Search

Improving total factor carbon emission efficiency (TCE) is the key to achieving carbon emission reduction targets while ensuring economic growth. In this paper, the global Malmquist index based on the SBM model is used to measure TCE of 283 cities in China from 2011 to 2019. On this basis, this paper uses the spatial econometric model and intermediary effect model to empirically analyze the impact of industrial co-agglomeration on TCE and its transmission mechanism. Furthermore, considering the differences in geographical location and resource endowment among regions, this paper analyzes the heterogeneous effect of industrial collaboration agglomeration on TCE in different regions and cities. The results show that: (1) Industrial co-agglomeration can improve TCE, and its main transmission channel is technological innovation. (2) Industrial co-agglomeration has a positive spatial spillover effect. Industrial co-agglomeration in one region can improve the TCE in the surrounding regions. (3) Industrial co-agglomeration of cities with different geographic locations and resource endowments has a heterogeneous effect on TCE. Regarding geographical heterogeneity, the industrial co-agglomeration in the eastern region has the greatest promoting effect on TCE, followed by the central region. However, the impact of industrial co-agglomeration in the western region on TCE is not significant. Regarding resource endowment heterogeneity, the industrial co-agglomeration in non-resource-based cities has a greater promoting effect on TCE than that in resource-based cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the gradual increase of international willingness to reach the carbon peak and carbon neutrality, this paper decomposes the influencing factors of China's carbon emission changes from 2008 to 2019 using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model (LMDI), and analyzes the contribution amount and rate of each influencing factor. The results found that: for the whole country, the cumulative growth of carbon emissions during the study period is about 416,484.47 (104 tons), among which the economic growth effect plays a major role in promoting, with a cumulative contribution rate of 284.16%; The increase in regulation intensity and the optimization of industrial structure, however, suppress carbon emissions well, with a cumulative contribution rate of about – 199.21% and − 64.75%, respectively, during the study period. For economic regions, the cumulative influence direction of each driver is the same as that of the whole country, while the population size effect in the northeast economic region and the regulation input effect in the eastern coastal economic region act in the opposite direction from other economic regions, and the carbon emission reduction direction of the energy intensity effect varies from one economic region to another. Accordingly, this paper proposes policy recommendations to enhance regulatory intensity, optimize industrial and energy consumption structure, implement localized emission reduction strategies, and promote synergistic emission reduction in economic zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of distributed energy resources and natural gas power generation, multi-energy microgrid (MEMG) is considered as a critical technology to increase the penetration of renewable energy and achieve the target of carbon emission reduction. Therefore, this paper proposes a low-carbon economic dispatch model for MEMG to minimize the daily operation cost by considering integrated demand response (IDR) and multistep carbon trading. Specifically, IDR operation includes shifting of shiftable electric load, adjusting of flexible thermal load and cooling load, and it is employed to decrease operation cost. Besides, the multistep carbon trading means that different carbon trading prices correspond to different carbon trading volumes, which is applied to stringently restrict carbon emission. The simulation results show that the proposed model can effectively reduce the carbon emission while greatly decrease the operation cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the main means to dovetail the domestic system with international rules, institutional openness is the key to deepening participation in the global economic governance system, breaking through energy and carbon emission constraints, and achieving green and sustainable economic development. Taking 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 as the research sample, this paper uses the establishment of Pilot Free Trade Zones as a quasi-natural experiment to systematically identify and test the actual impact of institutional openness on urban carbon emissions in China through the asymptotic difference in difference method, instrumental variables method, spatial econometric model, and mediating effects model. Meanwhile, technological progress is used as the entry point to analyze the intrinsic mechanism of action by adopting digital transformation oriented to efficiency improvement and green innovation capability oriented to R&D innovation as the differentiated perspective. It is found that institutional openness significantly suppresses urban CO2 emissions, and there is a certain heterogeneity and spatial spillover effect of this effect. Further study finds that institutional openness achieves carbon emission reduction through technological progress. The study aims to find new institutional innovation and development paths for low carbon development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation and green innovation are powerful initiatives to achieve carbon peaking, carbon neutrality targets and high-quality economic development. Using a sample of high energy-consuming listed enterprises from 2012 to 2021, a double fixed-effect model is constructed to verify the effect of green innovation on the carbon emission reduction performance of high energy-consuming enterprises, and digital transformation is used as a moderating variable to analyze the inner mechanism of green innovation affecting the carbon emission reduction performance of high energy-consuming enterprises under the effect of digital transformation. The empirical results show that green innovation can significantly improve the carbon emission reduction performance of energy-consuming enterprises, while digital transformation positively moderates the effect of green innovation on the carbon emission reduction performance of energy-consuming enterprises. When considering the industry heterogeneity, the moderation effect of digital transformation is significant in the chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing industry and the electricity and heat production and supply industry, but the petroleum processing and coking and nuclear fuel processing industry, the non-metallic mineral products industry, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry and the non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry are not yet significantly affected by green innovation and digital transformation. The findings of the study provide empirical evidence to promote the improvement of carbon emission reduction performance of energy-intensive enterprises in China and to achieve the "double carbon" target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]