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China's paper industry accounts for a larger proportion of the global paper industry and consumes large amounts of energy. Energy conservation and pollution reduction of the industry have become the focus of China's national development strategy. Energy efficiency is an important index which directly determines the amounts of energy consumption and pollution emissions. To understand the energy efficiency evolution of China's paper industry, this paper establishes an input-output data of the paper industry for 29 provinces in China and applies DEA method and econometric models to estimate and comprehensively discuss the energy efficiency issues based on the framework of total factor efficiency. Our results indicate that China's paper industry has a large energy saving potential even though its energy efficiency has improved during the period 1990–2013. The saving potential is about 65% under the meta-frontier and 44% under the group-frontier. Moreover, there are significant differences between different regions in production technology and energy efficiency. The performance of eastern China is better than other regions. But the technology gaps between the different regions are shrinking and converging over time. Finally, some policy recommendations are proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s paper industry consumes a lot of energy and emits huge amounts of pollutions. The Chinese government over the past decades has done a lot to promote energy efficiency of the industry. This paper studies the impact of industrial polices to improve energy efficiency. The energy efficiency change is firstly studied under a framework of total factor efficiency. On this basis, different econometric models are built to discuss the detailed energy efficiency characteristics of the paper industry. The main results are as follow: (i) ownership structure did influence the energy efficiency, but the influence is different in different conditions; (ii) energy efficiency of the paper industry can be improved by economies of scale; (iii) market competition can to some extent overcome the motivation and supervision problem that often occur in state-owned companies; (iv) energy price cannot play the role of resource allocation well in China. Finally, based on our findings, some suggestions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current approaches to study the coupling mechanism between economy and environment seem to fall into self-circulation, failed to reveal "economy–environment interdependence". In this context, an exogenous variable is introduced into these models for better understanding the relationship. Benzo[a]pyrene (Bap) environment inventories in different cities in China were estimated by fugacity model based on Bap concentration data collected from previous studies. An extended model, stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence and technology (STIRPAT), generated from original IPAT (a model that expresses the idea that environmental impact (I) is the product of three factors: population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T)) was used to study the relationship between Bap environment inventory and anthropogenic factors including population, vehicle amount, affluence and energy consumption. A ridge regression has been applied to optimize the model parameters. Overall, there exist good relationships between Bap inventories and economic factors. Specifically, population and affluence are the most significant factors that influence Bap inventory. Rise of the scale of population and vehicle amount increases the Bap inventory, as growth of GDP per capita and the efficiency of energy utilization have inhibitory effect on Bap inventory. Apparently, the influences of anthropogenic factors on Bap inventory are different between north and south China. Bap inventory in north China is more sensitive to the change of population and energy consumption, while is highly correlated to GDP per capita in south China. Further, according to social-economic development prediction, with assist of the result from STIRPAT model, we find out that Bap inventory drop 31% from 2001 to 2020 in China. Our estimates are comparable with the published data and confirmed that Bap can be regarded as a chemical indicator of social-economic development in China. Image 1 • An extended STIRPAT model derived from original IPAT was developed. • Population and affluence are the key factors that influence Bap inventory. • Advance of affluence and technology level curbs Bap environmental exposure. • We predict Bap environmental inventory drop 31% from 2001 to 2020 in China. • Bap can be used as an indicator of social-economic development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A distribution dynamics approach is employed to examine the converge of TFEE across Chinese PAA level cities. • The findings show a clear convergence in TFEE. • Convergence comes more from efficiency drops in high TFEE cities than from efficiency gains in low TFEE cities. • The environmental protection polices in key cities improved energy efficiency. • Large-sized cities show better performance in energy efficiency than small- and medium-sized cities. Improving energy efficiency is considered the most direct route to reducing carbon emissions on a massive scale. To examine the long-run trend of China's energy efficiency, this paper employs a distribution dynamics approach to analyze the convergence of total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) across 286 Chinese cities between 2002 and 2014. The result suggests the existence of convergence, which comes more from the efficiency declines in the high TFEE cities rather than the efficiency gains in the low TFEE cities. Despite the fact that a few cities have performed well in energy efficiency, the majority of cities have converged to a low-efficiency point. Further analyses show that the inefficiency was attributed to inefficient energy use in small- and medium-sized cities. Our analysis provides strong scientific support for China's ongoing energy conservation and environmental protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although energy poverty has obtained wide focus in recent years, there is no consensus on the measurement of energy poverty. Given that China is experiencing socio-economic transformation as well as energy transition, this paper employed a total of 28 indicators, which representing three categories (energy service availability, energy consumption and generation cleanliness, and residential energy affordability and efficiency) that capture China's features as well as consider policy factors, to develop a new multi-dimensional energy poverty index by using entropy weight method. The result reveals that the energy poverty level has been improved nationwide for the period 2014–2019; three sub-indices also show downward trends while household energy affordability and efficiency suggests the fastest improvement; however, significant differences exist in energy poverty not only between urban and rural areas but also across provinces in China. Policy recommendations are as follows: continue to promote rural power grid renovation and upgrading and the construction of natural gas pipelines, increase clean energy support; encourage diversified development of rural energy supply methods, and provide more innovative and diversified green energy and financial products. • An integrated energy poverty index system for China was established. • A total of 28 indicators used in this paper are applicable to China's features as well as considering policy factors in China. • The energy poverty level has been improved nationwide from 2014-2019, and all three sub-indices show downward trends, but varies greatly between urban and rural areas and across geographic regions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores opportunities for effective policy intervention for residential energy savings in southern China, by analyzing achievable potential of residential energy savings in the city of Xiamen as a case study. In contrast to static technical and economic potential analyses, the achievable potential analysis is based on dynamic energy consumption projections, which consider two real-world factors: (1) gradual ramping-up adoption process of advanced technical measures; and (2) consumers’ adoption of these measures. A bottom-up type Residential Energy Consumption (REC) projection model specifically tailored for southern China was developed in this paper, based on the general logic and calculation principles utilized in the U.S. EIA’s “National Energy Modeling System (NEMS),” and the adoption theory of advanced technical measures proposed by Kastovich. This REC projection model was then used as a policy analysis tool to quantitatively evaluate the impact of various policies on residential energy savings in the case study city of Xiamen. The analysis of the Xiamen case shows that although there is a significant technical potential for residential energy savings in the city (about 20.9–24.9%), the maximum achievable potential (MAP) in 2020 is only about 8.3–8.4% of that year’s business-as-usual baseline consumption. Moreover, with existing policies only about one-fourth to half of the calculated MAP is likely to be achieved by 2020. These findings indicate that in order to realize a larger share of achievable potential for residential energy savings in China, additional and more effective polices are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continued development of artificial intelligence (AI) has changed production methods but may also pose challenges related to energy consumption; in addition, the effectiveness of AI differs across industries. Thus, to develop efficient policies, it is necessary to discuss the effect of AI adoption on energy intensity and to identify industries that are more significantly affected. Using data on industrial robots installed in 16 Chinese industrial subsectors from 2006 to 2016, this paper investigates both the effect of AI on energy intensity and the channel through which this effect is transmitted. The empirical results show, first, that boosting applications of AI can significantly reduce energy intensity by both increasing output value and reducing energy consumption, especially for energy intensities at high quantiles. Second, compared with the impacts in capital-intensive sectors (e.g., basic metals, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics), the negative impacts of AI on energy intensity in labor-intensive sectors (e.g., textiles and paper) and technology-intensive sectors (e.g., industrial machinery and transportation equipment) are more pronounced. Finally, the impact of AI on energy intensity is primarily achieved through its facilitation of technological progress; this accounts for 78.3% of the total effect. To reduce energy intensity, the Chinese government should effectively promote the development of AI and its use in industry, especially in labor-intensive and technology-intensive sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The use of GB techniques based on 106 projects was examined for future upgrading. • Water-saving and site planning categories exhibited the highest achievement. • This study identifies four main barriers limiting GB quality upgrading. • This study presents recommendations in four aspects for GB quality upgrading. • Upgrading GB projects for urban heat mitigation and urban flooding management. Building sector is one of the primary culprits of environmental deterioration and energy consumption. Green building (GB) can be an effective solution to these challenges and has been prioritised by many nations, while the quality of most GBs was still low. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the application of GB techniques. In specific, an empirical study was conducted among 106 GBs in China. Results indicate that both water-saving and site planning categories received the highest achievements, followed by indoor environmental quality and energy-saving, and the material-saving and innovation categories were the most difficult to achieve. The items in site planning, energy-saving and indoor environmental quality clusters that depended more on design techniques could be realised evenly, while the water-saving and material-saving clusters that relied more on materials and equipment witnessed two extremes: one approaching to 100% and one close to zero. There could be an increase in technique achievement from low-quality GBs to high-quality GBs. Nevertheless, the achievements of many items were extremely in both one-star, and two- and three-star groups. Some even witnessed the reduction from the low-quality GBs to the high-quality GBs. A further investigation indicated that the unavailability of GB technique checklist, the impact of economic cost, low technological operability and the unavailability of GB products constrained the GB technique application. The combining impacts of them could further lower the GB technique application. To unlock these barriers, efforts should be made from the perspective of (1) revision and localisation of GB standard, (2) extensive technical support, (3) government regulations and support, and (4) the co-benefits: integration with other programmes. Overall, this paper is of value to improve GB technique application and facilitate the transitions towards higher quality GB agenda. [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]

• This study investigates the environmental efficiency and shadow price of China's chemical sector. • Increased environmental regulation have substantial effect on environmental efficiency. • Estimated shadow prices show an increasing trend, especially after 2006. The chemical industry is a key energy-consuming sector in China. This paper aims to examine total-factor green growth performance, including energy efficiency and carbon shadow price of China's chemical sector from 1980 to 2013. On the basis of no-radial directional distance function, this paper takes into account both desirable and undesirable outputs. To investigate policy effects, we check the Granger causality test between shadow prices of emission and total-factor green energy efficiency. The results demonstrate that increased environmental regulation costs have substantial effect on total-factor green energy efficiency of the chemical industry in the last decade. The latter also causes significant improvement of the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Currently, wind and solar energy have not been well utilized in China, and the rate of abandoned wind and solar facilities in China is increasing annually. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are an effective system for promoting large-scale renewable energy integration and consumption and realizing the goal of renewable energy development. To clarify the interactive relationship between the different levels and multiple actors in RPS, this paper uses policy network theory to analyze the interactive relationship of stakeholders from the three aspects of network subject, network structure and network interaction. The policy network of the RPS consists of the policy community, professional network, intergovernmental network, producer network and issue network. Under the RPS, to meet their own needs, participants affect the formulation and implementation of the RPS through the actions of confrontation, alliance, competition and cooperation. In different stages of developing the RPS, the openness and integration of policy networks change accordingly. This study overcomes the limitations of past simple analyses of the actor relationship in the policy process and thereby offers certain reference significance. Highlights • The actors of RPS policy networks are analyzed. • This paper analyze the game relationship of the stakeholders from three aspects. • This research reveals the network relationship between multiple stakeholders. • This study breaks through the limitations of past analysis of actor relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Whilst a plethora of literature has viewed technological progress as one of the critical influencing factors in relation to energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, little effort has been made to identify the sectoral differences in the relationship between technological progress and CO 2 emissions. Thereby, this paper remedies the inadequacies in the extant literature by empirically investigating the impact of technological progress on CO 2 emissions, specifically taking into account its heterogeneous effect in various economic sectors. This paper first decomposes the effect of technological progress as taking place in heavy industry, in light industry, in construction industry, and in service industry. A panel quantile regression approach and a balanced city panel data model are then applied, covering the period 2001–2013 in China. The empirical results show that technological progress in heavy industry and light industry surprisingly facilitates a higher level of CO 2 emissions, despite its prominent contribution to energy efficiency improvement. Meanwhile, as distinct from the effect it shows in the heavy and light industries, technological progress in construction and service industries exerts a negative effect on CO 2 emissions. Additionally, this paper further discovers that the strength of the multiple impacts of technological progress also varies with the level of emitters. By studying the heterogeneous effect brought about by technological progress in different economic sectors and emitters, this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between CO 2 emissions and technological progress. Highlights • The study considers the sectoral and scale heterogeneity of technological progress in relation to CO 2 emissions. • We apply a panel quantile regression approach to balanced city-level panel data. • Technological progress within different economic sectors exerts different effects on CO 2 emissions. • The role of technological progress in moderating energy intensity varies across emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper explores the effects of enforced Chinese policies regarding environmental matters at the provincial level. The paper proposes several features and explores datasets from the last four Five-Year Plans, which extensively covered the period from 1995 to 2015. As the datasets are multidimensional, dimensional reduction is applied with a control of information loss described by data variance preservation. A data-based clustering algorithm is applied to identify the similarities, and characteristics are explored in relation to the specific features. The use of this method makes it possible to identify the changes in the relevance of the features in the most recent Five-Year Plan, in which decarbonization is relevant instead of productivity. This method also makes it possible to identify specific efforts several provinces have made to introduce cleaner energy production. Following the analysis, it is concluded that the proposed features enable the proposed method to be considered a tool for analyzing the real-world effects of the adopted policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In recent years, China's wind power industry has developed rapidly, and become the global wind power leader. At the same time, China's wind power industry is also facing many problems and challenges. In this paper, a comprehensive assessment is presented to reveal the development history of China's wind power industry, power demand and cost, regional distribution of wind power, wind turbine manufacturers, and government incentives to wind power industry. Subsequently, future development and challenges are proposed, focusing on the challenge of wind power integration and consumption, the challenge of management and market competition mechanism, and the challenge of large-scale and rapid development. Finally, the corresponding measures are put forward. The fundamental goal of this paper is to understand the history, current situation and future challenges of China's wind power industry. Highlights • A comprehensive assessment on the development of China's wind power industry is presented. • The development history of China's wind power and energy demand are introduced. • Multi factors related to China's wind power industry are investigated. • Future challenges and corresponding measures of China's wind power industry are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Baseline power plant models are essential for understanding the cost of CO 2 capture. • Power plants in China have distinct hardware and operating conditions. • A set of "baseline China plants with CO 2 capture" are proposed. • The biggest drivers for differences are steam cycle hardware and dry cooling. Abstract Global efforts to advance CO 2 capture technologies have produced a strong base of field experience and modeling capability to inform efforts to deploy this technology in China. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy has published bituminous coal baseline reference cases to provide a consistent set of assumptions for modeling the performance of coal power plants equipped with CO 2 capture technology in the United States. In China, there are some important features of power plant construction and operation, such as dry cooling in some plants, different grade coal, and low load operation, that must be accounted for in analyzing the performance of CO 2 capture-enabled power plants. Moreover, unique aspects of the policy landscape in China, such as an openness to partial capture solutions in the near-term, introduce some flexibility in deployment strategy. In this study, we analyze the impacts of these features on plant performance and we propose a set of "baseline China plants" based on industrial experience to serve as reference cases for analyzing deployment scenarios for post-combustion CO 2 capture at coal-fired power plants in China. This paper focuses specifically on the performance aspects of the technoeconomic analysis. Costs are addressed in a companion paper. The most significant factors responsible for differences in power plant efficiency were fuel quality and differences in steam cycle hardware and operation. The impact of dry cooling was also significant. Our reference cases are broadly consistent with previous studies of this topic and help to clarify the contributions of different factors when comparing the performance of CO 2 capture for power plants in the US and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on energy poverty dynamics by answering one question: Does energy poverty trap exist in Chinese cities? For this purpose, we examine the co-evolution between per capita energy consumption and income for 286 prefectural-and-above level cities in China over the period 2002 to 2014. A nonparametric joint-distribution dynamics approach is employed in the analysis. Both static and dynamic distribution analyses demonstrate significant evidence of club convergence in energy consumption across Chinese cities, and there are multiple equilibria between per capita energy consumption and income in the long-run distribution. The results also suggest that considerable cities fall into energy poverty trap, a chronic state with low income and low energy consumption. Therefore, we can argue that energy poverty is not a transitory state for those cities and support the existence of energy poverty trap in China. Our findings highlight the need to tailor policies aimed at reducing energy poverty in low-income cities. • We examine the co-evolution between per capita energy consumption and income in China. • A dataset of China's 286 prefecture-level cities during 2002–2014 is explored. • The results argue club convergence in energy consumption across Chinese cities. • Considerable cities fall into energy poverty trap. • The study supports the existence of energy poverty trap in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing share of the climate-sensitive renewable energy market supply in China, estimating future energy drought risk (ED) is essential. In this paper, based on CMIP6, energy demand and power generation are estimated from 2023 to 2100 under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios, and ED is defined from high demand (HD), low wind-solar generation (LWS), and residual load (RL). The results show that the ED exacerbation is relatively high under the SSP5-8.5. Between 2023 and 2100, the duration and severity of HD and RL notably increase, while LWS changes are relatively weak. We find that HD and RL exhibit high summer risks in the south and high winter risk in the north. The return periods vary significantly and extends over time in most regions. Moreover, there are few ED when the installed power generation capacity (IPGC) is increased. When the IPGC increases by 2%–5%, the LWS will decrease at least 20%–72%. With a 10% increase, the LWS will be mitigated by at least 80%, whereas the mitigation for RL is limited, approximately 3–17% at different rates. This work performs the first evaluation of future ED and provides the useful references for risk mitigation in China based on CMIP6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive review of the thermal power industry and the accurate forecasting of carbon emissions can provide valuable information to improve energy efficiency and act as a tool for policy makers to realize sustainable and low-carbon emissions from the thermal power industry. In this paper, we study the low-carbon development of China's thermal power industry based on an international comparison from three perspectives: review, analysis and forecast. Initially, we review both the international and national energy consumption of China; although gaps in energy efficiency still exist between China and countries with advanced thermal power technology, China's thermal power industry is gradually following a low-carbon development route. Then, we analyze low-carbon technologies for thermal power units, including ultra-super-critical technology, integrated gasification combined cycle technology, and carbon capture and storage technology and present a design for environmental protection technology for thermal power units. Carbon emissions should be effectively and successfully handled to improve the prospects of China's thermal power industry. Therefore, this paper forecasts carbon emissions by using a hybrid grey model that is optimized by the firefly algorithm and adjusted by weakening buffer operator based on the calculated carbon emissions. If China's carbon emissions from the thermal power industry increase according to the present rate, China will have difficulty in realizing its carbon reduction target by 2020. Finally, related future policies for the 13th Five-Year Plan of China are proposed based on low-carbon policies around the world with regard to financial, technological and industrial aspects to help the thermal power industry achieve healthy and low-carbon development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nexus between fiscal decentralization and renewable energy demand by including income inequality, economic growth, urbanization, and economic globalization as the main determinants in the energy demand function for the case of China. Quarterly frequency data for the period 1980–2018 are used for empirical analysis. Our empirical results show fiscal decentralization positively impacts the demand for renewable energy; in other words, fiscal decentralization can help increase renewable energy demand. In addition, income inequality is negatively linked to renewable energy consumption, while economic growth is positively associated with renewable energy demand. Urbanization and economic globalization add to renewable energy consumption. This study presents Chinese authorities with new guidelines for using fiscal decentralization as an economic tool to formulate effective energy policies for long-term development of the use of renewable energy sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable consumption (SC) is key for sustainable development, but only limited studies have examined how to motivate SC among consumers in developing countries. Younger consumers tend to more sustainable consumption while whether they really understand the SC concept is not clear. To explore the role of SC understanding for motivating SC behaviors, this paper develops a concept model with hypotheses to propose that SC understanding mediates relationships between influencing factors and SC behaviors. Based on 623 usable questionnaires collected from junior high schools and senior high schools in three eastern cities of China, five influencing factors for SC behaviors are identified, they are, education, awareness & attitude, social influence, effectiveness of energy saving and emission reduction for sustainable products, and differentiation of sustainable products from regular products. Statistic results through hierarchical regression analysis demonstrate that SC understanding is necessary to motivate SC behaviors with certain influencing factors. Chinese adolescents can understand the SC concept through education and then purchase sustainable products. Only if sustainable products can show benefits of energy saving and emission reduction, Chinese adolescent would like to use these products. Environmental awareness and attitude can bring environmental treatment and disposal of products, but SC understanding is necessary. This paper contributes to extend the TPB to develop a conceptual model including education as one influencing factor for SC behaviors. It also develops three factors for SC behaviors from the product life cycle perspective. Besides, it also contributes to extend the previous studies about motivation of SC consumption to adolescents in an emergent economy of China to examine the role of SC understanding. Statistic results reveal the low implementation level of SC behaviors, and the government should highlight sustainable education to improve sustainable awareness and SC understanding. It is also shown that adolescents would like to purchase sustainable products if environmental performance of such products can be demonstrated, which also provide insights for enterprises to achieve win-win opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand Response (DR) has been extensively developed and implemented in the US and Europe. However, DR hardly exists in many developing countries for similar problems such as rigid power market and state monopoly. With the increasing imbalance between supply and demand in China's power industry, the government has issued new policies on DR and approved the first batch of pilot cities. China is setting a good example of how to encourage DR under monopolistic electric market and open up the market to aggregators and DR suppliers. This paper summarizes the current DR status, feasible DR market schemes and DR pilot projects in China. First, electric power system reform, renewable energy policies and power industry development are reviewed, highlighting the problems associated with the current dispatch mechanisms of DR policies and markets. New DR programs and DR-related policies are also introduced. On this basis, the driving forces and challenges associated with DR in China are analyzed. The major challenge is the lack of a suitable market mechanism for the current Chinese power industry. Hence, this paper presents six feasible strategies that fully utilize the existing policies. Additionally, the latest DR applications in different pilot cities are summarized and analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy use between urban and rural areas is very important in the context of the global energy transition and climate change. However, it is difficult to measure the differences and inequalities in energy consumption due to data limitations. In this paper, a dataset distinguishing urban-rural energy consumption has been generated. We construct an energy inequality index (EI) to assess the difference in per capita energy consumption (PEC) between urban and rural areas. We find that the EI has decreased significantly from 10.42 in 2000 to 1.43 in 2020. Western China has a higher EI than the developed coastal areas. We further define 7 urban-rural types and find that the urban center has the highest PEC, while the rural cluster has the lowest. Cluster analysis shows that prefectures have different equalization trends, namely volatile decline, rapid decline, increase before decline, incremental decline. The urban-rural structure plays an important role in the different trends, and 4 modes of urban-rural energy consumption are summarized, namely urban-centered, urban-suburban double-centered, multi-centered and rural-biased. These results are valuable for understanding the energy consumption between urban and rural China. • A dataset distinguishing urban-rural per capita energy consumption (PEC) has been generated. • China's urban-rural energy inequality has decreased from 10.42 in 2000 to 1.43 in 2020. • Western China are facing a more urban-rural energy inequality than the developed coastal areas. • Among the 7 defined types, urban center ranked highest PEC, while rural cluster ranked lowest. • 4 modes of urban-rural energy consumption are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of global warming the importance of climate risk cannot be understated, and finding ways to reduce climate risk is a topic worthy of study. In this paper, we innovatively examine the role of renewable energy technology innovation on climate risk in China. In addition to their linear relationship, we also investigate the asymmetric and heterogeneous impact, detect the impact channels, and find that (1) increased renewable energy technology innovation can effectively alleviate the climate risk situation. Accordingly, the development of renewable energy technology innovation can make a significant contribution to CR abatement. (2) Pronounced impacts of renewable energy technology innovation on climate risk can be observed in the higher quantiles (75th and 90th) of climate risk. (3) Renewable energy technology innovation is a powerful weapon for eradicating climate risk in provinces with a higher level of government fiscal expenditure. And (4) renewable energy technology innovation has an impact on climate risk by facilitating energy consumption efficiency, which is a necessary mediator. These conclusions inspire us to put forward several corresponding policy implications for better climate risk governance and renewable energy technology innovation development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the completion of the poverty alleviation task in China, the Chinese economy has made great breakthroughs. Meanwhile, the implementation of Chinese "dual carbon" goal has entered an important window period of both strategic opportunities and difficulties. The emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) leads to the greenhouse effect, which affects the sustainable development of society. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with Slacks-based measure integrating data envelopment analysis (SBMDEA) (AHP-SBMDEA) based efficiency evaluation model for different provincial-level administrative regions in China, which is used to analyze and optimize the Chinese energy structure of different provincial-level administrative regions. With coal, gasoline, petroleum, fuel oil, diesel, crude oil and natural gas as inputs, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the desired output and the CO2 as the undesired output, after linear weighted calculation of the results of the AHP-SP model and the SBMDEA model, the energy efficiency evaluation model of different provincial administrative regions in China is established. The results show that there is a large difference in efficiency between Chinese northern and southern regions, and the overall efficiency of southern regions is higher than that of northern regions. In addition, it is easier to find out the optimal energy efficiency benchmark, which can provide suggestions and help to guide the energy consumption input structure improvement of other inefficient provincial-level administrative regions. Furthermore, the energy structure can also be adjusted through the redundant variable calculated by the SBMDEA model. For example, Sichuan Province can reduce the consumption of the coal, the gasoline, the diesel, the fuel oil, the crude oil and the natural gas by 5269.95 × 10000 tons (WT), 513.01 WT, 59.05 WT, 34.37 WT, 4,73.33 WT and 130.37 billion cubic meters (BCM), respectively. Its CO2 emissions can be reduced by 1925.4 WT, and raise the efficiency of energy utilization in the province. [Display omitted] • Novel economy and CO 2 emissions evolution model based on a AHP-SBMDEA is proposed. • The proposed model can identify the optimal energy efficiency benchmark. • GDP per capita can be increased and CO 2 emissions can be decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing the industrial sector's high energy use and vast potential for energy saving, many national governments have established voluntary or negotiated agreements that set quantitative energy-saving targets for individual industrial enterprises. The most commonly used energy-saving targets worldwide are volume and energy intensity targets. Since 2006, the Chinese government has set mandatory, enterprise-level energy-saving targets in terms of the “amount of energy saved”; this represents a unique category that differs from both volume and energy intensity targets. Based on first-hand data collected at ten case enterprises, this paper represents one of the first attempts to verify the reliability of the amount of energy saved data reported by the Chinese government and to rigorously and systematically investigate the inherent weaknesses of the amount of energy saved targets through a comparison with the mainstream categories of energy-saving targets. The ten case enterprises reported four different types of amount of energy saved. While all of the case enterprises claimed full achievement of their amount of energy saved targets, four enterprises exaggerated their performance by violating the National Standard for Calculating the Amount of Energy Saved of Enterprises. The paper thus hypothesizes that the National Top-1000 Enterprise Program's alleged achievement of performance 65% higher relative to its amount of energy saved target is likely an overestimation. Although amount of energy saved targets constitute an innovative energy-saving indicator, they do not represent a step forward from conventional volume and intensity targets because of the following four weaknesses: 1) amount of energy saved targets provide limited potential for comparison given the different types of amount of energy saved and the different calculation methods, 2) they generate uncertain environmental outcomes as it is possible to meet a portion of an amount of energy saved target through production volume expansion, 3) they are difficult to enforce due to the complexity of data verification on the part of local government agencies, and 4) they are poorly correlated with the national target for reducing energy intensity. Amount of energy saved targets should therefore be replaced with “double-control” targets that impose both volume and intensity targets on industrial enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant variation in building׳s energy intensity is partly due to the large number of distributed energy users characterized by heterogeneous lifestyles and nonuniform consumption behaviours. Understanding the degree of variation and its cause is critical to designing appropriate policies for energy efficiency improvement. This paper aims to provide a data-based benchmark of buildings energy performance in China and investigates the facts and causes of large variations in energy consumption across buildings based on updated and harmonised dataset. Specifically, the paper is the first in literature to decompose aggregate heating consumption in northern urban China and reallocate the disaggregate data to relevant residential and commercial building energy use, which makes it consistent to conduct international comparison of building performance in terms of primary energy intensity. It is found that buildings energy performance exhibits a sizeable heterogeneity varying with building typology and climate zones in China. Heating and cooling energy consumption for residential buildings located in HSCW climate zone may differ by a factor of 4–10 depending on the technology and energy supply mode, whereby nontechnical interventions may have significant impacts on total energy demand in the built environment. In particular, our analysis results point to the importance of making greater efforts in the commercial sector. Commercial buildings are found significantly more energy intensive than their residential counterpart, mainly due to the fact that BEE policy has been poorly implemented and architectural design has not been optimised in commercial sector. An estimate suggests that improving energy efficiency in the commercial sector may contribute to one-fifth of total energy savings potentials by 2020 in line with the IEA׳s 450 ppm scenario. It is necessary for Chinese building authorities to incorporate the heterogeneity characteristics across different climate zones and building typologies into BEE policy portfolio to effectively curb energy consumption related carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging economies like China, India, and Mexico are becoming the world's manufacturing leaders through the engagement in offshoring production activities. In achieving this status, however, they have met with difficult environmental issues. This paper features an analysis of industry-level panel data to examine the link between different offshoring tasks in China and carbon dioxide emissions. Through this analysis, the environmental effects of offshored production are addressed. Specifically an input–output model is presented, thereby quantifying offshored production tasks in China. The results show that iron and steel, nonferrous metals (IS) and chemicals (CH) generate the most carbon dioxide during production of processed goods. Additionally, electrical machinery (EM) and general machinery (GM) generate a higher amount of carbon dioxide during production of parts and components. The results also show that those industries characterized by higher energy consumption have higher carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions induced by offshoring. Given these results, it seems that any solutions geared towards reducing the energy consumption of entire manufacturing industries would be useful. Furthermore, the results of the analyses presented here indicate that China would be responsible for working with developed countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through cooperative environmental regulation. A globalization perspective is adopted to offer unique insight into the environmental issues faced by China. The results of this paper would provide quantified, actionable information for formulating practical industrial policies geared towards reducing carbon dioxide leakage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent growth of the Chinese district heating sector has been very high. No other country in the world can show the same growth rate during the last decades. The heated building area increased six times between 1995 and 2008. China has also enjoyed strong growth of scientific articles and papers about district heating in recent years. One third of all international scientific journal articles and conference papers about district heating came from Chinese scientists during 2010–2012, while Swedish scientists accounted for one quarter according to the Scopus scientific search engine. It is important to identify the Chinese district heating research to judge the potential for future collaborative research on district heating systems between Sweden/Europe and China. The 205 international publications on district heating by Chinese scientists published until 2013 have been mapped and summarised with respect to demand, supply, technology, market and environment. More diversified heat supply with renewable source was grasping the Chinese interest, since many new systems have been established, having more degrees of freedom when choosing various heat supply and technology options. The Chinese district heating systems were compared with sustainable district heating solutions in Sweden. Both countries would benefit from future research cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a good power supplement form of super power and large-scale energy base, distributed energy has the characteristics of less investment and flexible power generation. Facing with the double pressure of the sustainable development of energy use and environmental protection, it has become an efficient solution to meet the demand of load growth, reduce environmental pollution and improve the comprehensive utilization of energy and the reliability of power supply. However, the development of distributed energy starts relatively late in China and confronts many difficulties. So this paper analyzes the present development situation and existing problems of the distributed energy in China. Then it elaborates from the aspects of policies and regulations, technical specifications, price policy and grid-interconnection codes. At last, this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions of the guarantee mechanism of distributed energy. This paper argues that, with the attention of the development of distributed energy increasing, a series of policies to promote the construction and interconnection of distributed energy will be introduced, and distributed energy will get scaled development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty has got increasing attention during the latest three decades. Measuring energy poverty is the premise of policy making to alleviate energy poverty. There is no unified energy poverty measurement that has been widely accepted. This paper reviews the commonly used energy poverty measurements through classifying them into three categories: energy service availability, energy service quality, and satisfaction of energy demand for human׳s survival and development. This paper also analyzes the suitability of the commonly used energy poverty measurement for China from the prospective of data availability and index applicability. Furthermore, we construct a new energy poverty comprehensive evaluation index in this study, and the index is illustrated to evaluate regional energy poverty in China. The evaluation results indicate that China׳s energy poverty showed an alleviating trend from 2000 to 2011, and during this period, China׳s energy service availability improved slightly; energy consumption cleanliness showed no significant change; energy management completeness decreased with fluctuations; and household energy affordability and energy efficiency improved continually. In addition, China׳s regions show different characteristics of energy poverty. For example, Middle reaches of Yangtze River region showed the worst energy availability and Eastern coastal region showed the worst energy management completeness. Several policy implications for energy poverty alleviation are also proposed in this study, including, for instance, increasing investment on energy infrastructure, and spreading energy management organization in rural area; decreasing relative cost on household commercial energy consumption, and encourage the utilization of modern, clean and efficient household energy consumption equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is vast, abundant and particularly plentiful in energy sources, due to which it has obtained remarkable achievements on economy. However, its energy structure is too simple to support the sustainable development of economy as coal still contributes to the majority of energy consumption in China. As a consequence, Renewable Energy Law was enacted in 2005, and Chinese government announced a series of policies to boom renewable energy industry. Subsidy policy is one of the major forms of these policies. This paper aims to present these subsidy policies and to analyze their effects according to relative data in energy industry 2005–2013, to find out the deficiencies and enlighten possible policy improvements. The original intentions and abstracts of 5 different levels of subsidy related policies are summarized, and the effects in reality are attentively analyzed. It can be concluded that subsidy policies have different short-term effect on different renewable energies, and they all show some negative effect to a certain extent. 6 core problems are summarized in this paper, and remedy strategies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green roof is an effective energy efficiency measure to reduce the building cooling load in summer and heating load in winter, in addition, it can add ecological benefit and landscape value to the community. Therefore, it has attracted extensive attention worldwide. This paper studies the selection of planting materials, plant configuration patterns and plant growth medium of the green roofs in China, and presents the researches on ecological benefits, thermal performance, and applications of the green roofs in China. This paper also introduces and analyzes the green roofs development policies in China, including the incentive mechanism, laws and regulations, and finally presents the analysis and suggestions on their application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to argue for the necessity and significance of studying the distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy development (RNE). Based on the comprehensive review of the methodology and conclusions of existing literatures, this paper builds up an extended input–output model to study RNE’s distributional employment impacts on gender and personnel structure. The case study of China׳s power sector in this paper affirmed earlier doubts that RNE development will indeed aggravate the gender inequality problem and add to the level of mismatch between the structure of labor demand and supply, causing structural unemployment problems. The quantitative analysis in this paper outlined here implies that from 2011 to 2020 the development of RNE will bring about 7 million employment gains, but only 81.8% of which can be realized due to the mismatch problem. The study of China may alert other countries to be less-optimistic about RNE’s employment impacts and reaffirm the need to carry out the distributional employment impacts analysis. This paper concludes with policy suggestions such as providing suitable training and equal promotion opportunities for women, offering courses and vocational trainings to RNE-related majors, in order to reduce the structural unemployment problem and further speed up the development of RNE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the research topics of China's energy transition policy and predicting future research trends are crucial for policymakers to make informed decisions and advance the energy transition. This study applied the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to extract 26 major research topics from the 13,976 abstracts of Chinese policy research papers in web of science (WOS), conceptualized the five most popular topics and used the ARIMA model to predict trends over the next 36 months. The results show that except for Economic and Environmental Impact of Renewable Energy Consumption (Topic13), which will first experience unanticipated fluctuations and then show strong growth capacity, all other topics will continue to remain positive growth trend. Research and Development (Topic3) is driven by the urgency of China's energy transformation. Economic and Environmental Impact of Renewable Energy Consumption (Topic13) is driven by the potential for the development of renewable energy. Economic Impact of Climate Change (Topic26) is driven by the climate change debate. Economic Growth, Urbanization, and Energy Consumption (Topic7) is driven by a discussion of their relationship and the mechanisms influencing them. Regional Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (Topic19) is driven by regional differences in China's energy policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Over the past century, fossil fuels have provided the majority of China's energy. However, their extensive utilization leads to a shortage and environmental pollution. Recently, submarine and permafrost gas hydrate deposits have been investigated as a possible clean and sustainable energy source by governmental institutions, research organizations, and energy industries in China. The primary objective of this paper is to review the potential studies pertaining to gas hydrate exploration and resource assessment, the safe and efficient exploitation of gas hydrates and the basic properties of gas hydrates. To date, there are over 20 institutions and organizations in China committed to gas hydrate investigation, among which the Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey (GMGS) and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (CAGS) etc. primarily focus on gas hydrate exploration research, while the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Research Center, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion (GIEC) and China University of Petroleum-Beijing (CUPB) etc. concentrate on gas hydrate mining technologies. In this paper, the occurrence and exploration of gas hydrates in both permafrost regions and the continental slope of China have been determined from numerous research contributions and are presented. Moreover, the latest progress in gas hydrate fundamental studies, including hydrate phase equilibria, hydrate formation mechanisms, hydrate thermal physical properties and the acoustics and resistivity characteristics of gas hydrates are briefly reviewed, and relevant data are gathered and compared. Emphasis is also placed on gas hydrate mining technologies and gas production using depressurization methods, thermal stimulation methods or other methods. Furthermore, the security of natural gas hydrate-bearing sediments during gas production and the environmental impacts of gas hydrate are identified. With additional financial and political support and advanced research facilities, research on gas hydrates in China is progressing rapidly but is still in its early developing stage, thus, future work should be undertaken with greater diligence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Alleviating energy poverty is a significant issue in many countries, for which effective energy poverty measurement is the prerequisite. This paper seeks to make a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the energy poverty performance of 30 provinces in China for 11-year period (2007–2017) by emphasizing their spatial-temporal changes. The paper firstly constructed energy poverty measurement conceptual framework based on overviewing previous studies. Secondly, a technique based on the integrated fuzzy DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) and Data Envelopment Analysis - Assurance Region (DEA-AR) for performance assessment was proposed. Then, the energy poverty performance was assessed, and clustering analysis was conducted to investigate the spatial-temporal changes of energy poverty in China. Finally, sensitivity analysis was applied for verifying the robustness of the proposed method. It is found that the energy poverty condition in China tends to be similar among most regions, but the gap between the best and worst performers gets wider. In addition, provinces with better economic conditions, have higher performance and are classified into the progressive group for alleviating energy poverty. On the contrary, provinces, whose economy lags, have regressed the most and are also the worst performers in reducing energy poverty. Thus, policies to improve household energy cleanability in high-income provinces and increase energy affordability in low-income regions would help reduce energy poverty in China. • A comprehensive energy poverty assessment framework was proposed. • An integrated Fuzzy DEMATEL/DEA-AR was proposed to evaluate the performance. • The comparison between the proposed Fuzzy DEMATEL/DEA-AR model and conventional DEA was conducted. • Spatial and temporal analysis of energy poverty performance in China was conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activities are closely related to energy consumption and carbon emissions. Nevertheless, in the context of energy transition and carbon emission reduction policies, the impact of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions is still unclear. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial regions in China from 2000 to 2019, this paper uses the spatial Durbin model to perform a spatial econometric investigation on this issue. In particular, this study innovatively embeds two spatial weight matrices, an economic gravity weight matrix and a population migration weight matrix, into the spatial Durbin model to capture the spatial spillover effects of population migration. The results show that population migration has obvious adverse impacts on the provinces with net outward population migration. Specifically, on the one hand, population migration increases energy consumption and energy poverty, but energy poverty is more severe in provinces with net outward population migration. On the other hand, population migration increases the carbon emissions and carbon reduction barriers of the provinces with net outward population migration and has no significant impact on the carbon emissions and carbon reduction barriers of the provinces with net inward population migration. Besides, the results of heterogeneity analysis show that population migration causes gaps in the energy structure among regions and even triggers the carbon transfer to provinces with net outward population migration. On the whole, the research results of this paper all prove that population migration increases the carbon reduction barriers in the provinces with net outward population migration. These empirical insights enrich the relevant theoretical achievements of the impact of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions and have a high reference value for formulating more reasonable regional energy transition and carbon emission reduction policies. • The spatial spillover effects of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions are explored. • The spatial Durbin model is used in this paper. • The spatial Durbin model is embedded with the economic gravity weight matrix and the population migration weight matrix. • Population migration has obvious adverse impacts on the provinces with net outward population migration [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new model is employed to estimate the carbon efficiency and carbon abatement cost of China's coal-fired power plants. • The change of carbon abatement cost is associated with input change and technical change. • The potential for carbon efficiency improvement for China's coal-fired power plants is substantial. • Non-state-owned power plants possess higher carbon efficiency and lower abatement cost relative to state-owned ones. In this paper, we propose a new model to investigate the carbon efficiency and carbon abatement cost of coal-fired power plants in China based on the directional distance function with endogenous directional vectors (DVs). We further decompose the change of carbon abatement cost into two contributing factors, i.e., input changes and technical change. The empirical analysis is based on a recent panel dataset comprising 616 Chinese coal-fired power plants from 2011 to 2012. The results show substantial potential for carbon performance improvement in China's coal-fired power plants, with higher carbon efficiency (CE) and lower carbon abatement cost (CAC) associated with non-state-owned enterprises. The decomposition analysis shows that the change in carbon abatement cost is mainly attributed to technical change. However, imposing DVs exogenously can get the opposite results and have a significant impact on the distributions of the estimated results. The findings of this paper provide new insights for better understanding the recent dynamics of the carbon performance of China's coal-fired power plants and have important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we offer a decomposition analysis of changes in energy intensity in China for non-residential energy use. A combination of index decomposition analysis and structural decomposition analysis is conducted in this paper. Index decomposition analysis is used to decompose energy intensity changes between 2000 and 2009 into three factors: sectoral changes, subsectoral changes and technological changes as a residual variable. Of the three factors, technological change is the main reason why energy intensity, measured as energy use per GDP, fell. We also undertook a structural decomposition analysis for the period 2002–2005. We discovered that the temporary increase in energy intensity observed for 2002–2004 is caused by two factors: overcapacity and a shift towards energy-intensive products for domestic consumption and export. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: As an unconventional natural gas with the advantages of great resource potential and low carbon emissions, shale gas has currently aroused a new round of development and utilization worldwide. China’s shale gas resource is enormous and has huge potential for exploitation. However, due to the late start of exploration and development, it has not yet realized industrialization. By using the SWOT analysis method, this paper studies the internal and external development environment of Chinese shale gas, then explores shale gas development status of China from four dimensions including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Finally, according to the combinations of SWOT matrix analysis, the paper formulates four kinds of different development strategies to provide certain references to the development of China’s shale gas industry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In March 2011, China’s central government set a new challenging target of reducing its energy intensity by 16% during 2011–2015, after it had achieved a reduction of 19.1% during 2006–2010. And this new target was assigned to provincial authorities in August 2011. However, China’s provincial energy-economic developments are unbalanced and different provinces have different key sectors for energy conservation. Most previous studies focused on provincial energy efficiency at the aggregate level, or the three-industry level (or one-digit level). However, whether for policy decision or academic research, it is necessary to further subdivide the sectors. In this paper, we use three indicators (Gini Coefficient, energy consumption share and energy intensity) to compare provincial energy conservation potentials at the two-digit sector level. To our knowledge, this paper is the first one to identify the keys for energy conversation across the 31 provinces×65 sectors. And the results are shown in visualized maps and matrix tables to help identify the key province×sectors for energy conservation easier. This also helps the central and provincial governments to distinguish key sectors when they monitor the energy conservation progress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyzed the interactions among China’s economic growth and its energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000–2007. Conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions’ impact, respectively. The five indicators based on money, energy and emergy, including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy (RNR), energy use per unit GDP (EUPG), environmental cost per unit GDP (ECPG), impact of emissions per unit energy consumption (IEPEC), and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment (EBPEI), are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment. The results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with China’s fast economic growth; however, energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate. Impact of air emissions, mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health (especially dust), is slightly decreased. The performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period. Generally speaking, the conflict among economy, energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of China’s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues, and then puts forward some related suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recently, energy production in China fell behind energy consumption. This poses important challenges for the rapidly growing Chinese economy. As a consequence, the causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP is an important empirical issue. This paper examines Granger causality between energy consumption and GDP in China using province-level data. The current paper extends the Granger causality analysis employed in previous studies by taking into account panel heterogeneity. Specifically, four different causal relationships are examined: homogeneous non-causality (HNC), homogeneous causality (HC), heterogeneous non-causality (HENC), and heterogeneous causality (HEC). HC and HNC hypotheses are rejected for causality in either direction, from GDP to energy or from energy to GDP, which implies that the panel made up of Chinese provinces is not homogeneous. Then, heterogeneous causality tests (HEC ad HENC) are conducted for each province. For the causality running from GDP to energy, 19 provinces exhibit HEC and 11 provinces exhibit HENC. For the causality running from energy to GDP, 14 provinces exhibit HEC and 16 provinces exhibit HENC. The results suggest that the Chinese government should incorporate a regional perspective while formulating and implementing energy policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The sustainability of Chinese economy has attracted attentions from all over the world since China''s reform & opening up policy. This paper attempted to evaluate the relationships among Chinese economy, energy and its impact of emissions during 1991–2009 using several novel indicators based on emergy, energy and monetary units. The results show that NH3-N in wastewater has taken main responsibility for impact of emissions, the hidden environmental cost per unit economic output has been continuously reduced, education and R & D investment has cut pollutants generating intensity since 1997, and environmental protection investment has cut emission intensity since 1996. Generally speaking, the coordination degree of structure and scale of China''s economy has been improved to different degree from 1991 to 2009. However, the growth of education and R & D investment and environmental protection investment has not prevented impact of emissions from increase caused by economic aggregate growth, and the turning point has not appeared in this period. Finally, this paper discusses some related issues and puts forward the corresponding suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper links urbanization strategies to changes in land use and associated impacts on rural communities and agro-ecosystems in a rural area of China. Energy, monetary and human time variables as well as information on environmental pressures, have been combined to compare different typologies of households and the metabolism of different patterns of land use from an integrated perspective. The results show that urbanization strategies, aimed at shifting the current land use and at displacing the local population, while increasing the economic efficiency is also associated with an increase in fossil energy consumption and environmental pressure, as well as a reduction of the multifunctional characteristic of the area under investigation. Based on these findings the paper also offers a critical discussion of the Chinese rural development policy arguing that the multifunctionality of rural areas should be taken into account by Chinese policy-makers and planners as a viable strategy to achieve rural development targets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Existing studies pay little attention to when or under which conditions foreign direct investment (FDI) can spill energy-saving technologies. From a perspective of energy-biased technical change and using a two-layer nested constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function, this paper investigates the energy-saving spillover effect of FDI on technical change (i.e., energy-saving spillovers) in China between 2002 and 2015. In particular, we consider the conditions of marketization, industry, technology, and labor mobility to examine whether and when FDI has energy-saving spillovers. The results indicate no income inequality effect, i.e., there is no evidence supporting that FDI flowing into low- and middle-income regions increases energy consumption, while FDI flowing into high-income regions conserves energy. However, there is a condition effect: FDI can improve (support the halo effect) or deteriorate (contradict the halo effect) the environmental performance under different conditions. Moreover, there is a threshold effect: the direction of FDI spillovers varies with the different levels of the threshold variables. An increasing marketization motivates enterprises to select energy-biased technologies. It is more likely to generate energy-saving spillovers in the regions with a lower specialized agglomeration level. FDI will have energy-biased spillovers when domestic technological level is relatively high with an evident energy-biased technology. In addition, a moderate labor mobility is beneficial to the energy-saving spillovers of FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The average compliance cost for China's fuel economy regulation by 2020 is $688. • The market share of New Energy Vehicles will be 16.9% and 34.2% by 2025 and 2030. • China's fuel saving target cannot be fully achieved using current schemes. • Vehicles will grow heavier due to the regulation's curb weight based feature. • The favorable test method will make PHEV the most promising fuel-saving technology. Abstract Under the annually strengthened fuel economy regulations for light-duty vehicles, a technology pathway provides automakers with forward-looking guidance to strategically manage their vehicle assortment and fuel-efficient technologies. Because the regulations worldwide are very different in terms of their various schemes and designs, it is difficult to calculate the optimal pathway or to evaluate a regulation's impact on the vehicle fleet without an assessment model specifically designed to do so. To date, China has issued four Phases of Corporate Average Fuel Consumption regulations; however, a bottom-up optimized technology pathway for the regulation compliance of domestic automakers is still missing. In this paper, real-world data on each vehicle model's market and technology parameters are used to describe China's passenger vehicle fleet. Employing a combinational optimization assessment model for China's regulation, this study calculates bottom-up fuel-efficient technology pathways for complying with the 2020 regulation and the potential 2025–2030 regulations. Under scenarios that do not consider the subsidy or super-credit preferential policies for New Energy Vehicles (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Battery Electric Vehicles in China), the average compliance costs for the three future phases of the regulations will be $687.5, $2344.4 and $3111.2. The average fuel consumption rate of passenger vehicle fleet will reach 5.28, 4.07 and 3.33 L/100 km, and the average vehicle curb weight will increase by 4.7%, 6.3% and 9.2%. These results mean that if current schemes are followed, the regulations will fail to achieve their fuel saving targets and to promote lightweighting vehicles. The technology pathway of powertrains and specific fuel-efficient technologies is analyzed in great detail. The results show that the market share of New Energy Vehicles will increase to 16.9% and 34.2% by 2025 and 2030, and that Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle will be the most promising fuel saving technology due to the preferential test method in China. The sensitivity of the compliance cost and the market share of New Energy Vehicles to regulation stringency is further analyzed. For every change in regulation stringency of 0.05 L/100 km in the 2025 and 2030 regulations, the compliance cost will change by 3.03% and 2.31%, while the market share of New Energy Vehicle will change by 0.58% and 0.73%. These results indicate that if the various schemes for regulation compliance are not taken into account, only making adjustment to the regulations' stringency may have little effect on reducing automakers' compliance cost or promoting the market share of New Energy Vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Abstract The water-related energy consumption is one of the core concepts in water-energy nexus, yet the classification and estimation values of its numerous branches have not been well documented in China. To address this gap, this paper sorted out water-related energy use processes after setting forth the implication and boundary of water activities, and then calculated their detailed energy flows. The results showed that the total energy consumed by China's water sector was about 732 million GJ in 2015, accounting for 0.6% of the national energy consumption. The electricity power is the basic power source for water processes and the electricity consumed by water sector accounts for 3.4% of the total electricity consumption in China. From the perspective of different water activities: 54% of the energy consumption was attributed to raw freshwater collection, extraction and conveyance activities, 41% of the energy used in water treatment, distribution and wastewater treatment while the water resource construction activities occupied the remaining 5%. The analysis suggested that the energy consumption has not become a major restricting factor to water sector on national scale, while heavy energy burdens were likely to lower the current and future effectiveness of certain water projects or policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Industrial sector is responsible for the majority of China's carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions and contributed most to the rapid increment in the first decade of this century. However, CO 2 emissions in the industrial sector stagnated due to China's economic slowdown since 2012. This paper aims to estimate the CO 2 emissions in China's industrial sector during 2010–2016 to deliver sectoral and regional details and uncover the reasons for the emissions stagnancy. We find that the emission stagnancy is a result of decreasing energy intensity and economic slowdown. Industrial restructuring within the entire industrial sector and emission intensity (emissions per unit of energy consumption) had limited effect on the emissions reduction. From the sectoral perspective, iron & steel and nonmetal sectors accounted for most reduced emissions in China's industrial sectors during 2014–2016. From the regional perspective, the emissions decrease mainly occurred in western and northeastern provinces, rather than more developed coastal provinces. Mitigation policies are raised, including the industrial structure shift from energy-intensive sectors to other sectors and addressing the emissions mitigation in rapid industrializing provinces, such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, so that an earlier and lower emission peak of China's industrial sectors can be achieved. Highlights • Iron & steel and nonmetal sectors accounted for most emissions reduction. • Decreasing energy intensity and economic slowdown are the main reasons. • Emissions in most energy-intensive sectors have peaked or approach the peak. • Emissions decrease occurred mainly in the western and northeastern provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth in China, while controlling for fossil fuel consumption, financial development, capital, institutional quality and globalization and its components for the period, 1970–2014. We have employed the Bayer and Hanck, (2013) combined cointegration test to examine the long-run relationships between those variables as well as the autoregressive distributed lag method with structural breaks as a robustness check. The empirical findings demonstrate a long-run relationship between those variables. Hydroelectricity consumption, fossil fuel consumption, capital, financial development and globalization and its components have a positive influence on GDP in China. The findings also provide predominant evidence on the long-run feedback hypothesis between the variables. The findings suggest that policies should be implemented to increase the role hydropower in the energy mix for sustainable economic growth in the country. Highlights • We examine the relationship between hydropower consumption and economic growth in China. • We control for fossil fuel consumption, financial development, capital, institutions and globalization. • We employ the Bayer and Hanck, (2013) cointegration test and ARDL bounds-testing method with structural breaks. • The findings demonstrate a long-run relationship between those variables. • The explanatory and control variables have positive influence on GDP in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]