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Abstract Background Highly carbonized energy use in ecologically fragile areas of Northwest China seriously endangers the health of residents and the ecological environment. However, poor energy affordability remains a major obstacle to the promotion of clean energy use in rural households in this region. Methods Based on survey data of 1118 households in ecologically fragile areas of Northwest China, this study constructed a household-level database of energy use, measured energy affordability in two dimensions: endogenous income (annual per capita household income) and external inputs (government energy subsidies). It uses logistic and threshold regression to empirically test the impact, threshold, and heterogeneity of energy affordability on the decision-making of rural households regarding clean energy use for cooking, heating, and heating water. Results (1) The energy use structures of rural households in different ecologically fragile areas differ because of different household characteristics. (2) Energy affordability affects cooking significantly more than it affects heating and subsidy growth is a stronger incentive than income growth. Moreover, for both cooking and heating, energy affordability has a greater impact on electricity use than on gas use. (3) The thresholds for energy transformation for heating are greater than those for cooking and heating water. When the subsidy increases by 2400 yuan/year, heating can catch up to other types of use, whereas, based on the current level of income growth, it requires more than 5 years. (4) This effect is higher in high-income, purely agricultural, highly educated, young, and middle-aged households. Conclusions Promoting the use of clean energy in rural households only by increasing income will be a slow process. Subsidies should be used to accelerate this process by improving the energy affordability of rural households and a compensation policy should be implemented considering the energy types and periods. Taking into account the differences in the basic characteristics of rural households in different ecologically fragile areas, clean energy policies should be adopted from various perspectives to better leverage the enhancement effect of energy affordability.

The most important issue related to the establishment of carbon emission trading in China is how to motivate the owners of public buildings to participate. However, Existing research few considered the characteristics of public building owners and the influence of various uncertain factors in carbon emission trading investments. To fill this gap, this study constructs a carbon emission trading investment decision model of public building owners to study the mechanism that encourages them to participate, incorporating these characteristics and uncertain factors. The findings are as follows. First, carbon price is important in adjusting the emission reductions of different owners to minimize the total social cost of emission-reduction measures. Second, the price of carbon-emission permits has a significant impact on the investment threshold and decision-making behavior of public building owners. Finally, reducing the cost of energy-conservation and emission-reduction technologies in public buildings and appropriately subsidizing owners for their emission-reduction investment were effective methods to motivate them to participate in carbon emission trading. The results were used to quantitatively analyze the impact of a carbon emission trading mechanism on the decision-making behavior of public building owners and to construct the carbon emission trading mechanism used in China’s public building industry.

The relationship among stakeholders is complicated and full of collaboration barriers, which makes urban renewal an intersection of various contradictions. However, the existing literature considers the barriers to urban renewal independent of stakeholders, and the interaction between multiple stakeholders and barriers to collaboration has been ignored. Therefore, this study uses a literature review and expert interviews to identify stakeholders and their collaboration barriers in the process of urban renewal. Based on the results of expert questionnaires, a two-mode network model of stakeholder–collaboration barrier is constructed to clarify the complex interaction and reveal the power and status of stakeholders in a network relationship. The study found that each barrier was associated with at least three stakeholders, indicating the necessity of stakeholders to establish partnerships. Further analysis shows that the government, local and other administrative organizations, consulting parties, and developers are the most influential stakeholders. The vague boundary of property rights, lack of expert advice and expertise, and different stakeholder awareness were identified as key barriers affecting sustainable collaboration. Finally, this study proposes and validates five strategies to promote collaboration among stakeholders. This study helps practitioners identify the priority problems to be solved under limited resources and provides effective measures to promote stakeholder collaboration.