• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close
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• Nottingham Trent University close

We provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GDP in China using both aggregate and provincial data. The Kuznets elasticity is about 0.6 for China, higher than that in advanced countries but below that of major emerging markets. The elasticity is somewhat lower for consumption-based emissions than for production-based emissions, providing mild evidence consistent with the “pollution haven” hypothesis. The Kuznets elasticity is much lower for the last three decades than for the three previous decades, suggesting a longer-term trend toward decoupling as China has become richer. Further evidence of this comes from provincial data: richer provinces tend to have smaller Kuznets elasticities than poorer ones. In addition to the trend relationship, we find that the Environmental Okun's Law holds in China.

Résumé Les transports génèrent de nombreuses externalités, dont celles liées à la pollution atmosphérique. Cet article analyse deux d’entre elles, les gaz à effet de serre et la pollution locale, qui, en général, sont étudiées séparément dans les travaux sur les politiques optimales de transport. Ici, ces externalités sont analysées conjointement grâce à un modèle de prise de décision séquentielle. Celui-ci permet de tenir compte de l’irréversibilité des politiques menées ainsi que de la possibilité d’une diminution progressive des incertitudes grâce à l’arrivée d’informations supplémentaires. Nous trouvons que des mesures structurelles qui permettent de limiter le recours aux transports privés sont économiquement plus avantageuses que des dispositifs techniques qui réduisent les émissions de substances polluantes. L’utilité de cette analyse conjointe des externalités est illustrée à travers deux cas : les dispositifs fiscaux qui grèvent l’automobile et la politique du logement. Classification JEL : C6; D62; D81; R48.

AbstractGlobal impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought.

An integrated understanding of both social and ecological aspects of environmental issues is essential to address pressing sustainability challenges. An integrated social-ecological systems perspective is purported to provide a better understanding of the complex relationships between humans and nature. Despite a threefold increase in the amount of social-ecological research published between 2010 and 2015, it is unclear whether these approaches have been truly integrative. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the conceptual, methodological, disciplinary, and functional aspects of social-ecological integration. In general, we found that overall integration is still lacking in social-ecological research. Some social variables deemed important for addressing sustainability challenges are underrepresented in social-ecological studies, e.g., culture, politics, and power. Disciplines such as ecology, urban studies, and geography are better integrated than others, e.g., sociology, biology, and public administration. In addition to ecology and urban studies, biodiversity conservation plays a key brokerage role in integrating other disciplines into social-ecological research. Studies founded on systems theory have the highest rates of integration. Highly integrative studies combine different types of tools, involve stakeholders at appropriate stages, and tend to deliver practical recommendations. Better social-ecological integration must underpin sustainability science. To achieve this potential, future social-ecological research will require greater attention to the following: the interdisciplinary composition of project teams, strategic stakeholder involvement, application of multiple tools, incorporation of both social and ecological variables, consideration of bidirectional relationships between variables, and identification of implications and articulation of clear policy recommendations.

The aim of the paper is to report a comprehensive review into a recently emerging building integrated solar thermal technology, namely, Active Solar Thermal Facades (ASTFs), in terms of concept, classification, standard, performance evaluation, application, as well as research questions. This involves the combined effort of literature review, analysis, extraction, integration, critics, prediction and conclusion. It is indicated that the ASTFs are sort of building envelope elements incorporating the solar collecting devices, thus enabling the dual functions, e.g., space shielding and solar energy collection, to be performed. Based on the function of the building envelopes, the ASTF systems can be generally classified as wall-, window-, balcony-and roof-based types; while the ASTFs could also be classified by the thermal collection typologies, transparency, application, and heat-transfer medium. Currently, existing building and solar collector standards are brought together to evaluate the performance of the ASTFs. The research questions relating to the ASTFs are numerous, but the major points lie in: (1) whole structure and individual components layout, sizing and optimisation; (2) theoretical analysis; (3) experimental measurement; and (4) energy saving, economic and environmental performance assessment. Based on the analysis of the identified research questions, achievements made on each question, and outstanding problems remaining with the ASTFs, further development opportunities on this topic are suggested: (1) development of an integrated database/software enabling both architecture design and engineering performance simulation; (2) real-time measurement of the ASTFs integrated buildings on a long-term scheme; (3) economic and environmental performance assessment and social acceptance analysis; (4) dissemination, marketing and exploitation strategies study. This study helps in identifying the current status, potential problems in existence, future directions in research, development and practical application of the ASTFs technologies in buildings. It will also promote development of renewable energy technology and thus contribute to achieving the UK and international targets in energy saving, renewable energy utilization, and carbon emission reduction in building sector.