effective tool for identifying the main driving factors of spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem services. Therefore, this article takes the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA), the most prominent strategic reserve of freshwater resources in China, as the study area and uses the InVEST model to simulate the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the supply-demand balance of WSSs and freshwater security patterns in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2018, and explores the key driving factors of freshwater security index (FSI) with Geodetector. The total supply of WSSs in the TGRA decreased by 1.05% overall between 2005 and 2018, with the head and tail areas being low-value regions for water yield and the central part of the belly areas being high-value regions for water yield. The total demand for WSSs in the TGRA increased by 9.1%, with the tail zones and the central part of the belly zones being the high water consumption areas. In contrast, the head zones are of low water consumption. The multi-year average FSI of the TGRA is 0.12, 0.1, 0.21, and 0.16, showing an upward trend. The key ecological function areas in the TGRA are high-value FSI regions, while the tail zones in the key development areas are low-value FSI regions. Industrial water consumption significantly impacts FSI, with a multi-year average q value of 0.82. Meanwhile, the q value of industrial and domestic water consumption on FSI in 2018 increased by 43.54% and 30%, respectively, compared with 2005. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal variation of WSSs and detects the drivers in the natural-economic-social perspective and innovation in ecosystem services research. The study results can guide water resource security management in other large reservoirs or specific reservoir areas.

The construction of ecological civilization plays an important role in realizing the harmonious coexistence between man and nature. The aims of this study were to explore the development of ecological civilization in China’s top 10 river basins from 2004 to 2018 and construct an evaluation index system of ecological civilization. Factor analysis was used for the evaluation, and intergroup gap and panel regression analyses were utilized to determine the evolution of the spatiotemporal patterns and factors affecting the development level of ecological civilization in Chinese river basins. The results show that areas with a high level of ecological civilization development gradually spread to peripheral basins such as the Liaohe, Yellow, and Songhua River basins. The level of ecological civilization in China’s watersheds is undergoing continuous development. The degree of opening up, forest cover, and education have markedly positive effects on the development of ecological civilization in the basins, whereas urban development and financial autonomy have significant negative effects. The results of this study provide new ideas for evaluating the level of ecological civilization construction, as well as a reference for the government to formulate policies related to the construction of ecological civilization in river basins.

This study uses stock market data to examine whether China’s Environmental Protection Tax Law (EPT Law) effectively influences firms’ environmental behavior. Using the event study methodology, we f...

Intelligentization-oriented development is a fast-developing trend of technological revolution. It promotes the reconstruction of the industrial system of a region and affects its overall industrial competitiveness. This paper sets up a variety of models featuring intelligentization level and multi-dimensional industrial competitiveness, and collects data of 28 provinces and cities in China from 2003 to 2017 to test the influence of industrial intelligentization level on the industrial competitiveness of a region. The result reveals that: 1) In China’s provincial jurisdictions, the higher the level of intelligentization is, the lower the overall level of industrial competitiveness and the lower the proportion of industry in the economic system will be. In regions where the facilities are highly intelligentialized, the production sectors tend to move to the less developed regions, and the growth effect of technological dividends is the focus. 2) Compared with the middle region and the Western region of China, the Eastern region, which is more developed with higher intelligentization level, has stronger ability in the research and development (R&D) of technologies, and the economic structure of the industry there tends to be stable, manifesting a strong growth potential.

This study examines the influence of China Environmental Protection Tax (EPT) Law on firm performance, which is proxied by stock prices. Using the event study methodology, we find that most sectors...

Haze has been a severe problem in China for some time, jeopardizing air quality, public health and sustainable growth. This paper examines the direct effect and spatial spillover effect of policy uncertainty on haze pollution with a spatial panel model, using prefecture-level data from 2004 to 2016. This study shows that: (1) policy uncertainty has increased the level of local haze pollution and has a significant spatial spillover effect on surrounding areas, (2) although local policy uncertainty has increased the haze pollution in geographically adjacent cities, it only affects the cities within the province with similar economic distances, and (3) the policy at the central level can effectively alleviate the impact of policy uncertainty at the local level on haze pollution, especially in relation to the spatial spillover effect, but still has limitations in eliminating the direct effect, which is due to the ineradicable nature of policy uncertainty.

In order to alleviate the problem of water shortage, the Ministry of Water Resources of China proposed a Water-Saving Contract (WSC) project management model in 2014, which is similar to the Energy Performance Contract (EPC). In this context, this research aims to explore the applicability of China&rsquo, s WSC projects by risk assessment, and to help promote WSC projects in China. Different from traditional risk assessment, this paper takes into account the uncertainty of the EPC project&rsquo, s risks, and adopts the multielement connection degree set pair analysis to evaluate both the level and trend of the risks. The results show: (1) the overall risk of China&rsquo, s WSC projects is low, so WSC projects are very suitable for promotion in China. However, the overall risk shows a trend of decelerated ascent, which shows that there are some potential high-risk factors in China&rsquo, s WSC projects, (2) among the many risks of the WSC projects, audit risk, financing risk, and payment risk are at a high-risk level, market competition risk is at a medium-risk level, the remaining risks are at a low-risk level, (3) among the medium and high risks, audit risk, financing risk, and market competition risk have a trend of accelerated ascent, while payment risk has a trend of decelerated decline, in low risks, inflation risk has a trend of decelerated ascent, while the remaining risks have a trend of accelerated decline.

Convolutional neural network (CNN) have been widely used in face recognition. The illumination and the size of the data set affect the accuracy of face recognition based on CNN. In order to improve the accuracy of face recognition based on CNN, an improved face recognition algorithm based on CNN with extend local binary pattern (ELBP) and deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN) is proposed. ELBP uses a circular operator which can be of any size, and the coverage area can be adjusted arbitrarily. It has gray and rotation invariance, and has good robustness to illumination. In real scenes, it is more difficult to obtain face photos of a person with different lighting and different scenes. In order to solve face recognition in the case of small data sets, this paper uses DCGAN to generate new face pictures based on the original pictures. By expanding the data set, the accuracy of face recognition is improved. Experiments have proved that the proposed method in this paper has higher accuracy in face recognition than traditional methods.

Based on the panel data of the 11 provinces along the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1997 to 2015, the super slack-based model (Super-SBM) model is adopted to calculate the provincial-level eco-efficiency of industrial energy. While bringing in time series analysis and spatial differentiation feature analysis, the traditional and spatial Markov probability transition matrix is established. This study delves into the spatial-temporal dynamic evolution traits of the eco-efficiency of industrial energy along the Yangtze River Economic Belt. According to the results: the eco-efficiency of industrial energy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt manifests “single crest” evolution and distribution traits from left to right and top to bottom, indicating that the eco-efficiency of industrial energy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is steadily improving gradually. However, the overall level is still low and there is still ample room for the improvement of the eco-efficiency of industrial energy. Furthermore, the eco-efficiency of industrial energy along the Yangtze River Economic Belt is elevating. The geographical spatial pattern plays a pivotal role in the spatial and temporal evolution of eco-efficiency of industrial energy, and the spatial agglomeration traits are noticeable.

Ecological compensation is an effective means to adjust relationships among stakeholders in order to conserve and/or sustainably use ecosystem services. The current ecological compensation standards (ECS) do not well reflect the differences in ecological, social, and economic development. Thus, we took a typical urbanization area (the Suzhou&ndash, Wuxi&ndash, Changzhou region) in China as an example, because of its prominent contradiction between rapid socio-economic development and fragile ecosystem. Combined with the ecological, economic, and social conditions, the methods of ecosystem service value (ESV) evaluation, cluster analysis, and scenario analysis were used to propose an optimized spatial zoning method and optimal development scenario. Then, the ECS by different zones were determined by using ESV assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and contingent valuation method. The results showed that (1) the regions were divided into two categories, with a total of four zones: ESV output areas (synergetic development zones (SDZ) and ecological conservation zones (ECZ)) and ESV input areas (ecological degradation zones (EDegZ) and economic development zones (EDevZ)), (2) among five scenarios, the best development mode in the future was the protection and development scenario, which was consistent with the existing planning, and (3) the ECS for the SDZ should be paid about 1.94 billion Yuan/year, the ECZ should be paid about 0.80 billion Yuan/year, the ECS for the EDegZ should pay about 2.20&ndash, 2.25 million Yuan/year, and the EDevZ should pay about 0.06&ndash, 7.33 million Yuan/year. By feasibility analysis, the ESV input areas were fully capable of inter-regional compensation, which could promote the effective purchase of ecological services. The developed evaluation framework of ECS in this study can accurately provide a scientific basis for the determination of ecological compensation regulations and policies in the future.

Biodiversity loss from climate and land use change is a global occurrence, but is of particular concern in more prominent biodiverse and sensitive areas such as the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. This region harbors two species of geographically separated brown bear (Ursus arctos) - the Tibetan (U. a. pruinosus) and Himalayan brown bear (U. a. isabellinus). Both serve as important umbrella species, providing many ecological benefits to their surrounding ecosystems. However, how these two species from the same taxonomic group but with distinct geographical ranges, will respond to climate and land use change is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to predict the potential impacts of future climate and land use change on the distribution and dispersal paths of Tibetan and Himalayan brown bears in the HKH region. We applied MaxEnt modeling to predict the distribution of the two bear species both currently and for the year 2070, using three General Circulation Models and three scenarios of climate and land use change. We then identified potential dispersal paths using Circuit Theory. Results showed that both species would be negatively affected by the climate and land use change expected in the 2070s. In all three climate scenarios, their distribution areas would both shrink and shift to higher altitudes. Throughout the HKH region, Tibetan and Himalayan brown bears were predicted to lose over 34% and 32% of currently inhabited area under the most severe climate scenario, respectively. In addition, results showed that the density of dispersal paths for Tibetan brown bear would decrease while dispersal resistance would increase, and that dispersal paths for Himalayan brown bears would shift to higher latitudes. To protect these species, the currently suitable distribution areas and dispersal paths should be considered as priority protected areas. Our findings provide a scientific basis for allocating protected areas in the HKH region that are effective under the context of global climate change, and for establishing transboundary cooperation in the HKH region.

From the perspective of environmental federalism, we extracted the environmental intention words from the work reports of China&rsquo, s central and provincial governments through data mining, and used the instrumental variable method to conduct empirical experiments concerning the dispute between centralization and decentralization of environmental governance in the Chinese context. The results suggest that a negative correlation exists between the intention of the central government&rsquo, s environmental governance and the provincial environmental quality, whereas a positive correlation exists between the intention of the provincial government and the provincial environmental quality. Our interpretation is that environmental centralization, coupled with its political, economic, and cultural factors, has converted provincial governments into supporters of environmental pollution, and that the central government&rsquo, s ongoing environmental protection inspection campaign has forced the provincial government to be somewhat effective. We propose establishing Chinese-style cooperative federalism in environmental authority and not only centralizing or decentralizing in one direction. New transition mechanisms for the central government&rsquo, s authority should be implemented, such as the environmental protection inspection groups mechanism and the ecological gross domestic product based political tournament.