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The energy transition is at the core of sustainable development as it helps to combat global warming and climate change. Similarly, carbon markets also support the climate change mitigation. Therefore, by realizing the potential role of clean energy and carbon markets in ensuring environmental sustainability, this study analyzes the spillovers and connectedness between the environment (global carbon) and renewable energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel, and fuel cell). The empirical analysis is conducted by applying the novel "TVP-VAR" connectedness framework of Balcilar et al. (2021) on the daily data over the period from August 1, 2014, to February 4, 2022. The findings show that solar and biofuel appear as the highest net shock transmitter among alternative renewable sources while global carbon is shown as the net receiver of shocks. The largest transmission of shocks to global carbon is observed from wind followed by solar. Although these findings support the connectedness between renewable energy and the environment, however this connectedness is influenced by economic crises such as the oil crisis and pandemic crisis. During COVID-19, the fuel cell was the highest transmitter of shocks. The results are important for policy formulation, investment, and portfolio management as they provide insights into the interconnectedness and help in boosting climate actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying what developing countries need to address climate change is of great significance for promoting North-South and South-South climate cooperation and implementing the Paris Agreement. In this study, based on questionnaires surveys of 143 representative government officials, experts, scholars, and industry engineers from developing countries who have been engaged in climate change, the current situation and priority requirements of developing countries in terms of policies and actions, technology, financing, capacity building, and international cooperation for addressing climate change were systematically analyzed. We found that 1. Most developing countries have already taken national general actions and sectoral and industry-level actions focus on renewable or clean energy, waste management and recycling, sustainable urban transport and forestry carbon sequestration. 2. The demands for climate change mitigation are mainly concentrated in technology and capital, and the priority areas are energy and electricity and waste management; for climate change adaptation, the demands differ significantly among regions. 3. Developing countries show high preferences for emission reduction and energy-saving technology, solar energy, wind energy and bio-energy, whereas a low preference for supercritical and ultra supercritical power units, nuclear energy and tidal energy. 4. Agroforestry, energy conservation and efficiency, renewable energy and water resources are priority areas for climate change financing. 5. Building institutional capacity, improving technology R&D networks and institutions, formulation and implementation ability of planning schemes, and data statistics and verification are priority areas needed for capacity building. To better address climate change, developing countries need to establish and improve information exchange channels or platforms and strengthen South-South climate cooperation while optimizing the allocation of climate change resources according to the priority needs. • Developing countries' needs to address climate change are systematically analyzed. • Priority areas in terms of technology, capital, capacity building are identified. • Demands for climate change mitigation are concentrated in technology and capital. • Priority technology needs are energy-saving, solar, wind and biomass energy technology. • Need to strengthen South-South climate cooperation according to the priority needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the energy and climate policy commitments of the European Union, the following targets have been foreseen up to 2030: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of 40%, improving the energy conversion efficiency of 27%, and producing 27% of the energy from renewable energy sources. Nowadays, thanks to the development of reliable and efficient technologies, several possibilities exist to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, such as wind power, solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass. In the Alpine region, biomass can play a key role for achieving the objectives foreseen by the EU policy strategy. In the last few years, due to the high available potentials of residues from forestry operations and sawmill processing, the Alpine region witnessed the development of centralized biomass district heating plants. The aim of the present study is to assess the environmental impacts of 18 biomass-based plants located in the Alpine region using a Life Cycle Assessment approach and to analyse the current market destination of the wood residues. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews with the stakeholders of the forest-wood supply chain (managers of biomass-based plant, sawmills, forest owners and enterprises). From the environmental point of view, the results of the Life Cycle Assessment (global climate change impact: 5–90 gCO 2 MJ−1) show that the "critical points" in the forest-wood supply chain are: the transport phase (1–54 gCO 2 MJ−1) and the wood processing phase (6–36 gCO 2 MJ−1). The results provided by Life Cycle Assessment can be used to increase the scientific knowledge of the environmental impacts related to the biomass conversion technology and to underline the weak points of the forest-wood supply chain. Furthermore, these results can support the decision makers in defining climate change mitigation strategies at regional and local level. • LCA is a key tool to highlight the environmental critical points of the bioenergy system. • Feedstock origin and biomass-based plants size affects the environmental impacts. • Short wood supply chain has a key role to reduce environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]