Environmental management control systems for carbon emissions

A scientific carbon accounting system can help enterprises reduce carbon emissions. This study took an enterprise in the Yangtze River basin as a case study. The accounting classification of carbon emissions in the life cycle of lime production was assessed, and the composition of the sources of carbon emission was analyzed, covering mining explosives, fuel (diesel, coal), electricity and high-temperature limestone decomposition. Using the IPCC emission factor method, a carbon life cycle emission accounting model for lime production was established. We determined that the carbon dioxide equivalent from producing one ton of quicklime ranged from 1096.68 kg CO2 equiv. to 1176.96 kg CO2 equiv. from 2019 to 2021 in the studied case. The decomposition of limestone at a high temperature was the largest carbon emission source, accounting for 64% of the total carbon emission. Coal combustion was the second major source of carbon emissions, accounting for 31% of total carbon emissions. Based upon the main sources of carbon emission for lime production, carbon emission reduction should focus on CO2 capture technology and fuel optimization. Based on the error transfer method, we calculated that the overall uncertainty of the life cycle carbon emissions of quicklime from 2019 to 2021 are 2.13%, 2.07% and 2.09%, respectively. Using our analysis of carbon emissions, the carbon emission factor of producing one unit of quicklime in the lime enterprise in the Yangtze River basin was determined. Furthermore, this research into carbon emission reduction for lime production can provide a point of reference for the promotion of carbon neutrality in the same industry.

The Hu-Bao-O-Yu urban agglomeration is an important energy exporting and high-end chemical base in China, and is an important source of carbon emissions in China. The early achievement of peak carbon emissions in this region is particularly crucial to achieving the national carbon emission reduction targets. However, there is a lack of multi-factor system dynamics analysis of resource-dependent urban agglomerations in Northwest China, as most studies have focused on single or static aspects of developed urban agglomerations. This paper analyses the relationship between carbon emissions and their influencing factors, constructs a carbon emission system dynamics model for the Hu-Bao-O-Yu urban agglomeration, and sets up different single regulation and comprehensive regulation scenarios to simulate and predict the carbon peak time, peak value, and emission reduction potential of each city and urban agglomeration under different scenarios. The results show that: (1) Hohhot and Baotou are expected to reach peak carbon by 2033 and 2031 respectively, under the baseline scenario, while other regions and the urban agglomeration will not be able to reach peak carbon by 2035. (2) Under single regulation scenarios, the effect of factors other than the energy consumption varies across cities, but the energy consumption and environmental protection input are the main factors affecting carbon emissions in the urban agglomeration. (3) A combination of the economic growth, industrial structure, energy policy, environmental protection, and technology investment is the best measure to achieve carbon peaking and enhance the carbon emission reduction in each region as soon as possible. In the future, we need to coordinate the economic development, energy structure optimisation and transformation, low-carbon transformation of industry, strengthen research on carbon sequestration technology, and further increase the investment in environmental protection to make the Hu-Bao-O-Yu urban agglomeration a resource-saving urban agglomeration with an optimal emission reduction.

Faced with increasingly strict carbon emission control, high-emission enterprises need scientific and rational management systems and methods to strengthen carbon emission reduction management. Among the many management systems and methods, the carbon budget has become an effective emission reduction management tool, allowing the planning of carbon emissions and emission reduction activities and rational arrangement of economic inputs. However, judging from the research status and business practices in China and abroad, there is no general carbon budget system to guide the development of carbon emission and emission reduction activities. Based on this background, this paper first attempts to construct an enterprise carbon budget system comprising four sub-budgets: carbon emission, carbon emission reduction and cost, carbon emission rights trading, and carbon emission reduction net profit/loss. It draws on the idea of interactive control to consider the impact of changes in carbon prices, energy prices, and policy guidelines on carbon emission reductions and losses. A carbon budget management system based on interactive control is then constructed and applied to China National Aviation Holding Air China Group (AC Aviation). The research results show that the carbon budget system based on interactive control can dynamically adjust carbon emission reduction behavior based on changes in carbon and energy prices to make carbon budgeting a more viable carbon reduction tool and institutional arrangement.

Currently, scientifically and reasonably specifying carbon emission reduction measures in the context of "double carbon" has become a common concern worldwide. China's administrative divisions have a notable impact on the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. Therefore the carbon emissions must be calculated accurately under China's administrative divisions at different scales. The spatiotemporal change characteristics of absorption and carbon emissions can provide scientific basis for the formulation of reasonable and differentiated carbon emission reduction policies in different administrative regions in China. To this end, this study used multi-source data such as remote sensing and statistics and integrated ecological models, statistics, and GIS space analysis and other methods to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamic change characteristics of carbon emissions and carbon absorption at different administrative scales （provinces, cities, and counties） in China. The results showed that： ① The total carbon absorption of vegetation in China continued to increase from 2000 to 2021 and the average value gradually increased. Differences were observed in spatiotemporal changes in carbon emissions at different administrative scales. The spatiotemporal changes at smaller scales were more evident. Carbon emissions showed obvious spatial differences of "high in the north and low in the south, high in the east and low in the west." ② The spatiotemporal distribution of CPI at the administrative scale was similar to that of carbon emissions and the overall trend was increasing annually. The pressure of carbon emissions on carbon absorption gradually weakened from the east to the central and western regions. ③ Spatiotemporal hotspot analysis showed that the overall spatial distribution of cold and hot spots in China's carbon absorption was as follows： In the spatial pattern of "hot in the east and cold in the west," the spatial distribution of cold and hot spots of carbon emissions showed agglomeration characteristics. The provincial scale was primarily oscillating hotspot whereas municipal and county scales were majorly continuous hot spots. Further results revealed that： ① Carbon absorption in different regions and periods in China showed significant variability, especially in the central and eastern regions. The possibility of offsetting carbon emissions by increasing carbon absorption remains. ② At the same scale, administrative regions （such as different provinces） and lower-level administrative regions at another scale （such as different cities in the same province） showed varying degrees of variability in carbon absorption and carbon emissions. Therefore, taking provincial administrative regions as an example for subsequent formulation considering carbon trading, emission reduction, and other policies, we should first consider the coordination of emissions between different cities in the province and then consider the coordination between provinces, which is expected to better promote the implementation of relevant policies.

The emission of greenhouse gases poses enormous pressure on current carbon emissions and carbon reduction. Accurate quantification of carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants is of great significance for achieving the dual carbon goal. To enable enterprises to better understand their carbon emissions, this study constructs a carbon emission model and carbon emission data accounting model for coal-fired power plants. Case data calculations and a carbon emission reduction analysis were conducted. The experiment showcases that the carbon sensitivity of the inner side of the boiler under control conditions is higher than that of the operating parameters controlled on the inner side of the steam turbine, with a maximum total value of 16.67 g/MJ; the annual average low calorific value of coal remains between 16,000 kJ/kg; the activity level of coal remains between 30,000 TJ; and the oxidation probability of coal char during combustion fluctuates, with a maximum of 99.8%. In the calculation of coal-fired carbon emissions, the fitting difference between the emissions of generator unit 1 and generator unit 2 is maintained within 2%. Overall, the CO2 emissions of power plants involved in the study are generally high. The model built through this study has well analyzed the carbon emissions of power plants. It is of great significance for the actual carbon emission reduction of coal-fired power plants.

Has China achieved synergistic reduction of carbon emissions and air pollution? Evidence from 283 Chinese cities

Carbon emission has negative externalities, which will cause severe natural and social problems. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to carbon emission reduction issue both in academic and application fields. This paper aims to explore the impact of punitive carbon tax and incentive carbon emission reduction subsidy on economy and environment through the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework. The results show that both carbon tax and carbon emission reduction subsidy policies can help to reduce carbon emissions and to improve environment quality. In addition, carbon emission reduction subsidy has a positive impact on economy, while carbon tax has the opposite impact. It follows that the incentive carbon emission reduction policy is more conducive to the coordinated development of economy and environment. This research can be a guideline for the government to formulate carbon emission abatement policies from the perspective of coordinated development.

Carbon verification agencies and power enterprises play a crucial role in the process of reducing carbon emissions. Under government regulation, this paper explores the low-carbon behavior of carbon verification agencies and power enterprises, considering factors such as rewards and penalties, reputation, collusion, and costs. We first constructed a carbon emission reduction game model using evolutionary game theory and replicated dynamic equations to analyze the interactions between carbon verification agencies and power enterprises under government oversight. Subsequently, this study used theoretical derivation and numerical simulation to investigate the model’s evolution and the influence of various factors on the system’s evolution results. It is found that, firstly, the carbon emission reduction game between the carbon verification agency and the power enterprises will eventually be stabilized in two states (authentic verification and carbon emission reduction) and (fraudulent verification and no carbon emission reduction), and the specific stabilization of which state is closely related to the selection of the initial values of the parameters. Secondly, within a certain range, increasing the government’s rewards and penalties, increasing the reputation loss of carbon verification agencies and power enterprises, reducing the benefits of collusion between two parties, reducing the cost of low carbon disclosure and emission reduction of power enterprises will help the construction of a cooperative pattern of low carbon emission reduction and authentic supervision of carbon verification agencies.

Air pollutants and greenhouse gases share common sources, primarily originating from human activities such as energy utilization, thus presenting significant potential for synergistic control. Isolated consideration of solutions for either pollution mitigation or carbon reduction increases the unit cost of environmental governance and leads to inconsistencies and overlapping effects in policy measures. This study takes Chengdu, a low-carbon pilot city in China, as a case study. Based on clarifying the characteristics of regional air pollutant emissions and carbon emissions from energy consumption, it empirically investigates the synergistic variation in carbon emissions from diverse socioeconomic industries and multiple air pollutant emissions. The empirical results reveal the following: (1) during the research period, Chengdu’s air quality excellence rate demonstrated continuous improvement. Meanwhile, the carbon emissions from energy consumption exhibited a three-phase developmental pattern. The driving forces of growth had shifted from traditional high-energy-consuming industries to advanced manufacturing, urban basic energy demands, and energy extraction industries serving national strategies. (2) The synergistic reduction in carbon emissions with PM10 and PM2.5 reached relatively high levels from 2016 to 2019, followed by fluctuations due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The synergistic reduction between carbon emissions and SO2 exhibited considerable volatility. The electrification trend in transportation significantly promoted the synergistic reduction in carbon emissions and NO2 emissions. Due to the fact that O3 is a secondary pollutant with complex sources, achieving synergistic governance with carbon emissions proved more challenging. As a result of technological limitations, the synergistic reduction in carbon emissions and CO gradually exhibited a trend of diminishing marginal effects. The synergistic reduction effects between industry-specific carbon emissions and overall air pollutant emissions can be divided into five categories: sustained high-efficiency, generally stable, fluctuating, sudden-decline, and persistently low.

Land use and land cover (LULC) contribute to both carbon storage and carbon emissions. Therefore, regulating the LULC is an important means of achieving carbon neutrality under global environmental change. Here, the West Liaohe River Basin, a semiarid watershed, was taken as a case study. Based on the assessment of the carbon storage and emissions induced by LULC from 2000–2020, we set up three different coupled shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) and representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (SSP119, SSP245, and SSP585), from 2030–2060, to optimize the LULC. Then, the LULC patterns under each scenario were simulated using the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model, and the corresponding changes in carbon storage and emissions were compared and analyzed. It was found that, since 2000, with the expansion of forest, cropland, and construction land, as well as the degradation of grassland, the carbon storage and emissions induced by LULC have significantly increased, but the increase in storage was lower than that of emissions. The scenario simulations revealed that, when we optimize the LULC, mainly including the protection and expansion of ecological land such as forest and grassland in the western and southern edges of the basin, as well as the control and management of cropland land and construction land in the northeast and central parts of the basin, there will be a significant increase in the carbon storage and a significant reduction in carbon emissions from 2030–2060. This indicates that zone-based management measures with rational LULC regulation can contribute to the achievement of carbon neutrality in the study area. Supported by the results of this study, a direct decision-making basis for land use policy regulation to promote regional sustainable development can be undertaken in the basin. This study also provides a reference for low-carbon development in other regions.

Reducing carbon emissions has become largely synonymous with personal sacrifice that can decrease subjective well-being (i.e., happiness, life satisfaction). However, a growing body of research suggests that pro-environmental behavior is positively associated with subjective well-being. To further examine this relationship, this exploratory study examined individual carbon emissions and subjective well-being in Blue Zone Ikaria, Greece, using Athens as a comparison site. Structured interviews and questionnaires with 46 participants (22 in Ikaria, 24 in Athens) revealed that Icarian participants reported higher mental well-being and lower carbon emissions from air travel and clothing consumption than Athenian participants. Icarian participants were also more likely to grow their own food and identify as part of a tight-knit community. These findings suggest that community-focused lifestyles may promote mental well-being while reducing carbon emissions. Future research with larger, more representative samples and objective emissions data is needed to further explore this relationship in Ikaria and other non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) societies.

This paper establishes the framework of influencing factors of carbon emission reduction efficiency from two aspects of driving factors and braking factors and makes theoretical analysis. The panel data model is used to construct the model of influencing factors of carbon emission reduction efficiency. Collecting relevant data from 30 regions in China from 2011 to 2016 and selecting reasonable indicators，the impact of industrial structure, carbon rights market and technological innovation on carbon emission reduction efficiency have been empirically analyzed. According to the analysis conclusion, further calculate the energy efficiency of each region, and then come to carbon dioxide emission reduction potential, energy-saving space and emission reduction space of different regions. The concept of carbon emission decoupling is introduced to calculate the decoupling index of four stages in China and analyze the change of decoupling degree. The results show that: (1) The industrial structure greatly affects the efficiency of carbon emission reduction. The increase of the proportion of the secondary industry will increase the rate of change of carbon emission and reduce the efficiency of carbon emission reduction. The establishment of carbon rights market and improvement of technological innovation ability can effectively improve the efficiency of carbon emission reduction; (2) China's regional energy efficiency is not balanced. There is still great potential for carbon reduction, energy saving and emission reduction; (3) The stage decoupling index of different regions is different, but the degree of decoupling is strengthened year by year. The space of emission reduction is gradually reduced, indicating that the overall trend of economic growth on the pressure of emission reduction eased.

Southeast Asia is rich in tropical forests and biodiversity but rapid deforestation and forest degradation have accelerated climate change and threatened sustainable development in the region. Carbon emission reductions through reducing deforestation and forest degradation, forest conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) have been a focal topic of the climate change mitigation since the Bali in 2007. However, only a handful of studies exist so far on this important issue that are suitable to inform the debate with estimates of carbon stocks and emission reductions or removals as a result of REDD+. Our study attempts to analyze the potential emission reductions and removals for a 35-year period under the REDD+ scheme. We start by developing land use change and forest harvesting models that are used to estimate carbon stock changes in natural forests and forest plantations in Southeast Asia. Carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation of natural forests were 1865.1, 1611.4, and 1300.4 TgCO2 year-1, respectively. With a hypothetical carbon project of 35 years beginning from 2015, carbon emission reductions were estimated at 817.6 TgCO2 year-1, of which about 10% was from reducing forest degradation. Carbon removals due to increase of forest plantations were 76.3 TgCO2 year-1 but the removals could be much higher if there is a new definition on the eligibility of forest plantations. Summing up together, about 893.9 TgCO2 of carbon credits could be achieved from implementing carbon project in Southeast Asia or about US $6.6 billion annually between 2015 and 2050 if carbon price in 2012 is used. In addition to reducing emissions, there are other benefits from carbon project implementation. This study suggests that REDD+ has great potential for reducing carbon emissions and enhancing carbon stocks in the forests. Without financial incentives, carbon project would not happen and therefore climate change will continue to threaten future development.

An Integrated Analysis on the Synergistic Reduction of Carbon and Pollution Emissions from China’s Iron and Steel Industry

Building renovations in climates characterized by a hot summer and cold winter (HSWC) pose significant challenges in managing carbon emissions due to increased energy demands and material use. Despite advances in sustainable design, the carbon footprint of renovation activities remains a critical concern, particularly regarding the balance between initial emissions from construction and long-term operational efficiency. This study addresses these pressing issues through analyzing the carbon emissions associated with a building complex renovation in an HSWC zone of China. The research examines both the construction stage, where material production and transportation contribute significantly to emissions, and the operational stage, where energy consumption and equipment degradation influence long-term carbon output. By evaluating the effectiveness of renovation strategies and integrating building-integrated photovoltaic systems, this study demonstrates a reduction in annual carbon emissions from 1176.28 tCO2 to 1007.25 tCO2, a reduction of approximately 14.4%. The findings showed that the renovation process would achieve a carbon payback period of 7.46 years and a 24.9%–37.8% reduction in carbon emission intensity. This work underscores the potential significant environmental benefits of innovative materials and efficient design, offering valuable insights for future low-carbon building renovation projects.