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Climate change has become one of the most challenging issues facing the world. Chinese government has realized the importance of energy conservation and prevention of the climate changes for sustainable development of China's economy and set targets for CO2 emissions reduction in China. In China industry contributes 84.2% of the total CO2 emissions, especially manufacturing industries. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity (MP) index are the widely used mathematical techniques to address the relative efficiency and productivity of a group of homogenous decision making units, e.g. industries or countries. However, in many real applications, especially those related to energy efficiency, there are often undesirable outputs, e.g. the pollutions, waste and CO2 emissions, which are produced inevitably with desirable outputs in the production. This paper introduces a novel Malmquist-Luenberger productivity (MLP) index based on directional distance function (DDF) to address the issue of productivity evolution of DMUs in the presence of undesirable outputs. The new RAM (Range-adjusted measure)-based global MLP index has been applied to evaluate CO2 emissions reduction in Chinese light manufacturing industries. Recommendations for policy makers have been discussed.

How to improve environmental quality and achieve high-quality development of economy have become important challenges for China in the new era. Based on the KLEMS framework, this paper analyzes the relationship between environmental regulation, factor substitution, and energy-saving effect by using panel structure vector autoregression model and panel data of China industry from 2004 to 2014. The following conclusions are drawn:(1) China's environmental regulation can promote the substitution of capital to energy, however, benefit of this substitution in the long run is greater than that in the short run. (2) Only in the long run can China's environmental regulations have significant energy-saving effect, technological innovation is the main reason for the improvement of energy-saving effect of environmental regulation. (3) China's environmental regulation will not significantly improve the structure of capital, which makes the economic benefits low. Finally, the paper discusses the possible ways to improve China's environmental regulation from the aspects of forming a scientific environmental supervision system, improving energy pricing mechanism and capital structure.

Methanol is considered as one of the potential materials for fossil-based fuels because of its available applications in the fields of fuels and chemical materials. China has become the biggest methanol production country since 2006; hence, analysing the consumption, production and transportation of methanol in China has great importance. In the present article, the current status of methanol from production to consumption in China has been systematically described. Chinese industry and statistics data are introduced to analyse and discuss the total and segmental methanol amount in both production and consumption. In China, most of the methanol is primarily consumed in the synthesis of formaldehyde, alternative fuels and acetic acid, with the corresponding percentages of 35.0%, 33.0% and 8.0%. In 2011, about 22.27 million tons of methanol was generated on site, of which, 63.7%, 23.0% and 11.3% were produced by coal, natural gas and coke-oven gas, respectively. As regards transportation, approximately 82.6% of methanol was transported by overland freight, 9.0% by sea and the rest 8.4% by train.

Shortages of water and geographically uneven distribution of coal and water pose great challenges to sustainable development of the coal industry in China. In this paper, we illustrate the major challenges existing in the coal industry from a supply chain viewpoint, and propose technical and policy suggestions to address them. First, we provide quantitative information about water withdrawal, consumption, waste water recycling and treatment and pollution from coal mining, preparation, to final conversion for China's power generation and coal-to-chemical industry. We then analyze scenarios of water use in China's coal industry between 2020 and 2030. Our results show that water issues are becoming increasingly severe constraints for coal development in China, especially in North and West China, where water is more scarce and ecological systems are more vulnerable than other regions. Without implementing effective water-saving measures or regulations the water demand in the coal industry could dramatically increase and probably exceed China's water supply capacity in the near-term future, bringing substantial uncertainty to sustainable development of China's energy economy. We also illustrate that coal-fired power generation, with appropriate technical improvement and proper policy supports, has the greatest potential for water savings in the coal industry. Our conclusions also underscore the importance of expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy in China so as to limit the country's dependence on coal.

For Chinese industry, the costs of different energy consumption abatement scenarios are evaluated by the method of directional distance function. These scenarios are based on the combinations of regulation strategies and allocation alternatives—the former are sectors and provinces, and the latter include the five principles of average, intensity share, absolute share, discriminatory absolute and discriminatory intensity. For all the scenarios, the quantitative impacts in terms of output potential loss are calculated and compared. Due to less output potential loss for all the allocation alternatives, the sector regulation strategy is shown to be more effective than the province regulation strategy. It is also demonstrated that, among all the scenarios considered, the sector regulation based on the intensity share principle and the province regulation based on the absolute share principle are the two optimal. The performances of energy abatement allocation of the 11th and 12th Five Year Plans of China are assessed against the simulated scenarios.

Based on chemical exergy as an objective measure for the chemical deviation between the emission and the environment, a unifying assessment is carried out for major environmental emissions covering COD, ammonia nitrogen, SO 2 , soot, dust, NO x and solid waste by Chinese industry over 1997–2006, with emphasis on the sectoral and regional levels in 2006. Of the total emission in exergy up to 274.1 PJ in 2006, 67.7% is estimated from waste gases, 29.9% from waste water and 2.4% from solid waste. Five of 40 sectors and 12 of 30 regions are responsible for 72.7% and 65.5% of the total emission, respectively. SO 2 is the leading emission type in 9 sectors and 25 regions, and COD in another 28 sectors and 5 regions. Some pollution-intensive sectors such as Production and Distribution of Electric Power and Heat Power and Manufacture of Paper and Paper Products , and western and inland regions such as Guangxi and Ningxia with high emission intensities are identified. By clustering and disjoint principal component analysis with intensities of emissions and fuel coal use as variables, three principal components are extracted, and four statistically significant clusters are pinpointed in the sectoral and regional analysis. Corresponding policy-making implications are addressed.

For the Chinese industry as the mainstay of the national economy and dominant energy user and carbon emitter, an integrative assessment is performed from major energy policy perspectives of energy security, energy efficiency and carbon emission. Extensive systems indicators, including oil dependence ratio, average oil growth rate; indices of energy diversity, of carbonization and of oil growth risk; ratios of energy use to output, to value added and to compensation for laborers; ratios of carbon emission to output, to value added and to compensation for laborers, are devised to assess the Chinese industry 2002–2007 with most recent statistics availability. Combined indicators are identified by sparse principle component analysis to characterize sector performances. The industrial sectors are classified into five clusters and the main features of each cluster are pinpointed using fuzzy clustering algorithm. Concrete results facilitate comparisons of sectors to enable more accurate policy recommendations.

This paper examines CO2 emissions embodied in Japan–China trade. Besides directly quantifying the flow of CO2 emissions between the two countries by using a traditional input–output (IO) model, this study also estimates the effect of bilateral trade to CO2 emissions by scenario analysis. The time series of quantifications indicate that CO2 emissions embodied in exported goods from Japan to China increased overall from 1990 to 2000. The exported CO2 emissions from China to Japan greatly increased in the first half of the 1990s. However, by 2000, the amount of emissions had reduced from 1995 levels. Regardless, there was a net export of CO2 emissions from China to Japan during 1990–2000. The scenario comparison shows that the bilateral trade has helped the reduction of CO2 emissions. On average, the Chinese economy was confirmed to be much more carbon-intensive than Japan. The regression analysis shows a significant but not perfect correlation between the carbon intensities at the sector level of the two countries. In terms of CO2 emission reduction opportunities, most sectors of Chinese industry could benefit from learning Japanese technologies that produce lower carbon intensities.

Energy issues receive more and more attention these days. And it is considered that technological progress is an essential approach to save energy. This essay is to analyze the relation between energy intensity and technological progress by Cobb–Douglas production function in which energy, labor, capital and technological progress are taken as independent variables. It proves that the growth of output per capital and output per labor will increase energy intensity while technological progress will decrease energy intensity. Empirical research on Chinese industry is used here to indicate technological progress greatly decreases energy intensity. Because of the interferences of Asian financial crisis, there is something abnormal in the data. So in the empirical research, average weaken buffer operator (ABWO) is applied to weaken the interference of Asian financial crisis to the fixed assets, energy and value added. The results of the empirical research show that technological progress decreases energy intensity of Chinese industry an average of 6.3% every year in China.

We estimate the amount of carbon dioxide embodied in bi-lateral trade between the UK and China in 2004. Developing and applying the method of Shui and Harriss [2006. Tile role of CO2 embodiment in US-China trade. Energy Policy 34, 4063-4068], the most recently available data on trade and CO2 emissions have been updated and adjusted to calculate the CO2 emissions embodied in the commodities traded between China and the UK. It was found that through trade with China, the UK reduced its CO2 emissions by approximately 11% in 2004, compared with a non-trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the UK. In addition, due to the greater carbon-intensity and relatively less efficient production processes of Chinese industry, China-UK trade resulted in an additional 117 Mt of CO2 to global CO2 emissions in the same one year period, compared with a non-trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the UK. This represents an additional 19% to the reported national CO2 emissions of the UK (555 Mt/y in 2004) and 0.4% of global emissions. These findings suggest that, through international trade, very significant environmental impacts can be shifted front one country to another, and that international trade can (but does not necessarily) result in globally increased greenhouse gas emissions. These results are additional to the environmental consequences of transporting goods, which are not robustly quantified here. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Two efficiency measures of Chinese industry were estimated at the provincial level from 1994 to 2002, using a directional output distance function. One is a traditional efficiency measure that considers only desirable output, while the other considers both desirable and undesirable outputs simultaneously. A comparison of the two measures revealed that efficiency levels are biased only if desirable output is considered. Five coastal provinces/municipalities that have attracted a large amount of foreign direct investment are found to be the most efficient when only desirable output is considered, and also when both desirable and undesirable outputs are considered. However, omitting undesirable output tends to lead to an overestimate of industrial efficiency levels in Shandong, Sichuan, and Hebei provinces. We also found that a province's industrial structure has significant effects on its efficiency levels.

Low-energy efficiency and environmental pollution have long been taken as key problems of Chinese industry, although a number of command-and-control and economic instruments have been adopted in the last few decades. In this paper, policy and legislation development for voluntary agreements were summarized. The voluntary agreements pilot project in two iron and steel companies in Shandong Province as well as other cases were analyzed. In order to identify the existing problems in Chinese cases, comparison was made between China and industrialized countries in the practices of energy efficiency voluntary agreements. Based on the analysis, detained recommendations, including the use of supporting policies for voluntary agreements, were raised. It is expected that voluntary agreements could play a more important role in energy efficiency improvement of Chinese industry.

We analysed three different sets of energy consumption and output value data using a Laspeyres index method to determine the relative roles of structural shift and real intensity change in China's industrial sector between 1980 and 1990. Contrary to prevailing views, we find that real intensity change (economic intensity of industrial subsectors, composed of physical intensity change and other non-structural factors) accounted for most of the large apparent drop in industrial energy intensity in the 1980s. Comparison of economic and physical energy intensity indicators suggests that physical intensity was not the only major cause of real intensity change.