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Abstract: The unprecedented resources and energy needed to support the high growth of urbanization with the emerging issues of environmental degradation and GHG emissions is increasingly dramatic in China. A series of national and local policies have been implemented for achieving the co-benefits of reducing emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollution for China's sustainable development. In this paper, the achievement of climate change mitigation and air pollution reduction in different sectors through implementing policies is reviewed. This paper reports on the types of policy measures that have been introduced in two cases (i.e. Tiexi District of Shenyang and Baoshan District of Shanghai) to affect air quality and energy efficiency improvements, which are then collectively examined in terms of their impacts on GHG and air pollutant emissions. Recommendations are made for achieving co-benefits effectively through the integrated approach by comprehensively concentrating on the short and long-term environmental protection and energy conservation at local and national levels based on the analysis made in the paper. The limited coordination and lack of capacity in different government bodies may be the main barriers to the implementation of a co-benefits approach. Enhancing the cooperation and capacity building could overcome these obstacles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Promoting urban transition is critical, particularly for China’s rapid urbanization. Circular economy strategy is widely recognized as an effective way to achieve a low-carbon transition of cities through improved waste recycling and industrial symbiosis. However, the evidence of low-carbon benefit is less reported. While the carbon footprint (CFP) represents a mature tool responding to climate change concerns, limited studies have made use of CFP as a proxy for the performance of urban circular economy promotion. The aim of this paper is to investigate the CFP with a ten years span (2002–2012) of Guiyang, so as to understand how its circular economy practices have led to low-carbon benefits. Guiyang, one of China’s national pilots of the Circular Economy (CE) City, the Low-Carbon City, as well as the Ecological Civilization City, has offered an ideal laboratory where the opportunities and challenges for a low-carbon urban transition can be explicitly discussed. A hybrid model that integrates an input-output (IO) approach and process-based inventory analysis is developed to distinguish between direct carbon emissions of sectors from energy consumption, and indirect carbon emissions related to upstream and downstream flows both from production and consumption perspectives. The CFP of Guiyang in 2002, 2007 (after becoming the circular economy pilot) and 2012 (with implementation of urban industrial symbiosis) are analyzed by taking the 2002 as year of business as usual (BAU) scenario. Particularly, we identify scenarios related to proposed urban industrial symbiosis. Results imply that dramatic resource saving and CFP reductions could be achieved simultaneously. Changes to the CFP in 2002, 2007 and 2012 provide critical insights into the role of circular economy in speeding up urban transition towards a low-carbon society. Finally, policy recommendations to tackle the barriers to regional low-carbon transition are proposed. We believe that this study is informative for policy makers of urban planning by shedding a light on innovative eco-industrial development and urban transition in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A new repeatable batch processing method is developed for regional SUHI assessment. • A framework is proposed to explain the formation of SUHI effect. • The impacts of most driving factors on SUHI effect are spatial heterogeneous. • More attention should be paid to small cities. The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become a hot topic worldwide because of the double stress of global climate change and rapid urbanization. However, the deficiencies of existing methods hinder the monitoring and assessment of the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect at the regional scale. This paper presented a new method to assess SUHI intensity, and then applied it in China. The results indicated that: (1) compared with other methods, this new method has some merits like higher accuracy, fewer operational steps, and higher portability. It enables accurate, semi-automated assessment of SUHI intensity at the regional scale. (2) SUHI effect exists in 81.02% of the cities in China. These cities were mainly concentrated in southeastern China, which presented the significant characteristic of spatial agglomeration. (3) Urban-rural differences in relative humidity, vegetation coverage, evapotranspiration, waterbody coverage, and the number of industrial enterprises are the main driving factors for the SUHI effect in China. Furthermore, there are significant interactions among these driving factors. (4) The spatial heterogeneity of the influence directions and intensities of many driving factors is obvious. Therefore, traditional regression models should be utilized more cautiously because they cannot capture the spatial heterogeneity of variables. (5) The hypothesis of "the larger the city size, the higher the SUHI intensity" is not valid, so more attention should be paid to small cities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]