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This editorial discusses the dynamics and prospects of the energy market and energy transition. It emphasizes the global shift towards renewable energy due to government initiatives and technological advancements. However, challenges to the transition process exist, such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global energy demand and fossil fuel prices. The editorial highlights the varying dynamics of the energy market and transition process at the national and firm levels. The collection of research papers covers topics such as renewable energy subsidies in China, efficiency of hydropower electricity generation, and the impact of oil prices on consumer and producer prices. It also explores behavioral economics and the role of natural gas in achieving urban ecological civilization. The editorial acknowledges the contributions of the authors, reviewers, and journal editors in making this collection possible. [Extracted from the article]

The double-carbon goal proposal has made it imperative for China's power industry to address the urgent issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and promoting their clean and efficient use. A new approach to achieving peak-shaving and improving grid stability is the combination of carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities with coal-fired power plants, which offers a strategic solution for mitigating climate change. Nonetheless, the viability of CCS retrofitting for coal-fired power plants in China hinges on its economic feasibility. The technical characteristics, economic analysis, and policy implications of clean coal-fired power plant equipped with CCS (CCP-CCS) technologies are evaluated in the paper. A comparison of the characteristics of different clean coal power generation technologies, including capacity, efficiency, coal consumption, and environmental performance, is conducted. The paper analyzes the economic feasibility of four typical clean coal power generation technologies, namely Supercritical (SC), Ultra-supercritical (USC), Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), and Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB), both with and without CCS, using the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model. Financial parameters, investment parameters, operation and maintenance parameters, tax parameters, and capacity parameters are all considered in the LCOE model. The results indicate: (1) If CCS is not installed, the LCOE of USC power plants is the lowest at 0.37 yuan/kWh, while the LCOE of IGCC power plants is the highest at 0.44 yuan/kWh. (2) If CCS is installed, the LCOE of CFB units is the highest at 0.74 yuan/kWh, while the LCOE of USC units is the lowest at 0.60 yuan/kWh. (3) In sensitivity analysis, coal prices have the most significant impact on LCOE, followed by expected annual operating hours, while the cost of carbon capture equipment is the least sensitive. (4) The cost of retrofitting CCS on clean coal-fired power plants (CCP) is currently high, with an LCOE increase of around 40 to 70%, which is comparable to that of renewable energy electricity. This paper presents policy recommendations, including preferential loans, tax incentives, and R&D funding, to promote the development of CCP in China based on the economic analysis results and challenges faced by CCP. Additionally, the paper proposes relevant policy implications such as preferential loan policies, a diversified financing system, R&D and innovation, and the establishment of a carbon trading market for CCS in China to provide practical guidance for the promotion of CCP-CCS technologies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's green financial pilot policies (GFPPs) are an important start to build a green financial system in China. It is also an important part of achieving the "dual-carbon" goal. This paper calculates China's total factor energy efficiency (TFEE), analyzes the impact of GFPPs on TFEE, and explores the conduction mechanism. The results show that the relationship between GFPPs and TFEE in the pilot areas is statistically significant. The GFPP mainly improves the TFEE through the green innovation effect and the optimization of the energy structure. The GFPP has a significant effect on TFEE enhancement in eastern coastal cities, non-old traditional industrial cities, and non-resource-based cities with high initial energy. China should continue to deepen the pilot work of green finance, formulate differentiated green finance policies, and ensure green technology innovation. This study provides empirical evidence for further optimization of green finance and energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the carbon neutrality goals set post-Paris Climate Conference (COP21), this study delves into the relationship between green technology innovations, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions in China, spanning the period of 1990 to 2021. The objective of this paper is to creatively present the idea of a low-carbon digital economy from the viewpoint of digital technology. Utilizing the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model, we scrutinize this relationship, employing unit-root testing to verify the integrative attributes of the variables, inclusive of structural break data. Further analysis using the bootstrap Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing method corroborates the relationship between these key variables. The study reveals unidirectional co-integration over time among green technology innovations, renewable and non-renewable energy, per capita income, population, and CO2 emissions as per the Granger causality test. Interestingly, our findings suggest that while green technology innovation, per capita income, and renewable energy contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions, non-renewable energy consumption and population growth exacerbate them. These insights offer valuable guidance for policymakers in formulating comprehensive strategies to enhance environmental quality through the promotion of renewable energy and green technology innovations, with a specific emphasis on the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new coronavirus (COVID-19) has generated an unprecedented degree of social and economic impact on the planet, but few researchers have explored the repercussion of COVID-19 for sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), especially from the perspective of Chinese businesses. This paper is the first to outline the priority changes of both SD and CSR over the period of COVID-19 incidence in China. An online questionnaire survey of 1161 owners and managers of Chinese companies was conducted, and respondents were asked to score the priorities of their company over the pre, during and post COVID-19 periods. The research was carried out at the end of the first COVID-19 wave in China but during the period of lockdown in some parts of the country. It was found that there was a priority change regarding three dimensions of sustainable development and 13 aspects of CSR. While the social dimension of SD was prioritized during and post COVID-19, the environmental dimension was the only one deemed to be less important and less prioritized over the longer term after the pandemic. The top three short-term CSR priorities were having in place a workplace health and safety plan, engaging in philanthropic activities and protecting biodiversity, and the top three longer-term CSR priorities were job creation, protecting biodiversity and having in place a workplace health and safety plan. Environmental protection and using clean energy were not reported as a CSR priority. The paper concludes that China's recovery mode cannot be called 'green' and suggests ways this could be changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of renewable energy has become an important measure for countries worldwide to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and achieve sustainable development. This trend may have implications for green total factor productivity (GTFP), which represents the economic growth efficiency in terms of resource and energy use. However, the current research on the impact of renewable energy development (RED) on GTFP based on China's provincial data is still insufficient, and it has not yet integrated multiple factors such as economic, social, environmental, and technological aspects to jointly analyze potential nonlinear effects. This paper first calculates the GTFP of 30 provinces in China using a global super-efficiency slack-based measure model. Then, a two-way fixed effects model and a panel threshold regression (PTR) model were used to explore the linear and nonlinear effects of RED on GTFP. The results show that: First, RED has a significant positive effect on GTFP, which remains in effect after a sequence of robustness tests including endogenous treatment. For every 1% increase in RED, GTFP increases by 0.025%–0.039%. Second, the contribution of RED to GTFP shows a clear characteristic of diminishing marginal benefits, with the impact coefficient decreasing from 0.058% to 0.022%. Third, the higher the level of economic activity, social conditions, environmental protection, and technological advancement, the greater the favorable impact of RED on GTFP. The range of coefficient changes under the influence of economic- and social-level factors reaches 0.012%–0.143%, while the range of coefficient changes at the technological and environmental levels is only 0.026%–0.057%. Based on the above conclusions, some policy implications related to the development of renewable energy are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an extended Solow decomposition framework with a finite mixture model, which is incorporated to account for heterogeneous regimes. The model decomposes green economy into two different components, namely, green total factor productivity and factor endowment. Then, we reestimate the growth sources of green economy and especially the importance of energy consumption in China's provincial industries over 2000-2015. The empirical results suggest that there are three green growth regimes across Chinese provinces for overall economy and different industries. Specifically, some provinces switch regime over time, while the others maintain the same regime. Furthermore, when controlling for regime heterogeneity, the contribution of factor endowment decreases and that of green total factor productivity increases. With respect to energy consumption, traditional methods overestimate its importance in the primary and tertiary industries and underestimate that in the secondary industry. In addition, the reliance of China's overall economy and the secondary and tertiary industries on energy consumption decreases as economy develops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of carbon neutrality target, renewable energy sources have been transforming from "supplementary energy" to "main energy", which have promoted the green and low-carbon transition of global energy supply system. In-depth analyzing the spatial patterns and driving mechanisms of renewable energy expansion are of significance for optimizing the spatial layout of clean power, and avoiding the phenomenon of wind and solar power curtailment. In this paper, we proposed an ensemble learning model to examine the nonlinear effects of physical geography, resource endowment, and socio-economic factors on solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity at the prefecture-level city scale in China. Using the city-level multi-sources geospatial big data, we extensively collected a total of 175 related explanatory variables and cumulative installed capacity of solar PV power for 295 prefecture-level cities of China. The recursive feature elimination algorithm (SVM-REF) is firstly used to extract the optimal feature subset of urban PV capacity from multi-dimensional features variables. Furthermore, three advanced machine learning models (random forest, decision tree, extreme gradient boosting) are developed to identify the key influencing factors and nonlinear driving effect of urban solar PV power expansion in China. The results show that China's PV installation capacity is highly concentrated in Northern and Northwest parts of China, with the occupancy over 70% in 2019. Moreover, the XGBoost model has the best prediction accuracy (R2 = 0.97) among three methods. We also found that total amount of urban water resources, average solar radiation, and population density are the most important controlling factors for urban solar PV capacity expansion in China, with contribution of 35.6%, 17.7%, and 13.3%, respectively. We suggested that urban solar PV layout mode in China is recommended to gradually shift from resource orientation to the "resource-environment-demand" comprehensive orientation. The paper provides a replicable, scalable machine learning models for simulating solar PV power capacity at the prefecture-level city scale, and serves as a motivation for decision-making reference of the macro siting optimization and sustainable development of China's green power industry. • This study examines the impact of high-dimensional features variables on urban solar energy development. • Over 70% of solar PV installation capacity is concentrated in Northern and Northwest parts of China. • Water resources, solar radiation, population density have significant impact on solar PV distribution. • Solar PV distribution in China should shift from resource orientation to the comprehensive orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important policy in the current global response to climate change and has been widely recognized by various industries. In the process of promoting carbon neutrality, new energy plays a pivotal role. In this study, the definition and connotation of new energy and its role and specific operation in the energy transition of carbon neutrality are firstly explained. Promoting new energy development requires significant green and low-carbon investments. Taking China as an example, this paper analyzes the opportunities brought by the carbon neutral process to the field of green finance and analyzes the main features and development trends of green finance in China at present. Then this paper proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the development of green finance in China in terms of improving the green financial policy system, enhancing the supply capacity of green financial services, and optimizing the supporting environment for green financial development. Finally, this paper analyzes the measures and experiences of the United States in promoting low-carbon development and proposes countermeasures for China's low-carbon development on the basis of the five major relationships that need attention in China's carbon-neutral process. That is, strengthen the top-level design and improve the regulatory policy system; optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy; optimize the industrial structure and reduce energy consumption in key industries; build a complete low-carbon technology system and promote low-carbon technology research and development and demonstration applications, and encourage local conditions to explore low-carbon development paths. The development of green finance can contribute to the advancement of new energy technologies, thus contributing to the achievement of carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green total factor productivity is a vital measure of sustainable progress, holding immense implications for attaining both economic growth and environmental preservation in a mutually beneficial manner. Focusing on green total factor productivity, this paper examines its nexus with low-carbon energy technology using the Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments (IV-GMM) model, based on a panel dataset in China during 2005–2018. This paper also examines the asymmetric impact of low-carbon energy technology on green total factor productivity. In addition, the moderating and mediating effects are checked. The main findings are that (1) low-carbon energy technology is a promoting factor for green total factor productivity. (2) Low-carbon energy technology exerts a more prominent marginal impact on green total factor productivity when green total factor productivity is at higher quantile levels. (3) Renewable energy generation not only drives green total factor productivity directly, but also further increases the promotion effect of low-carbon energy technology on green total factor productivity, showing a positive moderating role. (4) Energy structure transition and industrial structure transition are two internal impact mechanisms between low-carbon energy technology and green total factor productivity. These findings suggest that the government can promote green total factor productivity development by developing policies related to low-carbon energy technology and fully releasing the effects of technology on sustainable development. • This paper assesses the level of low-carbon energy technology (LCET) in China. • This paper examines the effect of LCET on green total factor productivity (GTFP). • LCET plays a significant role in enhancing GTFP. • Renewable energy generation positively moderates the nexus between LCET and GTFP. • Energy structure transition and industrial structure transition are two mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ten years since committing to clean energy transition, China has formulated a large number of policies and programs to achieve some very ambitious targets. This paper argues that the dearth of empirical studies concerning the implementation of these new policies and programs has created a knowledge gap between official policy documents, which are vague and lacking in specifics, and official policy outcomes, which are unreliable. In particular, the merits and limitations of flexible implementation with regard to desirable outcomes need to be debated and clarified. This paper calls for more empirical investigation in four areas as a starting point: (1) the nature and extent of flexibility in the implementation; (2) implementation strategies and their impacts; (3) factors that shape the behavior of local officials responsible for implementation; and (4) the relationship between the central-local relation and policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time-varying dynamics of the transition to renewable energy reflect the effectiveness and efficiency of energy policy. This paper investigates renewable energy transition behavior in China using Markov regime-switching models. Two distinct phases, expansion and contraction, are identified based on the growth rates of renewable energy consumption share. We find that since China started its new-energy national strategy in 2005, there has been an extended period in which it has been in the expansion state, although it occasionally reverts to a contraction state. Intriguingly, we uncover that the timing of transition state changes can be explained by the changes in policy-related, market-based instruments and risk-related indexes. These findings present implications for policymakers in developing more precise and effective policies, that drives investment choices to align with the goal of a sustainable energy system. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To gain a deeper understanding of the intrinsic dynamic relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in China. This study employs panel cointegration and causality models, utilizing the SYS-GMM technique to assess the factors influencing economic growth in China's green finance sector from 2002 to 2022. The research explores the interactions among multiple variables related to the Chinese economic context, including economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, total natural resource rents, energy consumption, and environmental impact. While considering key factors that may cause structural disturbances in the time series analysis. The findings indicate the existence of long-term cointegration relationships among these variables, with positive correlations between economic growth and total natural resource rents, energy consumption, energy quantity, and ecological footprint. Results also show a bidirectional causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption and a unidirectional correlation between energy consumption and GDP growth. Additionally, energy intensity (EI) improvements supported by green finance are linked to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, with a coefficient of -1.933 (p < 0.05), underscoring the role of technological innovation. Further evaluations suggest that investments in renewable energy can promote economic growth, create job opportunities, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy-saving measures and green finance-supported technological innovations play crucial roles in improving energy intensity and reducing CO2 emissions. The study also underscores the importance of economic diversification to reduce dependence on natural resources and enhance economic stability. Future research should further explore the economic feasibility and environmental benefits of emerging technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), providing deeper insights into sustainable energy practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the background that the China government robustly advocates low carbon and green energy, China has turned to focus on natural gas, both production and consumption of which are soaring high these days and the role of which is gradually prominent in energy sources. But it also faces many problems. With the rapid development of natural gas in China, it has gradually formed a system of natural gas industry chain. With the aims to help promote more healthy and sustainable development of natural gas industry in the future, it is very valuable to think deeply about the past development process. This paper reviews and analyzes China's natural gas resources, pipeline layout, and industry development status. Based on China's specific conditions and resource characteristics, it analyzes China's future natural gas development opportunities. Simultaneously, the analysis shows China's natural gas production will reach 236.5 billion cubic meters by 2030 and the proportion of natural gas in the primary energy structure will reach about 15% in 2030. But in terms of current natural gas production, the supply gap is very large. Moreover, the dependence on foreign natural gas imports has continued to increase in recent years. Thus, China should continue to improve its natural gas layout and utilization system, increase investment in domestic natural gas exploration and development, strengthen core technology research, and improve its relevant laws and regulations in order to better maintain the rapid development of natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade-off between economic growth and ecological improvement has always become an important and difficult issue for many countries, especially for developing countries. Due to a long-term extensive economic growth pattern, the regional resource allocation deviates from the optimal, especially the existence of energy misallocation, which hinders the maximization of economic output. Therefore, considering the characteristics and heterogeneity of resource endowments in different regions and increasing renewable energy consumption, that is, promoting energy transition, is it capable of sustainable development under China's actual conditions? The exploration of the issue is a core step in the research of the impact of renewable energy on industrial green transformation. Based on the panel data of 30 regions in China from 2009 to 2016, this paper constructs a threshold model from the perspective of regional energy misallocation and empirically tests the nonlinear mechanism of renewable energy consumption to promote industrial green transformation. The results show that China's energy allocation efficiency is low, there is a certain misallocation phenomenon, and the improvement effect in recent years is not satisfactory. Further, the relationship between renewable energy consumption and industrial green transformation is not a simple linear relationship, but a double threshold effect due to regional energy misallocation. In areas with severe energy misallocation, renewable energy consumption does not have a significant boost to industrial green transformation. Finally, this paper proposes the policy enlightenment of promoting industrial green transformation from the aspects of performance evaluation, market reform, and factor flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to many government incentives, China has provided, at relatively low prices, a number of solar PV products to the world and enhanced domestic solar PV power. While China's growing solar PV industry has brought about both domestic and international environmental benefits, the provision of heavy subsidies has motivated the discussion of social and economic benefits and costs of this technology. Using the LCA approach, this paper performs an in-depth analysis on the environmental benefits and costs of this industry for the period of 2011–2016. Differing from existing literature, this paper broadens system boundaries to cover 11 stages of the solar PV industry life cycle, taking module sources and market directions of PV system into consideration, and quantifies the costs of environmental emissions of the industry by shadow pricing. The key finding of this study is that during 2011–2016 the total environment benefit was smaller than the total cost of China's solar PV industry. Meanwhile, coinciding with the rise of the domestic solar PV market, the resulting net environmental benefits have witnessed dramatic yearly growth. Policy implications and conclusions from findings are provided at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is now the world leader with green capital actually creating renewable energy technologies. We address the possibility of whether China can emerge a new ecological civilization, as well as become the global leader to reach climate security. In particular, China has the potential to implement a solar energy infrastructure in the deserts of the Middle East as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, mainly in the form of concentrated solar power. The creation of this renewable energy capacity could supply electricity to much of the world, as well as power the direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide with a permanent burial in the crust, in particular, using the ultramafic deposits in Oman. This realization would increase the chances of not breaching the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warming target of 1.5 ℃, of course only if coupled with the termination of utilizing fossil fuels as early as possible and their replacement with renewable energy supplies globally. In this context, our pioneering model establishes that coupling a DAC-driven drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide with a rapid increase in the renewable energy capacity is more than capable of producing enough clean energy to eliminate energy insecurity globally (to all 8–10 billion humans) and to provide energy for the drawdown for the rest of the 21st century, thereby reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to safe levels. This contingency will likely only be realized with a shift to demilitarization of the global economy. Likewise, this potential emergence of China as the global leader for climate security would likely inspire the push for a global Green New Deal to make this goal possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of regional water and energy consumption is of great significance to improving regional resource utilization. This paper analyzed the water and energy footprints in different provinces of China, considering regional economic levels. The results indicate: (1) both the largest water footprint and water footprint per capita were in Xinjiang and agriculture had the largest value; (2) Shandong was the largest energy consumer, Ningxia had the largest energy footprint per capita, and coal occupied the largest proportion for the top five energy footprint provinces; and (3) the resource input–output efficiencies in Beijing and Fujian were high, while water and energy consumption were low and gross regional product was high, compared with the average value of China. The situations in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia were opposite. The change of consumption pattern for each inhabitant, the adoption of water-saving technology, and an increase to water-saving awareness would be helpful to decrease regional water consumption. An increase of regional energy use efficiency and a change to reduced energy consumption would contribute to the decreasing of regional energy consumption. More attention should be paid to renewable and clean Energies. In addition to solution from the local perspective, the virtual water trade and the energy product trade may relieve regional resource pressure in some extent, and the possible influencing should be considered at the same time. This paper could provide suggestions for regional resource utilization and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • This paper summaries the present regulations and policies concerning M−TES (Mobilized thermal energy storage) in China. • The policies are analyzed based on the aspects including facility manufacture and operation, road transportation, and financial guidance. • The results can provide references for the government or policy makers to promote the development and safe operation of M−TES in China. Mobilized thermal energy storage (M−TES) is a promising technology to transport heat without the limitation of pipelines, therefore suitable for collecting distributed renewable or recovered resources. In particular, the M−TES can be flexibly used for the emergency heating in the COVID-19 era. Though the M−TES has been commercializing in China, there is not any specific regulation or standard for M−TES systems. Therefore, this paper summarizes and discusses the existing regulations and policies concerning M−TES in the aspects of facility manufacture and operation, road transportation, and financial support and guidance. Furthermore, the suggestions were presented including necessary consensus on the development of M−TES among different departments, consideration of local conditions when drafting or revising regulations and policies, sufficient investment, or subsidy on the R&D of M−TES, and qualification recognition of M−TES companies and staffs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of ambitious investments by the Chinese government in renewable energy sources, the country's investment in coal power accelerated in recent years, raising concerns of massive overcapacity and undermining the central policy goal of promoting cleaner energy. In this paper, we ask why this happened, focusing on policies that incentivized excessive entry in the coal power sector and using a simple economic model to illustrate the policies' effects. Using coal-power project approval records from 2013 to 2016, we find the approval rate of coal power was about 3 times higher after approval authority was decentralized, with larger effects in regions producing more coal. We estimate that local coal production accounts for an additional 54GW of approved coal power in 2015 (other things equal), which is about 1/4 of total approved capacity in that year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the depletion of oil, coal, gas and other fossil energy, and the increasingly serious environmental pollution, all countries in the world are developing clean and renewable energy, such as wind energy, water energy, solar energy, etc., to alleviate the current energy crisis. Tidal current energy belongs to the marine renewable energy. It is clean, pollution-free, and abundant, with a good prospect of development due to its similarity with wind energy. This paper firstly analyses the reserves and distribution of tidal current energy in China. Then the early exploration of Tidal Current Power Generation System (TCPGS) in China is briefly introduced. Subsequently, it gives the details of the devices and experimental platforms of TCPGS that were researched and developed by various universities, research institutes and enterprises in China. The information mainly includes: the size and the capacity of the system, the support structure, turbine type, the selection of generator, and some river and offshore test information, etc. Finally, it discusses the similarities and differences between China and other countries in tidal current power generation technology, and summaries the current development status and gives the prospect of the TCPGS technology in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strict climate goals require a rapid reduction of carbon emissions across society. It is a considerable challenge to design decarbonization pathways considering co-operation in energy and carbon emissions across multiple sectors simultaneously. In order to obtain the decarbonization pathway for the whole society, this paper establishes a long-term multi-sector low-carbon transition pathway planning model. Besides inter-sectoral energy supply and demand, this study fully considers the allocation of carbon emissions quotas among different sectors by modified-grandfathering method, which takes into account both equity and efficiency principles. The decarbonization targets of different sectors, corresponding mitigation pathways and energy consumption can be calculated. China is taken as a case study. Results show that China's total energy consumption peaks at 5 billion tces around 2030, then falls below 4 billion in 2060, with the proportion of primary electricity and other clean energy reaching over 50 percent. Besides, the realisation of carbon neutralisation in China depends heavily on the improvement of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and end-use electrification rate. Moreover, the study of different quota allocation ways shows that the increase in the contribution rate of power system mitigation leads to the reduction of the total low-carbon transition costs, which also aggravates administrative difficulties. • A multi-sector model is set up to plan the long-term low-carbon transition pathway. • Modified-grandfathering allocation method can consider multiple indicator factors. • The clean energy consumption of China accounts for about 55% in 2060. • The end-use electrification rate in China is close to 70% in 2060. • The transition pathway with lower cost increases administrative difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and Japan have enjoyed significant economic boosts due to technological progress. However, these are accompanied by serious environmental pollution, which has brought China and Japan's commitments to climate treaties into question. Therefore, this study attempts to contribute to the literature on green finance, energy, and the environmental sustainability nexus. We investigate the role of green finance and energy in the environmental performance of Asia (China and Japan) between 2010 and 2020. The empirical results show that green finance promotes environmental sustainability, suggesting that green finance reduces environmental pollution. Similarly, green energy positively affects environmental performance; this validates the theory that green energy technology is environmentally friendly. Therefore, we recommend promoting the green energy system through subsidies and grants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an improved hybrid MADM method based on interval Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and interval regret theory are put forward to evaluate five renewable energy alternatives for Fujian province, China. Firstly, the volatility of the evaluation information and the subjectivity of experts or stakeholders are taken into account. Second, political factors are further considered based on existing research. Third, the influence of the subjective initiative of decision makers on the decision result has been paid attention to. Furthermore, the result of the analysis shows that the extended regret theory method should set different parameters to reflect the preferences of decision makers. The ranking results of renewable energy are different with different parameter settings. For example, when α = 0.1 , δ = 0.1 , the priority of clean energy in Fujian Province is hydropower, followed by wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and biomass energy. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the model possesses good serviceability. Based on considering different parameter settings, the Fujian government should invest, in order of priority, in these renewable energy sources to obtain benefits. And the projects related to these renewable energy sources should be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas. There is increasing attention to CH4 abatement strategies because of its contribution to short-term warming and strong benefits of decreasing CH4 emissions. China greenhouse gas inventory methods are used to predict CH4 emissions from the energy industry and to assess the potentials of CH4 abatement policies and techniques by 2050. The NDC scenario results show using oil and gas as transitional clean energy sources instead of coal will increase CH4 emissions from oil and gas industries at least 70%, but CH4 emissions from the coal industry will decrease 45%, meaning total CH4 emissions from the energy industry will continually decrease at least 30% in 2030 compared with 2020. Energy-related CH4 emissions might peak around 2025, ahead of CO2 emission peaking. CH4 emissions will then decrease slightly and decrease markedly after 2030. Emissions in 2050 are expected to be 32% lower than emissions in 2020. In an extreme scenario, emissions may be 90% lower in 2050 than in 2020. It is suggested that the verification system for the energy industry's CH4 emission accounting at the national level be improved and CH4 control targets in line with national emission targets and the "14th Five-Year Plan" development stage be formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dynamic and causal relationship between green investment (G.I.), clean energy (C.E.), economic growth, and environmental sustainability with the help of an innovative approach named as quantile autoregressive distributed lagged (Q.A.R.D.L.) model using quarterly data from Q1-1995 to Q4-2019 for China. Our preliminary findings confirm data non-normality and structural breaks in all data series. Therefore, we have applied Q.A.R.D.L. that efficiently deals with these issues. We have further applied the Granger-causality in quantiles to check the causal association among the variables of interest. The findings through Q.A.R.D.L. estimation confirm that the error correction parameter is statistically significant with expected negative sign across major quantiles. In the long run, the results confirm that both C.E., and G.I. are significant mitigants of environmental pollution, however their emissions mitigating effects varies across lower, middle, and higher emissions quantiles. Furthermore, the findings through Granger-causality test confirm the existence of two-way causality between G.I., C.E., and carbon emissions across all quantiles. These results offer valuable policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problem of rising energy use and CO2 emissions, China issued the 14th Five-Year Plan in 2020, emphasizing the need to reduce its carbon intensity and achieve a carbon emission peak before 2030. In order to estimate the future path of carbon peak in China, a novel dataset was constructed to analyze 30 provinces in China, and found that the realization of carbon peaking in 2025 requires a reduction of 1.072 million tons of carbon emissions in 2025, at which point peak carbon emissions will be 11,008.4 million tons. Due to this energy gap caused by carbon emission reduction the total amount of clean electricity has reached 3600 billion kWh. In carbon emission allowance trading, provinces with large carbon emissions, like Jiangsu and Guangdong, prefer to buy carbon allowances, while those with small carbon emissions like Shanxi and Inner Mongolia prefer to sell carbon allowances. In the energy trading market, the overall situation meets the 14th Five-Year Plan of west-east and north-south power transmission, except for Shanghai, Hainan, Hubei, and other provinces selling power, due to excessive power generation from a particular energy source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Motivation) With the transfer of labor force and the continuous improvement of household income, the household energy consumption structure is also changing. (Gaps) However, few studies have explored the correlations between labor off-farm employment (LOE) and farmers' cooking clean energy (CCE) consumption. (Methodologies) Using survey data of 8198 farmers in 27 provinces from China's labor dynamic survey in 2016, the IV-Probit model was used to analyze the impact of LOE on CCE use, and the mediation effect model was used to examine the specific mechanism of action between them. (Results) The results found that: (1) LOE accounted for about 39%, and farmers' utilization rate of CCE accounted for 40%. (2) LOE has significantly promoted the use of CCE by farmers, and this action mechanism is mainly realized through three paths, that is, per capita annual cash income, social relationship network, and family population structure. (3) The heterogeneity analysis results showed that the head of the household having a university education or above, the family being located in rural areas and mountainous areas, and LOE will have a greater positive impact on the farmers' CCE use. (Policy) From the micro perspective of LOE, this study can deepen our understanding of LOE and CCE use decisions, and then provide a reference for the rational allocation of labor resources and farmers' CCE-related policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shale gas, with its low carbon and green characteristics, has attracted a considerable amount of attention in the development of global clean energy. Analyzing the development potential and prospects of shale gas has great significance for strengthening energy security while reducing carbon emissions in China. Based on the current development status, this paper explores the exploitation potential of shale gas development in China from the five main aspects of Porter's diamond model and proposes a future development strategy. After careful analysis, several discoveries are made. First, the recoverable reserves of shale gas in favorable areas in China have reached 2.18 × 104 billion cubic meters (bcm), but the current proved rate of shale gas is only 4.79%, which indicates its vast development potential. Second, approximately 65% of China's shale gas is deeper than 3500 m, while the current technology and equipment of exploration and development are not adapted to exploration and development schemes that target shale gas in deep horizons. Third, the urgent demand of China's natural gas market (estimated to be 600 bcm by 2030) and the high degree of external dependence (45.3% in 2018) provide a reasonable situation for the development of shale gas. Fourth, the development of supporting industries is relatively mature, and major related enterprises have clear strategic goals and obvious market competitive advantages. Fifth, the government's incentives for the shale gas industry are insufficient, especially in terms of the intensity of financial subsidies and tax relief and the subsidy cycle. Sixth, corresponding strategies need to be implemented to strengthen all the factors in the diamond model and seize the current development chances to gain a positive interaction among them. After effective development, shale gas could become a crucial hub for balancing future economic growth and eco-environmental protection in China. Our study provides guidance for the government, policy makers, investors, and other stakeholders to better understand China's shale gas industry and formulate corresponding development strategies. • Porter's diamond model is chosen to yield the analytical framework. • Five key aspects help to explore the potential development capacity of shale gas in China. • A practical exploitation strategy framework of China's shale gas development is proposed. • Corresponding strategies are put forward to optimize the existing inadequate capacity at certain aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

purposed a theoretical model that is tested for China by applying regime-switching regression. Results: Our findings suggest that trade openness increases life expectancy in China; trade affects life expectancy from two aspects; firstly, trade expansion and industrialization lead to high economic activities and resulted in raise the income of the people in society leading to improve life expectancy. Secondly, industrial expansion increases the CO2 emissions which leads to imposes a negative implication on human health and thus reduces life expectancy. Conclusion: Thus, the net effect of trade liberalization depends on the value of income effect and volume of CO2 emissions. Therefore, the government needs to support the trade policies which causes a low level of CO2 emissions, the government may provide incentives to exports and industrialists to adopted green energy in the production process. Besides, the government may impose some regulations such as carbon tax to mitigate the CO2 emissions in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investment in renewable energy is essential for reaching ambitious climate goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, a large investment gap prevails, particularly in developing economies with underdeveloped domestic capital markets and weak institutions. Multilateral development banks with softer budget constraints and longer investment horizons can play an important role in filling this gap. Development finance, which traditionally originated in the West, has been increasingly dominated by two Chinese state-owned development banks: the China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank. These banks acted as major financiers of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and, between 2005 and 2017, provided more than US$220 billion of overseas energy finance - more than any other multilateral development bank. Their investments have been controversial: the Chinese banks were often accused of financing fossil fuels projects located in politically and economically risky countries. This paper uses detailed data on the Chinese energy finance to illustrate the investment pattern of the Chinese banks, and implements Hurdle and simultaneous Probit models to test whether the two banks are in fact tolerant of the country risk: credit, governance and political risk. The analysis shows that projects located in countries that are politically stable but have higher credit risk and corruption levels are more likely to receive Chinese energy finance. Governance risk and autocratic regime type do not affect the decisions of the Chinese banks. This investment pattern indicates missed opportunities for advancing the clean energy transition and creates future risks for the host countries i.e. stranded assets. Image 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the improvement of environmental protection awareness and transformation of industrial structure, China's energy consumption structure has changed constantly. Although the proportion of coal consumption is gradually decreasing, the consumption has not seen a significant decline; it even increased in 2018. Many researchers have focused on changes in one specific type of energy such as coal or solar. However, the overall energy structure was ignored. In this study, an integrated convolutional neural network (CNN) with Long Short‐term Memory (LSTM) was used to predict the energy structure of China. Historical data were considered as pixels for convolution by layers of the CNN and then encoded by LSTM layers. To verify the effectiveness of the method, CNN‐LSTM was compared with six previous methods using data from 1965 to 2018. The results showed that CNN‐LSTM was superior in predicting energy structure. Finally, the energy structure of China in the next decade was predicted. The prediction results demonstrated that although the share of clean energy consumption will continue to increase, coal consumption will not decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the world leader in several areas of clean energy, but not in Concentrating Solar Power ( CSP). Our analysis provides an interesting viewpoint to China's possible role in helping with the market breakthrough of CSP. We present a short overview of the state-of-the-art of CSP including the status in China. A blueprint for China's CSP development is elaborated based on China's 13th 5-year program, but also on China's previous success factors in PV and wind power. The results of this study suggest that China could play a more prominent global role in CSP, but this would require stronger efforts in several areas ranging from innovation to policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents' willingness to use green energy products is a major concern for different stakeholders and policymakers due to the reformed Chinese electricity market since 2015. This study focused on the Chinese consumer's willingness to opt and pay for environmentally-friendly electricity sources in Shanghai's residential sector. A questionnaire survey was used to find out the influence of gender, age, education, awareness and income level on consumers' attitudes to alter their energy sources to green ones. The results indicated that income level and awareness are significant barriers in the usage of green energy products. Increasing the respondent's awareness about the issues of non-green energy products convinced 97% of them to change their electricity sources completely or partly, in line with their monthly income. This clearly shows that clarifying the benefits of green energy products is a key tool to achieve a green environment in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]