{"title":"An Analysis of the Responsibilities and Driving Factors for Embodied Carbon in Trade","authors":"Bin Zhang, Liping Li, Jia-ni Zhao, Li Zhang","doi":"10.1142/s2345748122500130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748122500130","url":null,"abstract":"By adopting the consumption-based accounting (CBA) method of carbon emissions based on national carbon intensity (NCI), using the International Trade Centre (ITC) database, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), and the World Bank database, and taking 13 countries and regions including the European Union (EU) countries and the United States (US) as research samples, this paper conducts an accounting of the embodied carbon in trade between China and other major economies in the world, clarifies the responsibilities China has taken for foreign consumption-based carbon emissions, and analyzes the various driving factors of China’s embodied carbon in exports. The findings are as follows: (i) Most of the developed economies have higher consumption-based emissions than production-based emissions, which is contrary to most of the developing economies, with developing countries bearing responsibilities for 15–20% of the consumption-based carbon emissions for developed countries; (ii) the carbon emissions of countries and regions are closely related to the embodied carbon in trade, with a correlation coefficient of 0.96. (iii) China has taken responsibility for a large amount of carbon emissions from foreign consumer demand, most of which are from the US, the EU, ASEAN, and Japan, respectively accounting for 3.8%, 3.5%, 2.3%, and 1.2% of China’s production-based carbon emissions in 2019; (iv) technique effect is the main driving factor for China’s embodied carbon in trade, while the specific driving factors vary by industry. Based on the above analysis, it is suggested that China should: (i) consider the trade factor in its efforts to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality; (ii) adopt differentiated measures to reduce trade-related emissions for specific industries; (iii) fully consider China’s demand for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in international negotiations; (iv) give more support to the research on and measurement of consumption-based carbon emissions.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42377519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of City Cluster Development on the Inter-City Disparity: Evidence From China","authors":"Mengyu Yang, Bingxuan Hu","doi":"10.1142/s2345748122500063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748122500063","url":null,"abstract":"City clusters are important carriers for China’s future urbanization and vital areas for promoting coordinated regional development and common prosperity. The authors first divide the city clusters into Types I, II, and III according to the characteristics of their development stages, and measure the degree of development of city clusters by using city-level night time light (NTL) data and inter-city commuting time, and empirically identify the types of China’s city clusters. On that basis, the authors examine the influence of city cluster development on the inter-city disparity from a perspective of urban agglomeration. The results show that the development of Type I city clusters can lead to the widest inter-city disparity, and that of Type II city clusters ranks the second place in this regard, while that of Type III city clusters can narrow the inter-city disparity. Furthermore, using the 268-year historical geographic data of the Qing Dynasty, the authors construct instrumental variables to address the endogeneity issues, and find that the above conclusions are robust. This study also finds that the factor allocation for the development of Types I and II city clusters is oriented towards labor, while that for Type III city clusters is oriented towards capital. Besides, different types of city clusters vary in the extent of correcting factor misallocation for their development. The differences in the orientation of factor allocation and the extent of factor misallocation correction constitute the main mechanism for the heterogeneous influence of city cluster development on the inter-city disparity. China’s city cluster development strategy should adopt a category-based approach to avoid homogenization, conform to the objective laws, and make greater use of central cities’ spatial spillover effects.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63851888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Megacity Growth, City System and Urban Strategy","authors":"C. Ding, Xiao He, Yongming Zhu","doi":"10.1142/s2345748122500051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748122500051","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the development pattern of 35 megacities from 1980 to 2020 and examines the impact of megacity’s growth on the city system. We use primacy, urban concentration, Zipf’s coefficient, and entropy to characterize the city system in a country with a megacity. Our analysis finds the following: (1) The growth rates of megacities are faster than the totals of the national population and national urban population in general; (2) the growth of megacities makes the city system diverge; (3) the development of megacities tends to be companied by the shrinking of small cities; and (4) emerging megacities has substantial impacts on urbanization strategy, urban planning, and policy.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42940490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zhiyuan Ma, Zijian Zhao, Chang-Yi Liu, Fang Yang, Mou Wang
{"title":"The Impacts and Adaptation of Climate Extremes on the Power System: Insights from the Texas Power Outage Caused by Extreme Cold Wave","authors":"Zhiyuan Ma, Zijian Zhao, Chang-Yi Liu, Fang Yang, Mou Wang","doi":"10.1142/s234574812250004x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s234574812250004x","url":null,"abstract":"Along with the aggravation of climate change, various weather and climate extreme events (abbreviated as climate extremes) are becoming more frequent. During the transition to the use of clean energy, the power system will show increasingly prominent features such as high ratio of clean energy, high ratio of electrification, and a high proportion of electric and electronic equipment, coupled with summer and winter load peaks. Against this backdrop, this paper studies the impacts of climate extremes on the power system using the Texas power outage as an example, and proposes general adaptation measures to cope with climate extremes. For a start, this paper reviews the power outage in Texas caused by an extreme cold wave across the North America in 2021, and conducts an in-depth analysis of its causes. Then, based on the theoretical framework of disaster risk management, this paper analyzes the weather and climate disaster risks, extreme events, exposure, and vulnerability faced by the power system in the context of climate change and extreme events. Finally, in order to build a new power system, this paper establishes an overall framework for the power system to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and summarizes the key techniques involved in power generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption, as well as key technologies in the fields of power supply, power grid, power load, and energy storage, and the strategies and measures for addressing climate change.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46916400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evaluation of Countries’ Capacities for Addressing Climate Change in the Post-Paris Era","authors":"Zhixuan Ji, Mou Wang, Xinran Yang, Wenmei Kang","doi":"10.1142/s2345748122500038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748122500038","url":null,"abstract":"The Paris Agreement signed in 2015 basically established the post-2020 international climate system. The agreement no longer emphasizes the differences between countries of the North and South. It requested each country to outline and communicate their post-2020 climate actions, which were legally termed as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs). However, in the process of negotiating the implementation rules and regulations, there is still a big divide between developing and developed countries. Thus it is important to evaluate countries’ responsibilities, obligations and capacities for addressing climate change in the post-Paris era. By adopting the Delphi method, this paper establishes a more comprehensive index system to quantitatively evaluate countries’ capacities for addressing climate change, and to further identify and determine their capacities under the Paris Agreement. According to the evaluation results, there is still a large gap between developed and developing countries in their capacities for addressing climate change. Developing countries with weak capacities fall behind mainly in terms of the industrialization process, Human Development Index (HDI) and urbanization rate. Developed countries with strong capacities lack commitments and actions in terms of helping developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This paper, by expanding the use of the Delphi method with a multi-dimensional evaluation system that includes a historical responsibility index, attempts to provide a reference for differentiating countries’ capacities and responsibilities in global climate governance, and to promote a more equitable and reasonable global climate governance system.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45471417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Growth, Energy Use, and Greenhouse Gases Emission in Macao SAR, China","authors":"Wai Ming To, K. Lam","doi":"10.1142/s2345748122500026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748122500026","url":null,"abstract":"A city’s economic structure and energy mix would change when the city is developed to accommodate more residents, visitors, and activities. This paper reviews Macao’s economic growth, energy use, and greenhouse gases (GHG) emission from 1985 to 2020. Specifically, Macao’s gross domestic product (GDP), energy use, and GHG emission have surged after the gaming industry was liberalized in 2002. The official data show that Macao’s GDP was MOP 11 billion in 1985, increased by four-fold to MOP 54 billion in 2000, and then surged rapidly to MOP 445 billion in 2019. Additionally, Macao’s total energy use increased from 8,840[Formula: see text]TJ in 1985 to 48,330[Formula: see text]TJ in 2019 while Macao’s GHG emission increased from 0.70[Formula: see text]Mt of CO2-equivalent in 1985 to 6.13[Formula: see text]Mt of CO2-equivalent in 2019. Macao’s GHG emission from all local sources per capita and GDP per capita exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship, showing an environmental Kuznets curve. Due to the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic, Macao’s GDP dropped by 56% to MOP 194 billion while its total energy use and GHG emission dropped by 33% and 17% to 32,198[Formula: see text]TJ and 5.06[Formula: see text]Mt of CO2-equivalent, respectively, in 2020.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43851796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Practice Model of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization","authors":"Kaizhong Yang","doi":"10.1142/s2345748121500202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748121500202","url":null,"abstract":"Ecological development is essentially the process of building a resource-efficient, environment-friendly and ecologically-safe society, and of achieving modernization that features harmonious coexistence between man and nature. Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization offers answers to such theoretical and practical questions as why to build an ecological civilization, what the goal is and how to achieve it. Its practice model focuses on explaining the norms, content, paths and methods of building an ecological civilization. It is a structural and operable approach for implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and guiding the construction of ecological civilization. As an intermediate link between Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and eco-civilization construction, the practice model is not only an indispensable part of the former, but also the key to combine the theory and practice concerning the two.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46036576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of Subway Network Expansion on Housing Rents: An Empirical Study in Beijing, China","authors":"Xin Ma, Tao Huang","doi":"10.1142/s2345748121500251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748121500251","url":null,"abstract":"Most previous studies have focused on the impact of subways on housing prices instead of rents, while the latter could better measure residential values. Based on a dataset collected from a real estate agency in Beijing, which contains more than 900,000 housing rental transaction records from 2011 to 2020, this paper empirically evaluates the causal effect of subway network expansion on housing rents. It employs a series of progressive difference-in-difference (DID) approaches, to estimate the impact and determine the impact scope. The findings demonstrate that a reduction of the distance to subway stations by 1 km increases the rents by 2.32%; the impact scope is about 1.5 km and the average rent appreciation within the range is 5%. The addition of a line for non-transfer stations raises the rents by 10% for houses 1.5–2 km away from the stations, extending the impact scope. Houses with large areas in upscale and old neighborhoods near the city center are affected less by subways. It also confirms the siphon effect in the rental market, i.e.: rents of houses far away from the new stations fall after the opening of the stations.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45020885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spatial Heterogeneity of China’s Environmental Regulation on Industrial Pollution: Evidence from a Top–Down Environmental Enforcement Action","authors":"Yuhong Li","doi":"10.1142/s2345748121500226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748121500226","url":null,"abstract":"To obtain precise information about enterprises’ pollution control and take corresponding environmental protection measures is the key to preventing and controlling industrial pollution. Taking the lead–acid battery industry as an example, this paper employs data from the Environmental Enforcement Action to analyze the urban–rural and inter-provincial distributions of pollution-intensive enterprises and to quantitatively verify the spatial differences in China’s environmental regulation on industrial pollution. The study finds that lead–acid battery manufacturing enterprises are mainly located in rural areas instead of urban areas; most pollution-intensive firms located in industrial parks, especially those approved by governments below the provincial level. The multivariate logistic model analysis finds that environmental regulation in urban districts is more strict than that in towns and villages, while the suburban areas are the laxest; environmental regulation in national-level development zones is more strict than that in provincial-level development zones, while zones below the provincial level are the laxest. In general, the environmental regulation is stricter in urban areas than in rural areas, and stricter in clustered space than in scattered space, while most inter-provincial environmental regulations have no significant differences. Local governments should effectively allocate conventional environmental law enforcement resources and shift the focus of law enforcement downwards to parks below the provincial level, and on suburbs and townships.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45202569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Systemic Governance of Mountains, Rivers, Forests, Farmlands, Lakes and Grasslands: Theoretical Framework and Approaches","authors":"Yan Zheng, Guiyang Zhuang","doi":"10.1142/s2345748121500214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s2345748121500214","url":null,"abstract":"The life community of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands (MRFFLG) and its systemic governance are key components to build ecological civilization in China. It comprises diverse connotations in value, scientific and economic dimensions. Epistemologically, it comes from the Chinese traditional philosophy of harmonious coexistence of heaven, earth and man, and conforms to the Western ecological ethics, complex system science and environmental value theory. Methodologically, as a complex socio-ecological system in which man and nature interact and coexist, the life community of the MRFFLG should be governed coordinately from both narrow and broad views. At the policy level, from the perspectives of narrow synergy among ecological subsystems and broad synergy among the complex socio-ecological system, this paper evaluates the performance indicators of 16 pilot projects of the MRFFLG, and points out that the design of most pilot projects well reflects the narrow synergy of multiple ecological elements, but is short of attention to the broad synergy of green development and ecological civilization. There are two practical ways to promote the systemic governance of the MRFFLG. First, it needs to focus on the coordinated governance of watershed and ecological environment restoration against the background of global climate and environmental change. The goal is to restore and improve the service functions of ecological subsystems and enhance their climate adaptability. Second, in the context of new urbanization and green development transition, it requires a collaborative planning focusing on natural capital and green infrastructure investment, which is aimed at cultivating ecological dividends and realizing ecological economy.","PeriodicalId":43051,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45762216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}