• Energy Research
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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.

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.

In recent years, the health conditions of the elderly (the middle-aged and the old, which for this study means people over 50 years of age) have deteriorated along with the aggravation of air pollution, which led to the change of medical insurance costs. This phenomenon is particularly prominent in developing countries, such as China. A total of 15,892 research subjects from 56 prefecture-level cities in 23 provinces were collected from the database of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS). We investigated the effects of air pollution, physical health, and medical insurance costs among three mechanisms using logistics and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) hybrid cross-sectional regression, and we conducted a robust test. Overall, two pollutants, namely, PM10 and NO2, respectively showed an “inverted U-shaped” and “positive U-shaped” influencing path to health. In addition, when we studied the mechanism of air pollution affecting medical insurance costs, we found that air pollution can affect medical insurance costs through affecting self-rated health, and that the impact path is related to different diseases to some extent. At the same time, there was a certain negative correlation between air pollution and medical insurance: The higher the degree of air pollution, the worse the self-rated health, and the fewer opportunities there are to purchase medical insurance. It can be seen that air pollution affects the physical health of middle-aged and elderly people, thus indirectly and negatively affecting the medical insurance cost. Further research also found that the types of air pollutants in southern and northern China showed some differences. Specifically, NO2 and SO2 were the pollutants that harm the health of the elderly in the south and north, respectively.

Abstract China as a whole is undergoing rapid industrial structure change, but this process is proceeding in a particularly unequal manner across regions. Understanding these changes and their associated impacts on CO2 emissions in these regions is a vital step toward appropriately targeted policy making. In this paper, we conduct both regional analysis throughout the nation and case studies focused on nine typical regions in order to identify regional patterns of industrial structure change and CO2 emissions. Results indicate that structural change in primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors was highly correlated, but structural change by industrial sector did not correspond well, with the stage of economic development. The disparity in regional industrial structure impacts regional CO2 emissions substantially. First, industrial structure changes involving a shift from agriculture, mining, and light manufacturing to resource-related heavy manufacturing in many regions led to a rapid increase in CO2 emissions at the national level. Second, production structure change, especially in construction and services sectors, is an important source of CO2 emission growth in regions. Some developed regions with vastly improved input efficiency in resource-related heavy manufacturing demonstrate the immense potential for reducing CO2 emissions in regions lagging in input efficiency. Third, regions with a more developed industrial structure avoided local CO2 emissions by importing carbon-intensive products while exporting less carbon-intensive but higher-value-added products in the machinery and equipment and service sectors. Several policy implications are also discussed based on the main findings of this study.

International economic cooperation accelerates the flow of capital, technology, labor, and other factors between different countries, which promotes global sustainable development. Building infrastructure construction is an important way to strengthen social development, and absorbing foreign capital is an effective way for developing countries to improve their infrastructure and to promote economic development. This study puts forward the factors that have influenced China’s investment in international engineering projects, and it constructs a panel data regression model for empirical testing. The study shows that, first, international infrastructure investment tends to select countries or regions with good condition of highway infrastructure. Second, international infrastructure investment tends to choose countries or regions with low development level of port and power infrastructure. Third, bilateral diplomatic visits play a significant role in promoting international infrastructure investment. Fourth, international infrastructure investment tends to choose countries or regions with good resource endowment. This study reveals the influencing factors and the mechanisms for the choices of location for China’s investment in international engineering projects, providing a theoretical framework for investors to optimize international infrastructure investment and management, as well as providing the policy references for developing countries to attract international infrastructure investment.

Abstract An essential issue in future climate negotiations is how to bring developing countries on board. This paper proposes and applies the two-level interest-based model to analyze the factors that affect the likely stances of the “Plus Five” countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa) on international climate negotiations. This study finds mitigation capability to be a crucial factor which consists of at least such sub-factors as per capita income, energy endowment, and economic structure, while ecological vulnerability does not seem to play an important role which includes reductions in agricultural outputs, sea-level rise, climate-related natural disasters, and others. The paper proposes six options in an ascending order of stringency that the Plus Five are likely to adopt. The paper suggests that the “Basic Four” (the Plus Five excluding Mexico), particularly China and India, are less likely to adopt a voluntary commitment to an emissions cap on the national economy in the near future than Mexico, which has the highest mitigation capability among all five. The Basic Four are likely to adopt more stringent climate polices with increasing mitigation capabilities, suggesting the importance of effective international financial and technology transfer mechanisms and further tighten emission reduction targets from developed countries.

Abstract Threats posed by global climate change have heightened the urgency for economies to transition to sustainability. However, quantitative metrics that measure sustainability status remain under development, hampered in part by the difficulty of identifying clear relationships between economic growth and sustainability. The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis provides a framework for describing sustainability status relative to socioeconomic development. In this study, the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis was adopted to investigate statistical relationships between the carbon intensity of human well-being (as an indicator of sustainability) and economic development in eight economic zones of China during 1997–2015. The results provide new evidence that seven of eight Chinese economic zones began advances to sustainability (defined here as downward turning points marked by inverted “N” shapes in the Environmental Kuznets Curve) between 2012 and 2015. The lone exception was the Northwestern economic zone, in which an approach to sustainability had not yet occurred by 2015. This study thus supports the contention that environmental policies and technologies have contributed to improving sustainability in terms of carbon intensity. The results suggest two strategic options for further increasing sustainability in China: 1) “first help the weakest”; and 2) “first help the latest to sustainability”.

Abstract Many developing countries rely on hydropower to improve energy access and to meet their growing demands for energy. However, the social justice concerns accompanying hydropower development are in danger of being overlooked. This study focuses on arguably the most pressing social problem associated with hydropower development, namely, the displacement and resettlement of communities. Employing a case study based approach, this study investigates the extent to which hydropower development-induced resettlement process and its impacts on the resettled households respond to three different tenets of energy justice, i.e., distributional, recognition, and procedural justice. Based on fieldwork conducted at the Hongjiang and Wanmipo Hydropower Stations in Hunan Province, China for two months in 2008, this paper demonstrates that although hydropower development generated significant economic and developmental benefits by alleviating power shortages, improving grid stability, and increasing local tax revenues, these benefits came at the cost of the social exclusion of more than 20,000 resettlers. Specifically, the resettled communities experienced 1) distributional injustice from hydropower due to the low affordability of electricity and water, reduced access to land and food, and an unbalanced distribution of costs and benefits from hydropower development; 2) recognition injustice due to the lack of fairness, transparency, and accountability on the part of the hydropower developer and at all levels of government in energy decision-making; and 3) procedural injustice due to the very limited participatory rights in the decision-making process before, during, and after resettlement and the lack of viable channels through which to seek redress and remedies.