Examining the role of digitalization and gig economy in achieving a low carbon society: an empirical study across nations

Low-carbon production of iron and steel: Technology options, economic assessment, and policy

Climate change is harmful to ecosystems and public health, so the concern about climate change has been aroused worldwide. Studies indicated that greenhouse gas emission with CO2 as the main component is an important factor for climate change. Countries worldwide are on the same page that low-carbon development is an effective way to combat climate change. Enhancing public concern about low-carbon development and climate change has a positive effect on universal participation in carbon emission reduction. Therefore, it is significant to study the trend of public concern about low carbon and its relationship with CO2 emissions. Currently, no related studies are available, so this research explores the relationship between the public concern about low carbon and CO2 emissions of China, as well as the respective trends of each. Based on the daily data of Baidu-related keyword searches and CO2 emission, this research proposes the GMM-CEEMD-SGIA-LSTM hybrid model. The GMM is utilized to construct a comprehensive Baidu index (CBI) to reflect public concern about low carbon by clustering keywords search data. CEEMD and SGIA are applied to reconstruct sequences for analyzing the relationship between CBI and CO2 emissions. Then LSTM is utilized to forecast CBI. The reconstructed sequences show that there is a strong correlation between CBI and CO2 emissions. It is also found that CBI affects CO2 emissions, with varying effect lag times for different periods. Compared to LSTM, RF, SVR, and RNN models, the proposed model is reliable for forecasting public concern with a 46.78% decrease in MAPE. The prediction results indicate that public concern about low carbon shows a fluctuating upward trend from January 2023 to January 2025. This research could improve understanding of the relationship between public concern about low carbon and CO2 emissions to better address climate change.

The shift to low carbon development implies winners and losers. This chapter explores some of the different dimensions and interpretations of equity and social justice in the context of climate change and development. It initially examines the dominant application of social justice through the lens of equity within global mitigation agreements. Using examples drawn from Ghana’s low carbon development planning processes, the chapter then demonstrates how greater attention is required to the consideration of social justice in decision making and implementation of low carbon development at national level.

China plans to pursue low-carbon development in its low-carbon pilot cities to control greenhouse gas emissions. The low-carbon city development is an important method to achieve sustainable development strategy, while it is also a new city development mode to promote natural ecology, low-carbon economy and social happiness. However, the evaluation process of the low-carbon city is a multiple objective and decision problem. A single indicator cannot comprehensively and objectively evaluate a city’s low-carbon development level, so a comprehensive evaluation index system should be established. So taking Guiyang as a case study, this article constructs 35 evaluating indicators that are based on the basic urban development level and low-carbon urban development level to analyse the economic development, social progress and environmental quality transmutation comprehensively by using the entropy method. The results show that in the whole process of sustainable development, the economic development, social progress and the environmental quality have been greatly improved, but the low-carbon level had been on the low side from 2003 to 2016 in Guiyang. Therefore, Guiyang still has a long way to go to become a low-carbon city, and concrete policies and countermeasures should be taken to promote the low-carbon level. In particular, Guiyang has to strengthen the dual constraint of carbon emission intensity and total carbon emissions, adhere to the development path characterized by low carbon and strive to achieve leapfrog development.

The ecological problems brought by the rapid development of the economy and society have threatened humanity’s sustainable development. As the world’s largest carbon emitter, China is still at a critical stage of industrialization, and it is urgent to solve the problem of how to realize the low-carbon circular development of the economy. This paper constructed the evaluation index system of regional low carbon development from the three dimensions of development, low carbon, and ecology. Based on the entropy weight-TOPSIS model, the index was quantitatively analyzed with the data of 30 provinces in China in 2018. According to the measurement results, 30 provinces, were clustered into low-carbon development zones, relatively low-carbon development zones, relatively high-carbon development zones, and high-carbon development zones according to the low-carbon ecological development level. The results show that China’s overall low-carbon economic development level is not high in 2018, with the south being superior to the north, and the eastern coastal areas of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Zhejiang being significantly prime to other regions. Finally, suggestions are given for different types of low-carbon development areas.

Sustainable transportation has been raised up into the mainstreaming of low carbon development and sustainable city frameworks since first recognized at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in the outcome document namely the Agenda 21. Nowadays, sustainable transport is one of the major approaches for the mega cities to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Bangkok Metropolitan is one of the cities in Asia where become more vulnerable areas to climate change impacts and unsustainable city patterns caused by urbanization, economic growth, high energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As results from inefficient public transport system, lack of land-use planning as well as lack of mobility management, Bangkok has more environmental, social and economic problems. In Thailand, the mass rapid transit (MRT) master plans have been developed as the key role in developing Bangkok Metropolitan toward low carbon and sustainable city, but there still lack of sustainable transportation concept applied in such plans. The objectives of the study are to study the current situation of transportation system and its impacts in Bangkok Metropolitan, and to propose low carbon development strategic model on sustainable transport toward sustainable and low carbon city. This research was designed as exploratory research applying a qualitative research methods consisting of 1) desk reviews of international, national, and local policies and relevant documents which related to sustainable development, sustainable transport, low carbon city, and mass rapid transit system; and 2) in-depth semi-structured stakeholder interviews were conducted with key respondents that classified into six stakeholder groups; namely governmental agencies, mass rapid transit operators, consulting companies, international organizations, non-profit organizations, and experts. Multiple viewpoints of different key stakeholder groups were analyzed and presented in the form spider charts which somewhat useful for the inductive analysis processes. The research found that policy and institutional elements issues are major challenges for implementing low carbon development strategy for sustainable transport and low carbon city; including inconsistency of policy and plan, lack of stakeholder involvement and buy-in, lack of readiness in data, human resources, technology and finance, and ineffective regulations enforcement. The proposed model highlighted the major factors and supplemental key elements composing of institution, technical and human capacity development, institutional framework and stakeholder mapping, policy setting, process integration and inclusive plans, as well as plan of implementation with concrete and continuity action plan and implementation. These would support effective strategic process for low carbon development strategy on sustainable transport and low carbon city. The study would highly recommend that both inter- and intra-connecting networks of the MRT systems as well as the transit oriented development for developing inclusive and effective transport systems need to be strongly taken into account. In addition, a high-level participation and a clear direction of the governmental policies also need strongly support in achieving sustainable transport towards low carbon city development processes.

Trade, Competition and Welfare in Global Online Labour Markets: A 'Gig Economy' Case Study

<p>Digital economy is becoming a new engine of China's economic transformation, leading a new path of green and low-carbon development. However, the positive and negative effects of the digital economy on the environment have also been widely debated. The energy consumption of China's digital economy industry is still increasing, but it has received little attention. This paper studies the emerging links between digital economy and low-carbon sustainable development. Understanding the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions is critical to addressing the challenges of climate change in the digital age.</p><p>By integrating input-output methods, this paper establishes a comprehensive framework to evaluate China's digital economy and environmental sustainable development. It can not only evaluate the carbon emissions in various sub-industries of the digital economy, but also reveal its formation and change mechanism by determining its source industries, transfer paths and economic drivers. Using STIRPAT model and provincial panel data from 2001 to 2016, this paper investigates the impact of the digital economy industry on carbon emissions at the national and regional levels. In addition, assess the carbon footprint of the entire digital industry, including the relative contribution of major infrastructure, core and integration components of the digital economy to carbon emissions. The results show that the digital economy helps reduce China's carbon emissions. The digital economy in the central region has a greater impact on carbon emissions than the eastern region, while the western region has unconspicuous impact. With the emergence of the digital economy in the energy system, energy consumption can be reduced and energy efficiency can be improved, which can help reduce carbon emissions in the energy sector, and contribute to the sector's carbon emission reduction goal of about 3%. The positive and negative impacts of the digital economy on the environment have resulted in an inverted U-shaped relationship between the digital economy and carbon emissions. The inflection point of the digital economy is slightly higher than the medium level, which means that carbon emissions may increase further with the development of the digital economy at this stage. Without control, the relative contribution of the digital economy to carbon emissions may exceed 10% by 2030. These findings not only help to advance the existing literature, but also deserve special attention from policy makers.</p>

Energy-related activities are a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A growing body of knowledge clearly depicts the links between human activities and climate change. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and other human activities has released carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other heat-trapping GHG emissions into the atmosphere and thus increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 emissions. The main human activities that emit CO2 emissions are (1) the combustion of fossil fuels to generate electricity, accounting for about 37% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 31% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, (2) the combustion of fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods, accounting for about 31% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 26% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, and (3) industrial processes such as the production and consumption of minerals and chemicals, accounting for about 15% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 12% of total ...

As the detrimental effect of greenhouse gas emissions becomes increasingly significant, it has been a worldwide concern. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of sustainable financial development on greenhouse gas emissions via heterogeneous technological progress, using 162 countries as a sample. Empirical assessment is conducted using panel data from 2000 to 2019 and the mediation effect model as well as the country and year fixed-effect model. The findings are shown as follows: (1) Greenhouse gas emissions are increased as a result of sustainable financial development. (2) Environmental technology progress and technology choice progress have a dilution effect. Together, they have the ability to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by sustainable financial development. However, these two dilution effects do not completely cut down on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from global sustainable financial development, even though they do help. (3) The direct and indirect effects of sustainable financial development on greenhouse gas emissions are heterogeneous among countries with different income levels. Through technological progress, sustainable financial development in middle-income countries significantly cuts greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable financial development, on the other hand, increases greenhouse gas emissions in both high- and low-income countries, although there are distinctions between them. (4) Environmental technology progress in high-income countries has a dilution effect. Meanwhile, technological choice and progress in low-income countries have a mediating effect on greenhouse gas emissions. To conclude, the evidence provided in this paper may provide some potential solutions to the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, and also enrich the existing literature.

Technology innovation plays an increasingly prominent role in addressing global environmental challenges. In particular, environmental technology innovation (environmental innovation) is the most powerful and realistic alternative to achieve environmental sustainability and sustainable development. A better understanding of how environmental innovation affects the environment and how the effect differs by country is needed. This study analyzes how environmental innovation affects environmental improvement by a dynamic panel model using the System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation. We use panel data from 33 high-income countries and 36 middle-income countries for the period 1996–2011, to compare their environmental pollution patterns, and determine how environmental innovation affects air pollution reduction as measured by sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results reveal that environmental innovation improves the environment in some countries over time. The effect is particularly beneficial in high income countries. It is evident that environmental innovations reduce SO2 and CO2 emissions in high-income countries with time interval, while it does not in middle-income countries. The study also identifies that the relationship between per capita income and SO2 and CO2 emissions has a different pattern between high- and middle-income countries. The inverted U-shaped pattern supporting the hypothesis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) exists in high-income countries. The examination of the trade effect on pollution emissions provides mixed results; however, trade clearly increases SO2 and CO2 emissions in middle-income countries. This study contributes to empirical literatures on the effect of environmental innovation on environmental improvement. And it has significant implications for understanding the importance of direction and role of environmental innovation for environmental sustainability and sustainable development.

ABSTRACT: Several studies have used various datasets and methodologies to analyze the relationship between bilateral trade and income convergence among trading partners. However, most studies have not paid attention to the effect that income levels and nature of bilateral trade have on the speed of income convergence. In this paper, we argue that the income levels of trading partners and the nature of bilateral trade play important role in the relationship between bilateral trade and international income convergence. To account for the effect of income levels of trading partners, this paper presents an approach that explicitly accounts for bilateral trade among high-income (OECD) countries, bilateral trade between high-income and low-income (SSA) countries, and bilateral trade among low-income (SSA) countries. We also used total trade data for 25 OECD countries and 30 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2018 to avoid the potential bias for selecting certain countries based on arbitrary percentage of trade relationship. We used the 2SLS estimations technique to avoid endogeneity problems due to the nature of the dataset. The paper finds that the bilateral trade-income convergence relationship for OECD to SSA is the strongest. This result throws light on the claim that the nature of bilateral trade between high-income and low-income countries promotes one directional knowledge spillover from high-income to low-income countries which enables low-income countries to adopt new technologies and grow faster than their high-income counterparts. Also, bilateral trade among OECD countries, which mostly comprises of differentiated products, promotes descent income convergence among them. However, bilateral trade among SSA countries has the least effect on income convergence. Findings of the study have important implications for bilateral trade among low-income countries and between low income and high income countries. First, if SSA countries want to develop and catch up with their rich counterparts, they should continue to promote free trade with high income countries by dismantling remaining protection policies. Second, the African Continental Free Trade Area's (AfCFTA) efforts to boost the manufacturing sector through industrialization is in the right direction to promote the production of more differentiated products in Africa which will create growth in income for member countries as they trade more. Finally, there is the need for SSA countries to increase investment rates and improve human capital accumulation to enable them to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and grow faster than their high-income counterparts, while bridging the income gap between them through trade.

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 产业园区温室气体排放清单 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201306091508 作者: 作者单位: 北京师范大学环境学院,北京师范大学 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金(91325302,41271543);国家科技支撑计划课题(2012BAK30B03);国家基金委创新研究群体科学基金(51121003);高等学校博士学科点专项科研基金(20130003110027) Greenhouse Gas Inventory of industrial parks in China Author: Affiliation: School of Environment,Beijing Normal University,State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control,School of Environment,Beijing Normal University,State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:温室气体排放所导致的全球气候变化是国际社会长期关注的热点问题,它严重限制了人类社会的发展并威胁着人类的生存。产业园区通常集中了一个区域主要的生产要素与生产能力,也代表着特定产业在该区域的发展水平,理应作为发展低碳经济的基础单元和减少温室气体排放的重要控制点,也可以成为解决区域资源、环境问题的突破口。明确了产业园区温室气体排放的系统边界和内部结构,梳理了产业园区全生命周期温室气体排放行为,综合考虑产业园区能源消耗、工业生产、物质材料消耗、仪器设备投入、废弃物处理处置、景观绿化等过程,建立产业园区温室气体排放核算方法,并对案例园区进行了清单分析。结果表明:案例园区整个生命周期的温室气体排放量为1872177 t CO2-eq,其中运行管理阶段占全生命周期排放的比例最高,为95.35%。建设阶段的温室气体排放总量中建筑材料消耗引起的排放占到96.95%,主要集中在建筑工程、内部装修工程和外部装饰工程3个环节。运行管理阶段电力消耗、热力消耗和污水处理过程的排放量占到总量的98.69%。根据核算及分析结果提出了案例园区在建设和运行管理阶段实现温室气体减排的建议。 Abstract:Global climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has severely limited the development of human society and threatened the survival of humanity. Gathering the primary production factors and capacity of the region, an industrial park represents the development level of specific industries in the region. Therefore, the industrial park should be regarded as the base unit for developing a low-carbon economy and reducing GHG emissions, and also a breakthrough in allocating regional resource and overcoming environmental problems. Low-carbon mode has become a trend of development in industrial parks. Researches about GHG emissions from industrial parks make suggestions on the critical points for controlling GHG emissions and provide guidance for the construction or reform projects of low-carbon industrial parks, as well as providing references for entry thresholds and emission standards of low-carbon industrial parks. This study selects the high-end industrial parks as research object, defines the boundary of GHG inventories, and clarifies the structure of the carbon sources. In this study, a GHG inventory is set up to analyze the life-cycle GHG emissions from industrial parks, which includes 6 types of GHG emission sources, namely energy consumption, industrial production, materials consumption, equipments investment, waste disposal and landscaping. The above method was used for one high-end low carbon industrial park in Beijing as a case study. The results were as follows: (1)the overall GHG emission of the whole life-cycle is 1872177 t CO2-eq. The construction stage takes up 4.546% which means 85105.82 t CO2-eq GHG emission with an intensity of 801.69 kg CO2-eq /m2; while the operation stage contributes the great majority of GHG emission, which achieves a proportion of 95.352%. The GHG emission of operation stage is 37717.18 t CO2-eq, and the intensity is 355.29 kg CO2-eq /m2. (2) During the construction stage of the case industrial park, the top 3 emission sources are S (59.71%), ID (20.33%) and OD (11.40%), followed by L (3.74%), V (1.78%) and R (1.09%). The other 6 steps only take up the proportion of less than 1%. (3) More attention should be given tothe processes of sewage treatment, heat energy consumption and electricity consumption, as they contribute 98.69% of the stage emission. Finally, based on the analysis of the results, suggestions for GHG reduction are proposed to guide the low-carbon development of the high-end industrial park, such as making use of the local materials to reduce the amount of fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions due to the long-range transport, using the low carbon and regeneration construction materials instead of the traditional ones to reduce the GHG emission from the upstream production process and downstream disposal, scientifically arranging the construction progress to promote a safe and low carbon form of construction work, applying advanced management methods and strengthening the propaganda of energy conservation and emissions reduction. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Analysis of low carbon pilot industrial parks in China: Classification and case study

Low carbon innovation and practice in Caohejing High-Tech Industrial Park of Shanghai