Economic Environmental System Research Articles

Low-carbon transition or low-carbon trap? — An instrumental variable regression analysis based on carbon decoupling and energy equity

ABSTRACT Although the low-carbon transition has enormous potential for improving economic and environmental benefits, it may also lead to social equity issues, trapping certain regions in a low-carbon dilemma. Based on panel data from the Yangtze River Economic Belt for the period 2007–2019, this study empirically analyzes the impact of carbon decoupling on energy equity, employing the carbon emission trading policy and natural wetlands as joint instrumental variables. The findings reveal that: (1) from 2007 to 2019, the average level of carbon decoupling in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was recorded at 0.415, maintaining a weak decoupling state overall and nearly forming an “inverted V” shape; (2) in the instrumental variable regression results, for every 1% increase in the level of carbon decoupling, the energy equity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt decreased by an average of 0.095% (p < .01); (3) environmental burden played a partial mediating role between carbon decoupling and energy equity, with the mediation effect value being −0.007 (p < .05); (4) green energy consumption and marketization can variably mitigate the adverse effects of carbon decoupling. Examining the sustainability of the economic-environmental system from the perspective of energy equity contributes to shaping a low-carbon economy that maintains social justice and sustainability, thereby avoiding falling into a low-carbon trap.

The US Economy as a Network: A Comparison across Economic and Environmental Metrics

Environmental-economic analysis is an evolving field that seeks to situate the human economy within environmental systems through its consumption of environmental resources and cycling of resources and waste products back into the environment. Environmental accounting has seen increased focus in recent years as national and regional governments look to better track environmental flows to aid in policy development and evaluation. This study outlines a conceptual environmental-economic framework founded on network science principles. An empirical study operationalizes portions of the framework and highlights the need for further research in this area to develop new data sources and analytic methods. We demonstrate a spatial mismatch between the location of water-intensive industries and the natural location of water resources (i.e., lakes, rivers, and precipitation), which climate change is likely to exacerbate. We use eigenvector centrality to measure differences in the US economy according to economic trade flow and five associated environmental flow accounts (land use, water consumption, energy use, mineral metal use, and greenhouse gas production). Population normalization helps to identify low-population counties that play a central role in the environmental-economic system as a function of their natural resources.

Towards Sustainable Industry: A Comprehensive Review of Energy–Economy–Environment System Analysis and Future Trends

Industry, encompassing various sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and services, is crucial for economic growth and societal progress. However, industrial growth often comes at the cost of environmental degradation and energy resource depletion, ignoring the need for sustainable development. This study analyzed 131 articles published from 2004 to 2023, using the energy–economy–environment (3E) method to explore industrial research trends. The primary focus of industrial 3E research is on environmental impact and sustainable development, particularly related to energy consumption. This field covers various topics like systems, efficiency, optimization, and others. LCA methods and system dynamics models are commonly used in research method innovation. This study summarizes the main viewpoints of industrial 3E research and highlights future research directions and priorities, including transitions to areas like agriculture, fisheries, and renewable energy and combining evaluation and prediction methods with 3E methods, conducting large-scale system research, and examining coupling relationships within and between industrial systems.

Research on Ecological Protection and High-Quality Development of the Lower Yellow River Based on System Dynamics

The harmonious development between water resources, the economy, and the environment is the foundation of regional high-quality development, and the three are closely related. Based on a full analysis of the current situation of the lower Yellow River, this paper combines domestic and foreign studies, compares the framework of the relationship between water resources, the economy, and environment systems, selects 30 indicators such as average rainfall, natural population growth rate, PM2.5, etc., and establishes an evaluation model of the coupled coordination of the water resources–economy–environment system of the lower Yellow River, and then uses system dynamics to simulate and predict the degree of coupled coordination in the sub-scenarios. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The level of coordinated development in the water resources–environment system outperforms that of the water resources–economy and economy–environment systems in the cities along the lower Yellow River. (2) The coupling coordination degree of the lower reaches of the Yellow River increases from 0.5849 to 0.8209 during the period of 2006–2020, with an average annual increase of 2.62%. (3) A sub-scenario simulation for the 2006–2020 period indicated that the coordination development of the WEE system is optimal under the scenario 4 model, with the coupling coordination degree expected to reach 0.8928 in 2035, marking the advent of high-quality coordinated development. This study can provide a theoretical basis for the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin.

Participatory Planning for the Drafting of a Regional Law on the Bioeconomy

In an increasingly complex global economic scenario, sustainability represents a fundamental compass aimed to guide actions of institutions and individuals. A nondissipative use of Earth’s resources is feasible through a common effort that reconsiders the actual development system according to the key principles of the bioeconomy. It is vital to start from local contexts to reach the global dimension by exploiting the opportunities available in each territory. Starting from these assumptions, the participatory process activated in the Apulia region has represented the first step towards an intervention strategy in the panorama of the bioeconomy, and has made it possible to increase the awareness of a development based on the adoption of bioeconomy models and, therefore, circular economy ones through an effective inclusion process. A process has given rise to a project allowing all involved actors to reflect on the double economy–environment system, to share good practices and promote the adoption of lifestyles and consumption styles more compatible with the principles of the bioeconomy and to elaborate a proposal for a participatory regional law for the bioeconomy in the Apulia region as an expression of the collaboration between different bodies and institutions (universities, Confindustria and the council of the Puglia region).

A Sensitivity Index to Perform the Territorial Sustainability in Uncertain Decision-Making Conditions

The issue of sustainability is central to development strategies. Although this alignment is acknowledged and shared world-wide, territorial development in a sustainable light must also take the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic into consideration, specifically by evaluating the effects of COVID-19 on the global health, social order, and economic-environmental system. The research suggests a sensitivity index to gauge the degree of territorial sustainability taking the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts into account. A study set of countries, as identified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is used to test the developed index. The index evaluates a country’s performance in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability while also considering the relative risk of COVID-19. The proposed index measures territorial sustainability from a variety of angles by enabling comparisons between the circumstances before and after current shocks in the socioeconomic and environmental performance frames by pandemic emergency. The index was created using an integrated assessment method that was based on the Choquet Integral (CI) mathematical framework and Multi-Attributive Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis (MAIRCA). The study establishes a unique and up-scaling methodology for constructing the sensitivity index, significantly advancing the suggestions for sustainable accounting under uncertain circumstances at the territorial scale. Adopting indices that quantify territorial sustainability under uncertainty may help guide policy decisions from an investment programming viewpoint, particularly when it comes to allocating financial resources to the economic sectors most impacted by shock events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Развитие методологии определения показателей эффективности и результативности сферы высшего образования

The subject of the research is conceptual and methodological approaches to determining key performance indicators for higher education institutions focused on research and technological entrepreneurship. The purpose of the work is to clarify the methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of R&amp;D in higher education, taking into account the features of science as an environmental economic system and long—term goals of public administration. The study revealed that key performance indicators of science and higher education are often set arbitrarily and, as a result, reflect the results of organizations' activities biased. Criteria for the selection of indicators of the effectiveness of science and higher education are proposed: connection with the strategy of the state or enterprise; consideration of "environmental" and corresponding indicators. It is concluded that the methodological approach to evaluating the results of research in higher education is determined by the type of economic system of the country and the presence of a competitive environment. Proposals have been formulated to finalize the targets of the national project "Science and Universities". The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of its use by public authorities for the selection of target indicators of projects and programs of higher educational institutions of research orientation.

Non-smooth climate change and emergent novel equilibria in an environmental-economic system

Non-smooth climate change and emergent novel equilibria in an environmental-economic system

Synergistic Effects of International Oil Price Fluctuations and Carbon Tax Policies on the Energy-Economy-Environment System in China.

Catalyzed by COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, oil prices fluctuate dramatically on the worldwide market. Both international oil price changes and carbon tax policies have a direct impact on energy costs, thus influencing energy security and emission reduction impacts. Therefore, assessing the interaction effects of international oil price variations and carbon tax policies can assist in resolving the competing challenges of energy security and carbon emission reduction. The impact of international oil price fluctuations on China's energy-economic-environment system under the baseline scenario and carbon taxation scenario is analyzed by constructing a computable general equilibrium model comprising six modules: production, trade, institutions, price, environment, and equilibrium. The findings indicate that, in addition to reducing high-carbon energy consumption and increasing demand for clean electricity, rising international oil prices have a negative effect on real GDP, resulting in lower output in sectors other than construction, and a positive effect on the environmental system by driving carbon emission reductions. In contrast, decreasing international oil prices have the opposite effect. Nevertheless, the impact of rising and decreasing international oil prices is asymmetrical, with the positive shock effect being smaller than the negative. The carbon tax policy can effectively offset the increase in carbon emissions caused by the decline in international oil prices, which is conducive to promoting the development of clean energy, while simultaneously causing an increase in product prices and arousing a contraction in consumer demand, which has a limited negative impact on the macroeconomy.

Towards low-carbon domestic circulation: Insights from the spatiotemporal variations and socioeconomic determinants of emissions embedded within cross-province trade in China

For a country like China with unbalanced development pattern among provinces, domestic circulation (i.e., cross-province trade) is important for the long-term stability and prosperous development of economic market. However, with the rapid advance of integration of domestic regional economy, while expanding the internal market scale and deepening the provincial division of labor network for promoting the economic growth, the carbon emissions embedded within the cross-province traded products and services cannot be underestimated. Under the background of climate-trade dilemma, it is necessary to exploring the spatiotemporal variations and socioeconomic determinants of provincial “invisible” carbon emissions for a better understanding of trade-induced eco-environmental effects. To that end, this study developed an environmental-economic system model through integrating the environmentally extended multiregional input-output method and weighted average structural decomposition analysis technique to explore the trade-related emissions at the provincial level and generate the mitigation-management strategies for decisionmakers. Overall, more than half the emissions were embedded within cross-province goods and services trade over the whole study period. Furthermore, the distribution of traded emissions showed obvious spatial heterogeneity and great unbalance was existed between provincial imports and exports. Among all provinces, carbon surplus provinces were always more than deficit ones and the trading patterns of approximately 65% regions remained unchanged during 2007–2017. Remarkably, the emissions trading pattern undergone transition from carbon deficit to carbon surplus in provinces like Henan, Hubei, Guizhou, and so on. Conversely, provinces like Jilin, Shanghai, and Xinjiang showed opposite change. With the prevalence of online payment and electronic commerce in the future, the central and sub-national government could consider launching a pilot project for the design and creation of personal carbon consumption account in the carbon surplus provinces such as Guangdong, Henan, and Jiangsu. Meanwhile, for the provinces with larger carbon exports, it is necessary to establish the horizontal high technical transfer channels and vertical compensation mechanisms such as financial subsidies for improving the low-carbon production level. Our findings provided a holistic depict of national traded emissions at the provincial level, highlighting the importance of cross-province emission effect in exploring ways to promote the low-carbon transition of domestic circulation and fulfill the high-quality development of ‘dual circulation’ new pattern and successful achievement of ‘double carbon’ solemn commitment.

Assessing Lifestyle Transformations and Their Systemic Effects in Energy-System and Integrated Assessment Models: A Review of Current Methods and Data

Achieving the ambitious climate targets required to limit global warming to 1.5 °C requires a deep transformation of the supply-and-demand side of energy–environmental–economic systems. Recent articles have shown that environmentally sustainable consumer behaviors driven by lifestyle changes can significantly contribute to climate-change mitigation and sustainable development goals. However, lifestyle changes are not adequately captured by scenarios developed with integrated assessment and energy-system models (IAMs/ESMs), which provide limited policy insights. This article conducts a systematic review of the IAM and ESM literature to identify the most important lifestyle changes in current mitigation pathways for the residential and transport sectors, review the employed state-of-the-art modeling approaches and scenario assumptions, and propose improvements to existing methodological frameworks. The review finds that mode shifts towards public transport and active transport modes, shared mobility, and eco-driving have the greatest impact in the transport sector, while actions that reduce space and water-heating requirements and the circular economy are the most effective practices in households. Common modeling approaches lack sophistication as they omit (1) the dynamics and costs of demand-side transitions, (2) the heterogenous responses of different consumer groups, and (3) the structural effects of lifestyles on the macro-economy. New approaches employing innovative methodologies combined with big data collected from users offer new avenues to overcome these challenges and improve the modeling of lifestyle changes in large-scale models.

Multidimensional Collaborative Management of Environment and Economy in the Internet-of-Things Environment.

In this study, multidimensional collaborative management of the modern environmental economy is proposed for strategic management, distribution management, service quality management, and warehouse management, which the modern environmental economy enterprises face under the internet-of-things environment. This study studies the law of multidimensional coordination of environmental economy and puts forward the classification of the modern multidimensional coordination of environmental economy. The multidimensional synergetic-order parameter equation of the modern environmental economic system is constructed, and the information synergy is the order parameter of the environmental economic system by accurate elimination method, and the fluctuation and balance of the environmental economic system are accurately controlled by the order parameter. By using structural equation modeling and other quantitative research methods, the corresponding planning and decision-making mathematical model is established, which provides relevant support for the realization of informatization and intelligentization of multidimensional collaborative management of the environment and economy. An incentive internal management collaboration model based on right of entry is proposed. Aiming at the problem of multidimensional environmental economic management coordination, a dynamic multidimensional environmental economic coordination management algorithm was designed by using the decomposition method, and the effectiveness of the algorithm was verified by numerical experiments.

Looping Mercury Cycle in Global Environmental-Economic System Modeling.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury calls for Hg control actions to protect the environment and human beings from the adverse impacts of Hg pollution. It aims at the entire life cycle of Hg. Existing studies on the Hg cycle in the global environmental-economic system have characterized the emission-to-impact pathway of Hg pollution. That is, Hg emissions/releases from the economic system can have adverse impacts on human health and ecosystems. However, current modeling of the Hg cycle is not fully looped. It ignores the feedback of Hg-related environmental impacts (including human health impacts and ecosystem impacts) to the economic system. This would impede the development of more comprehensive Hg control actions. By synthesizing recent information on Hg cycle modeling, this critical review found that Hg-related environmental impacts would have feedbacks to the economic system via the labor force and biodiversity loss. However, the interactions between Hg-related activities in the environmental and economic systems are not completely clear. The cascading effects of Hg-related environmental impacts to the economic system throughout global supply chains have not been revealed. Here, we emphasize the knowledge gaps and propose possible approaches for looping the Hg cycle in global environmental-economic system modeling. This progress is crucial for formulating more dynamic and flexible Hg control measures. It provides new perspectives for the implementation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury.

ANALYSIS OF THE SYNERGISTIC EFFECT OF CARBON TAXES AND CLEAN ENERGY SUBSIDIES: AN ENTERPRISE-HETEROGENEITY E-DSGE MODEL APPROACH

The application of clean energy is one effective way to alleviate the economy’s dependence on fossil energy while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the complementary and synergistic effects of environmental policy in clean energy promotion remain controversial. This paper aims to investigate the role of structural carbon taxes and clean energy subsidies in low carbon transition. Heterogeneous environmental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) approach with firm heterogeneity is applied to describe the impact path of structural environmental policy on China’s environmental-economic system. The results show that the structural carbon emission reduction policy has synergistic effects and can balance the relationship between energy demand and economic growth. Furthermore, distinguishing production technology and green innovation technology can promote energy-saving enterprises and improve the industrial structure. This paper might be the first attempt to discuss the synergistic effects of climate policy based on heterogeneous E-DSGE model.

Natural resources, environment and the sustainable development

Interaction between economy and natural environment is a multi-directional process. Based on the balanced panel data of 261 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper innovatively looks into the diversified channels in the environmental-economic system using Structural Equation Modeling. We show that: Firstly, the development stage of China's cities is far from the turning point of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Secondly, technology is a two-edged weapon for the environment. And the overall effect is confirmed to be positive. Thirdly, cities abound in natural resources are commonly less developed and highly polluted, confirming the assumption of China's resource curse. Fourthly, non-resource-based cities are more likely to decouple growth from pollution, while resource-based cities witnessed closer interaction between economy and technology. By clarifying the interaction in the ecological civilization system, this paper provides a theoretical basis for China's green development.

Sustainable Land-Use Allocation Model at a Watershed Level under Uncertainty.

Land-use allocation models can effectively support sustainable land use. A large number of studies solve the problems of land-use planning by constructing models, such as mathematical models and spatial analysis models. However, these models fail to fully and comprehensively consider three uncertain factors of land-use systems: randomness, interval and fuzziness. 33Therefore, through the study of the watershed land-use system, this paper develops a land-use allocation model considering the regional land–society–economy–environment system under uncertain conditions. On the basis of this model, an interval fuzzy two-stage random land-use allocation model (IFTSP-LUAM) combining social, economic and ecological factors is proposed to provide sustainable development strategies at the basin level. In addition, the proposed IFTSP-LUAM takes into account the above three uncertainties and multistage, multiobjective, dynamic, systematic and complex characteristics of typical land-use planning systems. The results showed that the model considers more socioeconomic and ecological factors and can effectively reflect the quantitative relationship between the increase in economic benefits and the decrease in environmental costs of a land-use system. The model was applied to land-use planning of Nansihu River Basin in Shandong Province. The results provided a series of suitable land-use patterns and environmental emission scenarios under uncertain conditions, which can help the watershed environmental protection bureau and watershed land-use decision-makers to formulate appropriate land-use policies, so as to balance social and economic development and ecological protection. The simulation results can provide support for an in-depth analysis of land-use patterns and the trade-off between economic development and ecological environment protection.

Crop pattern optimization for the coordination between economy and environment considering hydrological uncertainty

With the rapid growth of population and economy, shortage and mismatch of land and water resources have deepened the need for cropping pattern optimization. In the context of the sustainable development of agriculture, cropping pattern optimization should not only pursue economic benefits, but the consequent environmental effects also deserve equal attention. Meanwhile, climate change increases the complexity of balancing conflicts of economic-environmental system by cropping pattern optimization. Therefore, this paper builds a multi-objective programming model for Economic-Environmental Synergistic Optimization for Cropping Pattern under Climate Change (EESO-CP-CC) model, with the goals of economic benefit increment and environmental pollutants emission reduction. The EESO-CP-CC model couples a non-point source pollution input-output model, a one-dimensional water quality model and an economic benefit function into an integrated framework. Fuzzy method was used to solve the optimization model, and the stochastic uncertainty of water supply under climate change was quantified by the integration of Bayesian approach and interval linear regression. The model was applied to Jinxi Irrigation District (JXID) in Heilongjiang Province, northeast of China. Results show that by adjusting the acreage of rice, corn and soybean, the harmony degree of economy-society-environment system increased by 10.7% compared to the current situation, indicating that the model tends to achieve the best possible economic benefits while ensuring the environmental effects. Compared with actual cropping pattern, the pollutants emissions reduced by 24.7% and 3% from corn and soybean, respectively. However, this led to a decrease of economic benefit by 8% in exchange, showing the trade-off between environmental pollution reduction and economic benefits improvement. The output coefficients of nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants were optimized, with the optimal output reducing by 20% compared to the standard. Cropping pattern and water resources allocation vary with different climate change conditions, however, the amplitude of variation is modest, indicating that the model can cope well with the changing environment. The developed model can help achieve synergistic development of economic benefits and environmental effects, and thus promote sustainable development of irrigation areas, and improve the coping capacity of agricultural water and land under climate change, by cropping pattern optimization and planning.

Hierarchical analysis and modelling of regional environmental and economic security

The article analyzes a number of indicators characterizing the environmental and economic state of the region. It is established that the state of the environment has already moved from the category of exogenous parameters for the economic system into the category of intra-economic characteristics, which, first of all, changes the structure and nature of methods of analysis and assessment of the impact of pollution on the environment. The method of hierarchical analysis, which allows to systematize the elements of environmental and economic security of the region, is applied. The mathematical support of the method of analysis hierarchies is considered. To assess the quality of environmental and economic security of the region a hierarchy is built, which provides for the allocation of the criteria of the upper and lower levels. It is proved that the economic basis of regional environmental-economic interests is the ownership of natural resources, and the environmental basis is the integrity of ecosystems in the region. It is proved that the formation and improvement of the mechanism of security should be based on the coordination of environmental and economic interests and the resolution of contradictions between them. The authors proposed an original software product for the justification of the safety parameters of ecological and economic systems. The structure and parameters of the developed decision support system, allowing to carry out the convolution of the group of economic and environmental factors that influence the quality of management decisions, are considered. The hierarchical model built allows the decision maker to form a system of ranked indicators that determine the level of environmental safety of regional environmental-economic systems, and provide a reasoned choice of project alternatives.

Intelligent Backpropagation Networks with Bayesian Regularization for Mathematical Models of Environmental Economic Systems

The research community of environmental economics has had a growing interest for the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems to provide enriched efficiencies and strengthened human knacks in daily live maneuvers, business stratagems, and society evolution. In this investigation, AI-based intelligent backpropagation networks of Bayesian regularization (IBNs-BR) were exploited for the numerical treatment of mathematical models representing environmental economic systems (EESs). The governing relations of EESs were presented in the form of differential models representing their fundamental compartments or indicators for economic and environmental parameters. The reference datasets of EESs were assembled using the Adams numerical solver for different EES scenarios and were used as targets of IBNs-BR to find the approximate solutions. Comparative studies based on convergence curves on the mean square error (MSE) and absolute deviation from the reference results were used to verify the correctness of IBNs-BR for solving EESs, i.e., MSE of around 10−9 to 10−10 and absolute error close to 10−5 to 10−7. The endorsement of results was further validated through performance evaluation by means of error histogram analysis, the regression index, and the mean squared deviation-based figure of merit for each EES scenario.

Environmental and economic model for sustainable development of a region (the case of Samara Oblast)

Biodiversity in natural ecosystems, with the increasing anthropogenic transformation of the environment, is becoming an increasingly important direction of research every decade. We propose to consider the number of game animals as one of the indicators of biodiversity. Since they are the most steadily observed objects in specially protected and anthropogenically transformed territories. Biodiversity conservation ensures sustainable development. In this regard, using the example of Samara Oblast, we considered the principles of biodiversity conservation in environmental and economic systems, including anthropogenically modified and specially protected natural areas, in order to ensure sustainable development at the regional level. We selected some ecological and economic spatially distributed characteristics of the environmental-economic system and compiled equations of multiple linear regression of the dependence of the number of game animals on the factors that have the greatest influence. These are the following factors: the volume of industrial production, investments in fixed assets, the value of fixed assets of industry, payments for natural resources, fines for violation of legislation in the use of natural resources, species diversity of animals, generalized assessment of atmospheric air pollution, percentage of forest cover. We offer some management actions of influencing ecological and economic systems that ensure sustainable development. The authors determined that at the regional level it is necessary to revise and increase the normative fees for natural resources, as well as to increase the size of fines for violation of environmental legislation. We have carried out clustering of municipal districts by economic indicators affecting the number of biological resources, and we propose the necessary priority management actions based on the obtained models.