• Energy Research
• Aurora Universities Network close
• Tsinghua University close

China is confronted with an unprecedented water crisis regarding its quantity and quality. In this study, we quantified the dynamics of China?s embodied water use and chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge from 2010 to 2015. The analysis was conducted with the latest available water use data across sectors in primary, secondary and tertiary industries and input?output models. The results showed that (1) China?s water crisis was alleviated under urbanisation. Urban consumption occupied the largest percentages (over 30%) of embodied water use and COD discharge, but embodied water intensities in urban consumption were far lower than those in rural consumption. (2) The ?new normal? phase witnessed the optimisation of China?s water use structures. Embodied water use in light-manufacturing and tertiary sectors increased while those in heavy-manufacturing sectors (except chemicals and transport equipment) dropped. (3) Transformation of China?s international market brought positive effects on its domestic water use. China?s water use (116?80 billion tonnes (Bts))(9) and COD discharge (3.95?2.22 million tonnes (Mts)) embodied in export tremendously decreased while its total export values (11?25 trillion CNY) soared. Furthermore, embodied water use and COD discharge in relatively low-end sectors, such as textile, started to transfer from international to domestic markets when a part of China?s production activities had been relocated to other developing countries.

Abstract Cities are the major contributors to energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as being leading innovators and implementers of policy measures in climate change mitigation. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an agglomeration of cities put forward by China to strengthen international cooperation among “Belt and Road” countries and promote low-carbon, inclusive, coordinated and sustainable development. Few studies have discussed the emission characteristics of GBA cities. This study, for the first time, compiles emission inventories of 11 GBA cities and their surroundings based on IPCC territorial emission accounting approach, which are consistent and comparable with the national and provincial inventories. Results show that (a) total emissions increased from 426 Mt in 2000 to 610 Mt in 2016, while emissions of GBA cities increased rapidly by 6.9% over 2000–2011 and peaked in 2014 (334 Mt); (b) raw coal and diesel oil are the top two emitters by energy type, while energy production sector and tertiary industry are the top two largest sectors; (c) GBA cities take the lead in low-carbon development, emitted 4% of total national emissions and contributed 13% of national GDP with less than a third of national emission intensities and less than three-quarters of national per capita emissions; (d) Macao, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have the top three lowest emission intensity in the country; (e) most of GBA cities are experiencing the shift from an industrial economy to a service economy, while Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan and Huizhou reached their peak emissions and Guangzhou, Dongguan and Jiangmen remained decreasing emission tendencies; (g) for those coal-dominate or energy-production cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, Maoming, Yangjiang, Shanwei, Shaoguan and Zhanjiang) in mid-term industrialization, total emissions experienced soaring increases. The emission inventories provide robust, self-consistent, transparent and comparable data support for identifying spatial–temporal emission characteristics, developing low-carbon policies, monitoring mitigation progress in GBA cities as well as further emissions-related studies at a city-level. The low-carbon roadmaps designed for GBA cities and their surroundings also provide a benchmark for other developing countries/cities to adapting changing climate and achieve sustainable development.

When extreme weather events occur, people often turn to social media platforms to share information, opinions and experiences. One of the topics commonly discussed is the role climate change may or may not have played in influencing an event. Here, we examine Twitter posts that mentioned climate change in the context of three high-magnitude extreme weather events – Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and Snowstorm Jonas – in order to assess how the framing of the topic and the attention paid to it can vary between events. We also examine the role that contextual factors can play in shaping climate change coverage on the platform. We find that criticism of climate change denial dominated during Irene, while political and ideological struggle frames dominated during Sandy. Discourse during Jonas was, in contrast, more divided between posts about the scientific links between climate change and the events, and posts contesting climate science in general. The focus on political and ideological struggle frames during Sandy reflects the event's occurrence at a time when the Occupy movement was active and the 2012 US Presidential Election was nearing. These factors, we suggest, could also contribute to climate change being a more prominent discussion point during Sandy than during Irene or Jonas. The Jonas frames, meanwhile, hint at lesser public understanding of how climate change may influence cold weather events when compared with tropical storms. Overall, our findings demonstrate how event characteristics and short-term socio-political context can play a critical role in determining the lenses through which climate change is viewed.

There are substantial differences in carbon footprints across households. This study applied an environmentally extended multiregional input–output approach to estimate household carbon footprints for 12 different income groups of China’s 30 regions. Subsequently, carbon footprint Gini coefficients were calculated to measure carbon inequality for households across provinces. We found that the top 5% of income earners were responsible for 17% of the national household carbon footprint in 2012, while the bottom half of income earners caused only 25%. Carbon inequality declined with economic growth in China across space and time in two ways: first, carbon footprints showed greater convergence in the wealthier coastal regions than in the poorer inland regions; second, China’s national carbon footprint Gini coefficients declined from 0.44 in 2007 to 0.37 in 2012. We argue that economic growth not only increases income levels but also contributes to an overall reduction in carbon inequality in China.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement have ushered in a new era of policymaking to deliver on the formulated goals. Energy policies are key to ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy (SDG7). Yet they can also have considerable impact on other goals. To successfully achieve multiple goals concurrently, policies need to balance different objectives and manage their interactions. Refining previously contemplated design principles, we identify three key principles - complementary, transparency and adaptability - as highly pertinent for multiple-objective energy policies based on a synthesis of seventeen coordinated policy case studies. First, policies should entail complementary measures and design provisions that specifically target non-energy objectives (complementarity). Second, policy impacts should be tracked comprehensively in both energy and non-energy domains to uncover diminishing returns and facilitate policy learning (transparency). Third, policies should be capable of adapting to changing objectives over time (adaptability). These principles are rarely considered in current policies, implying the need to mainstream them into the next generation of policymaking by pointing to best practices and new tools.

AbstractIn the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan largely moved away from nuclear power generation and turned back towards an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels. As a result, the pace towards reaching emission reduction targets has largely slowed down. This situation indicates that higher emissions will continue to be generated if there is no appropriate and efficient measurement implemented to bridge the energy demand gap. To contribute adequate mitigation policies, a detailed inventory of both CO2 emissions and socioeconomic factors, both at the national and regional level, should be issued. Thereby, this work contributes to a time-series emission with a record of 47 prefectures in Japan as well as their associated socioeconomic features. The compiled emission inventory is based on three major fossil fuels and 26 sectors with careful emission allocations for regional electricity generation. This dataset is uniformly formatted and can be expected to provide vital information to set regional reduction allowances and sectoral reduction priorities.

La gestion des risques a réduit la vulnérabilité aux inondations et aux sécheresses dans le monde1,2, mais leurs impacts continuent d'augmenter3. Une meilleure compréhension des causes de l'évolution des impacts est donc nécessaire, mais a été entravée par un manque de données empiriques4,5. Sur la base d'un ensemble de données mondiales de 45 paires d'événements qui se sont produits dans la même zone, nous montrons que la gestion des risques réduit généralement les impacts des inondations et des sécheresses, mais fait face à des difficultés pour réduire les impacts d'événements sans précédent d'une ampleur jamais connue auparavant. Si le deuxième événement était beaucoup plus dangereux que le premier, son impact était presque toujours plus élevé. En effet, la gestion n'a pas été conçue pour faire face à de tels événements extrêmes : par exemple, ils ont dépassé les niveaux de conception des digues et des réservoirs. Dans deux cas de réussite, l'impact du deuxième événement, plus dangereux, a été plus faible, en raison de l'amélioration de la gouvernance de la gestion des risques et des investissements élevés dans la gestion intégrée. La difficulté observée à gérer des événements sans précédent est alarmante, étant donné que des événements hydrologiques plus extrêmes sont projetés en raison du changement climatique3. La gestión de riesgos ha reducido la vulnerabilidad a las inundaciones y sequías a nivel mundial1,2, pero sus impactos siguen aumentando3. Por lo tanto, se necesita una mejor comprensión de las causas de los impactos cambiantes, pero se ha visto obstaculizada por la falta de datos empíricos4,5. Sobre la base de un conjunto de datos global de 45 pares de eventos que ocurrieron dentro de la misma área, mostramos que la gestión de riesgos generalmente reduce los impactos de inundaciones y sequías, pero enfrenta dificultades para reducir los impactos de eventos sin precedentes de una magnitud no experimentada anteriormente. Si el segundo evento era mucho más peligroso que el primero, su impacto era casi siempre mayor. Esto se debe a que la gestión no fue diseñada para hacer frente a tales eventos extremos: por ejemplo, superaron los niveles de diseño de diques y embalses. En dos casos de éxito, el impacto del segundo evento, más peligroso, fue menor, como resultado de una mejor gobernanza de la gestión de riesgos y una alta inversión en la gestión integrada. La dificultad observada para gestionar eventos sin precedentes es alarmante, dado que se proyectan eventos hidrológicos más extremos debido al cambio climático3. Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods and droughts globally1,2, yet their impacts are still increasing3. An improved understanding of the causes of changing impacts is therefore needed, but has been hampered by a lack of empirical data4,5. On the basis of a global dataset of 45 pairs of events that occurred within the same area, we show that risk management generally reduces the impacts of floods and droughts but faces difficulties in reducing the impacts of unprecedented events of a magnitude not previously experienced. If the second event was much more hazardous than the first, its impact was almost always higher. This is because management was not designed to deal with such extreme events: for example, they exceeded the design levels of levees and reservoirs. In two success stories, the impact of the second, more hazardous, event was lower, as a result of improved risk management governance and high investment in integrated management. The observed difficulty of managing unprecedented events is alarming, given that more extreme hydrological events are projected owing to climate change3. أدت إدارة المخاطر إلى تقليل التعرض للفيضانات والجفاف على مستوى العالم1,2، ومع ذلك لا تزال آثارها تتزايد3. لذلك هناك حاجة إلى فهم أفضل لأسباب تغير التأثيرات، ولكن أعيق ذلك بسبب نقص البيانات التجريبية4، 5. على أساس مجموعة بيانات عالمية مكونة من 45 زوجًا من الأحداث التي وقعت داخل نفس المنطقة، نظهر أن إدارة المخاطر تقلل عمومًا من آثار الفيضانات والجفاف ولكنها تواجه صعوبات في الحد من آثار الأحداث غير المسبوقة ذات الحجم الذي لم تشهده من قبل. إذا كان الحدث الثاني أكثر خطورة من الأول، فإن تأثيره كان دائمًا أعلى. وذلك لأن الإدارة لم تكن مصممة للتعامل مع مثل هذه الأحداث المتطرفة: على سبيل المثال، تجاوزت مستويات تصميم السدود والخزانات. في قصتي نجاح، كان تأثير الحدث الثاني، الأكثر خطورة، أقل، نتيجة لتحسين حوكمة إدارة المخاطر والاستثمار العالي في الإدارة المتكاملة. إن الصعوبة الملحوظة في إدارة الأحداث غير المسبوقة تنذر بالخطر، بالنظر إلى أنه من المتوقع حدوث المزيد من الأحداث الهيدرولوجية المتطرفة بسبب تغير المناخ3.