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Promoting biodiesel industrialization is not only an important measure in addressing the energy crisis and global warming but is also a driver for industrial restructuring and rural development. To...

This chapter uses data on Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to examine the nature of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions being pursued in African countries and assesses the extent to which preferred mitigation and adaptation priorities advance the cause of sustainable development on the continent. The prospective synergies between mitigation and adaptation approaches and sustainable development are assessed. Also, the pathways through which resource constraints and institutional and policy environment affect Africa’s ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change are examined, as well as the degree to which these constraints are being addressed. It is argued that Africa’s ability to benefit from sustainable development synergies embedded in the mitigation and adaptation strategies in the INDCs will be greatly limited by institutional and policy environment that hinders funding, capacity building, and technological innovation systems development. The slow pace of efforts to address these impediments further erodes confidence that climate adaptation in Africa will be effective at sufficiently contributing to a reduction in climate change risks to the continent.

The prevailing need for a more sustainable management of natural resources depends not only on the decisions made by governments and the will of the population, but also on the knowledge of the role of energy in our society and the relevance of preserving natural resources. In this sense, critical work is being done to instill key concepts—such as the circular economy and sustainable energy—in higher education institutions. In this way, it is expected that future professionals and managers will be aware of the importance of energy optimization, and will learn a series of computational methods that can support the decision-making process. In the context of higher education, this paper reviews the main trends and challenges related to the concepts of circular economy and sustainable energy. Besides, we analyze the role of simulation and serious games as a learning tool for the aforementioned concepts. Finally, the paper provides insights and discusses open research opportunities regarding the use of these computational tools to incorporate circular economy concepts in higher education degrees. Our findings show that, while efforts are being made to include these concepts in current programs, there is still much work to be done, especially from the point of view of university management. In addition, the analysis of the teaching methodologies analyzed shows that, although their implementation has been successful in favoring the active learning of students, their use (especially that of serious games) is not yet widespread.

Previous studies show that individuals’ energy consumption tends to outweigh the technical efficiency gains. Occupancy behavior accounts for about 30% of the variance in overall heating consumption and 50% in cooling consumption. In addition, overall energy savings of 10%–20% due to simple behavioral adjustments are a reasonable expectation. Unfortunately, few studies have focused on the specific cases of behavior in low-income houses, where unique individual energy behavior, demographic, and socio-economic factors come into play. This article investigates energy-related occupancy behavior in low-income families through real-time power, indoor environment, and occupancy presence measurement. Four residential houses with different building envelope materials are used as test-beds. Occupancy behavior includes thermostat schedules, occupancy presence, and major appliance usages. A simulation study is further conducted to show the energy impact of occupancy behavior.

This paper examines the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory, augmenting the role of oil resources and energy consumption in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions using the annual data of 11 African oil-producing countries from 1980 to 2014. We apply advanced panel cointegration and panel autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) techniques coupled with Granger non-causality analysis to account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The results of the augmented mean group (AMG) reveal that oil resources abundance degrades the environmental quality in Angola while abating CO2 emissions in Algeria, Gabon, Morocco, and Nigeria. Contrarily, energy consumption escalates pollution in the Congo Democratic Republic (COD), Côte d’Ivoire (CIV), Gabon, Morocco, and Tunisia. Our findings support the EKC hypothesis only in Cameroon, CIV, and Nigeria while exhibiting a U-shaped curve in Algeria and Morocco. Causality analysis unveils that oil resources Granger cause energy consumption, suggesting the balance between renewable and non-renewable energy sources. The current study has important policy implications for promoting green technology, economic diversification, service sector, and green investments.

As an important livelihood strategy choice to promote the sustainable development of themselves and regions, returnees’ entrepreneurship has played a vital role in the governance of all-level Chinese local governments since the 21st century. The policy attention reflects the importance that the local governments attach to this issue, and the evolution process also reflects relevant policies’ internal rules and characteristics. Based on this, this paper, taking 242 policy texts related to returnees’ entrepreneurship issued by local governments from 2000 to 2021 as the research objects, uses grounded theory and social network analysis in order to explore the policy attention evolution from the aspects of time, space, specific policy domains and cooperative relationship among policy subjects. Finally, this research finds the main conclusions as follows: (1) The policy attention evolution on time dimension has the characteristic of synchronism, different levels and “reciprocal U”. (2) The policy attention evolution on space dimension is closely linked to “pull” and “push” forces of local population flow and has neighborhood effects. (3) The policy attention evolution on specific policy areas will gradually spread and diversify with the change in local governance environment and stage goals. (4) The evolution trend of collaborative social network among policy objects has the characteristic of “loose-central-loose”.

In 2009, a preliminary framework for how climate change could affect worker safety and health was described. That framework was based on a literature search from 1988-2008 that supported seven categories of climate-related occupational hazards: (1) increased ambient temperature; (2) air pollution; (3) ultraviolet radiation exposure; (4) extreme weather; (5) vector-borne diseases and expanded habitats; (6) industrial transitions and emerging industries; and (7) changes in the built environment. This article reviews the published literature from 2008-2014 in each of the seven categories. Additionally, three new topics related to occupational safety and health are considered: mental health effects, economic burden, and potential worker safety and health impacts associated with the nascent field of climate intervention (geoengineering). Beyond updating the literature, this article also identifies key priorities for action to better characterize and understand how occupational safety and health may be associated with climate change events and ensure that worker health and safety issues are anticipated, recognized, evaluated, and mitigated. These key priorities include research, surveillance, risk assessment, risk management, and policy development. Strong evidence indicates that climate change will continue to present occupational safety and health hazards, and this framework may be a useful tool for preventing adverse effects to workers.

Facing the non-point source pollution caused by fertilizer loss, study on the agricultural factors that have an influence on fertilizer reduction could provide a basis for the implementation of policies on fertilizer reduction control. Based on the panel data during 2002-2016 with cumulative contribution model and Log-Mean Divisia Index (LMDI), this paper innovatively comes up with reduction driving functions (including agricultural scale, intensification, fertilizer utilization, and labor productivity), studies the cumulative contribution rate and driving factors of fertilizer reduction in county units of Zhejiang Province. Main conclusions are: (1) 37 of 63 county units (58.73%) showed decreased in fertilizer application; top five county units contributed 50+%; top county units that contribute to fertilizer reduction are in plain area in Northern Zhejiang, coastal area in Eastern and Southern Zhejiang, valley and basin area in Western and Southern Zhejiang where arable land is relatively even. (2) Fertilizer application intensity (fertilizer application per unit area of land cultivation) in Zhejiang Province increased by 18.67%, but there are only 15 county units where fertilizer application intensity is reduced. In general, fertilizer reduction in Zhejiang Province kept developing steadily. (3) Factors (fertilizer efficiency, intensification and agricultural scale) drive fertilizer reduction while labor productivity triggers the growth in application intensity. In Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shaoxing in Northern and Eastern Zhejiang, the above factors all have a prominent driving effect, but labor productivity also promotes fertilizer increment. In the end, this paper proposes policies on fertilizer reduction control in terms of efficiency, inputs and compensations.