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Regional carbon emissions related to forest cover change (FCC) and wood harvest (WH) are critical for the accurate estimates of global carbon balance over an extended time period. Using remote sensing and inventory data, this study provides a comprehensive record of FCC, WH, and their integrated carbon emissions between 1908 and 2015 in the dry temperate regions of Pakistan. Results demonstrate a significant decline in forest area (21,034 ha) at an annual rate of 0.56% from 1973 to 2015. The total WH was 24.84 million m3 (0.23 million m3 yr−1) between 1908 and 2015. Deforestation was responsible for a net loss of 1.39 million Mg C (0.018 million Mg C yr−1), while WH-related carbon emissions accounted for 11.29 million Mg C (0.52 million Mg C yr−1). The present results indicate that under the existing FCC and WH harvest scenario, the forests are acting as a net source of 0.29 million Mg C yr−1. Agriculture expansion and the heavy dependency of local communities on the forest’s resources, exclusion of conservation and local communities from forest management, insufficient monitoring, and weak law-enforcement were the striking drivers of FCC, WH, and their related emissions. These findings suggest that to maintain forest carbon and meet the communities’ requirements, counter approaches such as agriculture incentives, agroforestry, trophy hunting, alternative energy sources, and inclusion of conservation and secure community-based management are needed.

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) capture synergies between human development and natural ecosystems that have important implications for the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus. However, their lack of fine-scale representation of water regulatory structure and landscape heterogeneity impedes their application to FEW impact studies in water-limited basins. To address this limitation, we developed a framework for studying effects of global change on regional outcomes for food crops, bioenergy, hydropower, and instream flows. We applied the new methodology to the Columbia River Basin (CRB) as a case study. The framework uses the Demeter land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) downscaling tool, which we updated so that water rights are spatially integrated in the land allocation process. We downscaled two LULCC scenarios (SSP2-RCP 4.5 and SSP5-RCP 8.5) under three levels of irrigation expansion: no expansion (historical extent), moderate expansion (all land presently authorized by a water right is irrigated), and maximum expansion (new water rights are granted to cover all irrigable land). The downscaled scenarios were evaluated using a hydrology-cropping systems model and a reservoir model coupled in a linear fashion to quantify changes in food and bioenergy crop production, hydropower generation, and availability of instream flows for fish. The net changes in each sector were partitioned among climate, land use, and irrigation-expansion effects. We found that climate change alone resulted in approximately 50% greater production of switchgrass for bioenergy and 20% greater instream flow deficits. In the irrigation-expansion scenarios, the combination of climate change and greater irrigated extent increased switchgrass production by 76% to 256% at the cost of 42% to 165% greater instream flow deficits and 0% to 8% less hydropower generation. Therefore, while irrigation expansion increased bioenergy crop productivity, it also exacerbated seasonal water shortages, especially for instream use. This paper provides a general framework for assessing benchmark scenarios of global LULCC in terms of their regional FEW subsystem outcomes.

This study aims to find the nexuses among energy efficiency, renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investment, logistics industry, manufacturing industry and global trade during the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on global supply chains in exporting nations of the world. The data for this study has been extracted from the World Development Indicators and Statista 2021 for 13 years ranging from 2007-to 2020 for nine top exporting countries. The fixed effect panel estimation technique was implied to examine and analyze the data. The results of our study revealed that highly risky diseases significantly impact supply chain operations globally. Global supply chains, logistics and manufacturing industries significantly influence global trade operations. Our results implicate that the overall international trade and logistics can be enhanced by improving the manufacturing and logistics industries by coping with the risk of pandemic diseases. Moreover, by utilizing cost-effective, renewable and efficient energy resources companies address sustainability issues of global trade and operations. By exerting further attention to the proficiency of the levies approval process, competence and quality of logistics services, and ease of assembling competitively priced shipments, the governments can significantly enhance the export from the logistics industry. Also, increasing manufacturing and agricultural value-added healthier consequences might be acquired in global supply chain operations from the manufacturing industry.

This study explores the relationship between ESG investments and carbon emissions in China. Our results show that 1% increase in environmental investments would cause 0.246% decrease in CO2 emissions and 0.558% decrease in carbon emission intensity. The impact of ESG investment is heterogeneous across the developed and underdeveloped regions. Environmental investments in the advanced eastern region have significantly improved carbon productivity. In contrast, environmental investments in the central and western regions significantly reduced carbon emissions, but they have little impact on carbon productivity.

This study investigates the relationships between infrastructure development, human development index (HDI), and CO2 emissions in China. Infrastructure has played an essential role in achieving social and economic developmental goals in China, but environmental pollution has significantly increased in the country in the last two decades. Our analysis uses time series data from 1990 to 2021 and quantile regressions, and we find that infrastructure has positive and statistically significant relationships with HDI, CO2 emissions, and GDP in all quantiles. Recent infrastructure upgrades improve living standards and increase HDI but damage the environment, and infrastructure is the main source of CO2 emissions in the country. Therefore, the government should invest in sustainable infrastructure to mitigate CO2 emissions. The government may consider infrastructure options such as low carbon transportation, including railway infrastructure, urban metros, and light rail.

Ensuring sustainability of sanitation infrastructure assets and services over the long-term is crucial for achieving safe sanitation for all. Co-management is an emerging approach that balances state and citizen responsibility for services, with applicability to community-scale (or decentralized) sanitation systems in a city-wide context. In Indonesia more than 30,000 of these systems are typically managed solely by communities, however, due to challenges in technical, social and financial aspects, commonly fall to disrepair. This paper presents qualitative research comprising document review, interviews and co-design workshops with local government and community management groups that developed a model for co-management of community-scale systems. The co-management model articulated four minimum responsibilities for local government: monitoring and corrective action; provision of technical and institutional support to community groups; formalization of fee collection; and funding of large costs for rehabilitation and expansion. This model was developed and tested in two case study locations, and through this process, was deemed appropriate, acceptable and feasible for both local government and community management groups. Related changes to Indonesia’s national program guidelines were also identified to clearly articulate local government’s role. The agreed co-management approach aligns with the human right to sanitation by supporting local governments fulfill their legal mandate for services, promotes professionalized sustainable management arrangements, ensuring community-scale systems can contribute effectively to future citywide solutions.

The textile industry is responsible for a significant amount of global CO2 emissions, exceeding those from several other sectors such as international aviation and shipping. This article outlines the reasons for the textile industry’s contribution to climate change along with an overview of current trends. Finally, it outlines several measures to reduce its carbon footprint.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, this study empirically analyzes the relationship between fiscal decentralization and carbon productivity using a spatial econometric model and calculates the direct effect, spatial spillover effect, and total effect of fiscal revenue decentralization and fiscal expenditure decentralization on carbon productivity through effect decomposition. The empirical results show that 1) the spatial agglomeration effect of China’s provincial carbon productivity is obvious, which shows an upward trend. The heterogeneity of carbon productivity among different provinces is obvious. The overall performance is as follows: Eastern provinces > Central provinces > Western provinces. 2) Fiscal revenue decentralization and fiscal expenditure decentralization can significantly promote the improvement of carbon productivity. Fiscal expenditure decentralization plays a greater role in promoting carbon productivity than fiscal revenue decentralization. 3) Fiscal revenue decentralization and fiscal expenditure decentralization have significant positive direct effects and negative spatial spillover effects on the improvement of carbon productivity. Increasing fiscal decentralization is conducive to improving the carbon productivity of the province, but it will inhibit the carbon productivity of neighboring provinces. Finally, it puts forward policy suggestions to promote the improvement of carbon productivity from the perspective of fiscal decentralization.