Search

China has been the world’s largest producer and consumer of paper products. In the context of the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals”, China’s papermaking industry which is traditionally a high energy-consuming and high-emissions industry, desperately needs a nationally appropriate low-carbon development path. From the consumption-side perspective, this paper calculates the CO2 emissions of China’s papermaking industry from 2000 to 2019 by using carbon emission nuclear algorithm, grain-straw ratio, first-order attenuation method, and STIRFDT decomposition model, etc., to further explore the core stages and basic patterns affecting the industry’s carbon peaking. The results show that the total CO2 emissions of China’s papermaking industry showed an upward trend from 2000–2013, stable from 2013–2017, and a steady but slight decline from 2017–2019. Meanwhile, the total CO2 emissions of the full life cycle of paper products in China have decreased to a certain extent in the raw material acquisition, pulp, and paper making and shipping stages, with only the waste paper disposal stage showing a particular upward trend. We find that from 2000 to 2019, China’s CO2 emissions in the pulping and papermaking stage of paper products accounted for 68% of the total emissions in the whole life cycle, of which 59% was caused by coal consumption. Moreover, the scenario prediction shows that improving the energy structure and increasing the waste paper recovery rate can reduce the CO2 emissions of the industry, and it is more significant when both work. Based on this and the four core stages of CO2 emissions of the papermaking industry we proposed ways to promote CO2 emissions peaking of China’s paper products.

In 2021, under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets of China, Shanghai declared that it would peak carbon emissions by 2025. This would require the formulation of specific and effective implementation paths of low-carbon development. This paper conducts a dynamic study on Shanghai’s carbon dioxide emissions by establishing a system dynamic model of Shanghai’s economy-energy-carbon emission. It studies the implementation path of Shanghai’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets by scenario analysis. The results show that under the Baseline Scenario, Shanghai’s carbon emissions will peak by 2035, which is later than what the government promised. However, the Carbon-Peak and Deep-Low-Carbon Scenarios suggest that Shanghai can achieve the carbon peaking target in 2025, and the CO2 emission intensity will drop by 89.2% and 92.4%, respectively, by 2060. Improving the industrial energy utilization efficiency and the proportion of clean electricity is crucial for Shanghai to reduce carbon emissions. The transportation sector will become the main sector of urban energy consumption in the late stage of carbon neutralization. Without considering carbon sinks, the costs of achieving carbon neutrality for the three scenarios are approximately 5.68 billion, 2.79 billion and 1.96 billion USD, respectively. Finally, this paper puts forward relevant suggestions on promoting the transformation of energy structure, and strengthening specific emission reduction measures of various departments, to provide references for Shanghai’s policy formulation.

Under the influence of the dual policies of sustainable economic development and the national dual-carbon target, the establishment of an environmental protection department for the treatment of heavily polluting industries is imminent, and the country has launched pollution control policies and regulations to restrict the emission rights of heavily polluting industries. Therefore, this paper focuses on whether the restriction of emission rights in key industries has reduced carbon emissions. To achieve this, this paper uses panel data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 and adopts a two-way fixed-effects DID model to systematically analyze the impact of the key pollution industry governance policies launched by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on CO2 emissions in 2017. And further analyze the role of variables such as green technology innovation patents and energy efficiency using this model, while parallel trend tests and placebo tests, and related policies are used to ensure the robustness of the regression results. This paper reveals that: (1) The heavy pollution industry governance policy implemented in 2017 can effectively reduce CO2 emissions in the cities of the treated group, and the effect is more significant in the year of policy implementation; (2) Green utility patents and energy-use efficiency are the effective mediating mechanisms to reduce CO2 emissions; (3) Over time, the effect of heavy pollution industry governance policy on CO2 emissions gradually decreases; (4) The reliability of the baseline regression results of this paper is proved by the use of parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and tests excluding the influence factors such as relevant policies in the same period. Therefore, the key polluting industries treatment policy launched by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2017 under the recent dual-carbon policy development goals formulated by China, can effectively reduce carbon emissions; however, in the future economic development process, the government should give more consideration to the continuity of the policy impact and its coherence on economic development when implementing the policy.

The reasonable spatial layout of industries is crucial to carbon reduction and high-quality economic development. This paper establishes a research paradigm for optimizing the industrial spatial layout and high-quality development in the context of carbon peaking. Based on the perspectives of industrial transfer, the static agglomeration index, dynamic agglomeration index, industrial gradient coefficient, and low-carbon competitiveness index are used to analyze industrial agglomeration, competition status, and low-carbon competitiveness. Taking the Great Bend of the Yellow River (the Bend) as an example, we analyze the current situation in industrial development, guide the orderly transfer of industry, and optimize the spatial layout of industries to achieve high-quality economic development. The results show that resource- and capital-intensive industries have obvious advantages in agglomeration, competitive edge, and low-carbon competitiveness, while labor- and technology-intensive industries have weak advantages. The spatial layout of agglomerated industries was analyzed across four types of factor-intensive industries; these industries are the focus of industrial layout in the Bend. Promising industries were observed in all types of factor-intensive industries except capital-intensive industries, and these industries should be cultivated carefully in all provinces. Scale industries were mainly observed in resource- and capital-intensive industries; these industries should be transformed and upgraded to control the total amount and intensity of carbon emissions. The study’s findings provide a basis for optimizing the spatial layout of industries and reducing carbon emissions through industrial transfer in the context of carbon peaking. The relevant industries should be transformed and upgraded to control the total amount and intensity of carbon emissions.

The development of digital technology provides new governance methods for achieving the goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”. Since 2013, the pilot construction of smart cities in China has strengthened the government’s digital governance capabilities and significantly influenced the reduction in carbon emissions. This paper provides empirical evidence for the driving effect of digitization on carbon emission reduction based on panel data from 353 cities in China. The results show that digital governance based on smart city construction pilots has significantly reduced regional carbon emissions, and the implementation of smart city construction pilots has reduced regional carbon emissions by an average of 6.6%, and this effect is sustainable over the long term. The increase in the level of digitalization has significantly promoted carbon emission reduction. From the perspective of the impact path, regional green patent innovation has played a significant partial intermediary effect in the process of digitization-driven carbon emission reduction. From a micro-mechanism standpoint, digitization plays a significant role in promoting the green innovation of high-polluting listed companies.