Low Carbon Action Research Articles

Obstacles of and Countermeasures for China’s Low Carbon Community Construction

Urban communities, as the most basic unit of the human systems on Earth, are important areas for mitigation and adaptation actions in climate change. However, with a lack of deep understanding of the status quo and composition of community carbon emissions, as well as of the issues in low-carbon actions, the measures taken are often superficial and not targeted, which makes low-carbon activities difficult to implement. This study selected different types of communities for questionnaire surveys online, and conducted field interviews and in-depth surveys afterwards in typical communities. Key data such as community energy consumption, transportation, garbage disposal, and the status of community low-carbon actions were collected, based on which the potentials of carbon reduction were analysed, the obstacles in low-carbon community construction were discussed and corresponding countermeasures were proposed.

An Optimal Ordering Decision-making Model with Random DemandUnder Carbon Constraint

Under the increasing pressure to reduce carbon emission, the enterprises need to actively take account into carbon emission, and take low carbon action among daily business activities. This not only relate to the realization of carbon emission goal, but probably efficient solution to our country carbon emission targets. Applying to optimal theory under carbon-constrained, this paper comprehensively include economical cost and environment cost to construct random optimal decision-making model. Then using mat lab numerical analysis, this paper reveals the decision-making mechanism of enterprise ordering making under carbon cap constrained, and provides management implications and future research direction. The result indicates that: An enterprise can significantly reduce carbon emission without significantly increasing cost through adjusting ordering quantity. Enterprise’s carbon emissions show a certain correlation with order quantity when carbon emission cap is within the scope of threshold value, but optimal ordering decision-making has no correlation with carbon emission cap when cap is beyond the scope of threshold value. Caron emission cap is set voluntarily by an enterprise’s decision maker or put forward mandatorily by an external regulatory agency, and its setting should be reasonable and scientific.

Does the Low-Carbon Pilot Initiative Reduce Carbon Emissions? Evidence from the Application of the Synthetic Control Method in Guangdong Province

As the world’s top energy consumer and carbon emitter, China’s carbon emissions policies, including the low-carbon pilot initiative (LCPI) implemented in July 2010, have important effects on global climate change. Therefore, accurately assessing the effect of this policy has become extremely important for low-carbon development. This article analyses the impact of implementing LCPI on regional carbon emissions by using Guangdong Province as the study area, which has the largest economic scale, population size and carbon emissions amongst China’s low-carbon pilot provinces. The results suggest that for the entire 2010–2015 period, Guangdong’s carbon emissions were reduced by about 10% due to the implementation of LCPI. This policy produced a significant impact on the carbon emissions from manufacturing industries but showed minimal impact on the carbon emissions from energy production. Unlike previous researchers who relied on estimations, the authors of this work obtained unified carbon emissions data for 1997–2015 from the China Emission Accounts and Datasets and then constructed comparison groups by using the synthetic control method instead of performing a subjective selection. The authors also examined the impact of LCPI on carbon emissions from different sources. This article proposes that policy support and low-carbon action are necessary for reducing regional carbon emissions and that the policies must be constantly adjusted during their implementation. The successful experiences in low-carbon pilots are also worth exploring and promoting in other regions.

Comprehensive analysis on China’s National Climate Change Assessment Reports: Action and emphasis

Climate change assessment is central for low-carbon management practice. This paper investigates China’s National Climate Change Assessment Reports of 2007, 2011, and 2015. These three reports are compared with other climate change assessment reports by data mining. The necessity of national climate change assessment is analyzed with the requirements at home and abroad. The latest progress surrounding climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation is outlined with the increasing temperature rise in China and the urgency of climate change commitments. The achievements in climate change assessment indicate the increasing climate change vulnerability on sectors and regions in China and the strategies and priorities for low-carbon actions. Distinct gaps and differences are identified in the coverage of industry, regions, and vulnerability assessment between our assessments and other evaluation reports. These gaps and differences demonstrate the importance and future improvements of China’s national climate change assessment in international climate governance. The outlook for China’s fourth assessment report is proposed.

Norms and flexibility: Comparing two mitigation policies implemented in Shanghai

China has stepped up its efforts on abating pollution, saving energy and reducing emissions. Local government involvement is crucial. In the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011–2015), Shanghai municipality’s two main mitigation policies were the carbon-market pilot (emissions-trading scheme, ETS) and the 10,000 Enterprises Energy-Saving and Low-Carbon Actions (10,000 Programme). The ETS pilot achieved full compliance, whereas 15–17% of the 10,000 Programme’s target entities fell short each year. This article compares how the government implemented the policies, seeking factors that can explain the outputs. The structured and focused comparison employs a policy-implementation process model, using data from written sources and semi-structured interviews in Shanghai and Beijing, 2015–2017. The government’s normative power emerged as a major factor: the local ownership of the ETS pilot sent strong normative signals to target entities that it was important to complete the tasks required of them. Further, policy requirements for determining output were more detailed and less flexible in the 10,000 Programme than the ETS pilot, making full compliance difficult.

Towards Low-Carbon Interurban Road Strategies: Identifying Hot Spots Road Corridors in Spain

Reducing traffic emissions is key in transport planning and infrastructure management in order to achieve a sustainable transport system. This paper contributes to this topic in two ways. The first step describes a comprehensive methodology for identifying hot spots road segments and corridors with problems of GHG emissions to enable low-carbon actions. The Highway Energy Assessment (HERA) methodology is applied to the national road network of Spain in order to estimate interurban traffic emissions and calculate the emissions index to assess strategies. The results are shown graphically on a GIS, allowing to identify seven corridors with emissions problems comprising 25% of the network and being responsible for 51% of the total GHG emissions in 2012. Inefficient corridors were those with high rates of heavy vehicles, high speeds and steep gradients. The second step consists of the application of a set of strategies to reduce their emissions and their comparison to the reference scenario. The Mediterranean corridor—the most inefficient corridor—was selected to apply a set of abatement strategies. The most effective strategy was speed enforcement for light vehicles. A speed reduction of 10 km/h could produce a 3.5% savings in emissions compared to the reference scenarios, and decrease emissions intensity from 254 gCO2eq/veh-km to 246 gCO2eq/veh-km.

A holistic overview of the progress of China’s low-carbon city pilots

Since 2010 China has launched three batches of low-carbon pilot cities to explore feasible local policies or actions that can be replicated on a larger scale. Based on their official self-assessment reports, this study investigates the progress of 32 pilot sites from the initial two batches. Indicators of progress include: establishing a comprehensive governance system to guarantee the implementation of low-carbon strategies, plans and actions; implementing a carbon emission statistics system; carrying out low-carbon actions covering the majority of emission sectors and having produced positive consequences for local low-carbon development; exploring new policies and institutions including legislation, emissions control, carbon certification and green credit schemes, that lead to the formulation of national policies. Despite some defects in the experiments, the progress from these pilot sites has laid an important foundation for the advancement of national low-carbon development. Based on this analysis, this study provides recommendations for policy diffusion: to integrate more constraints and incentives into low-carbon pilot sites; to establish a policy assessment system to identify effective local experiments; and to summarize and share these best practices across the country.

Modeling and Simulation of Low Carbon Supply Chain Based on the Product Attributes

The influence of product attributes on low carbon supply chain is studied in this paper. In the background of global emphasis on green and low carbon economy, there are low carbon and quality attributes for the product. In order to meet the requirements of the consumer demand, the enterprise needs to coordinate the relationship between quality and low carbon products at the same time. So the enterprise should adjust of low carbon action to achieve product quality attributes and product attributes to the low carbon balance. Based on the two variable utility theory, through the construction of the supply chain demand structure model, the influence of the product attributes in the supply chain is simulated and analyzed by numerical calculation of low-carbon supply chain process.

Promoting low carbon behaviours through personalised information? Long-term evaluation of a carbon calculator interview

The UK needs to accelerate action to achieve its 80 per cent carbon reduction target by 2050 as it is otherwise in danger of lagging behind. A much discussed question in this context is whether voluntary behaviour change initiatives can make a significant contribution to reaching this target.While providing individuals with general information on climate change or low carbon action is increasingly seen as ineffective, some studies argue that personalised information has greater potential to encourage behaviour change. This mixed methods study examines this claim through a longitudinal field experiment which tested the effectiveness of a carbon calculator interview. It finds that the intervention significantly raised awareness of ways in which participants could reduce their carbon footprint. However, this increased awareness did not translate into measurable behaviour changes in relation to home energy and travel. Qualitative analysis shows that participants refer to infrastructural, social and psychological barriers to change. This indicates that more ambitious government and corporate action is required to speed up carbon reduction.

Challenges and lessons learnt from a community-based food waste composting project in Johor

A series of Low-Carbon Society (LCS) Blueprint has been launched in Iskandar Malaysia (IM) region since 2012. The public must be equipped with fundamental knowledge and skills related to the LCS work conducted collectively through a structured network of like-minded individuals and receive technical support and monitoring from experts and practitioners. This paper presents the lessons learned from a community-based food-waste composting program, a low-carbon action outlined under the IM LCS Blueprint, at Layang-layang, Johor as a case study. Selected volunteers in SC Jaya Sepakat, with the support by Mini Rural Transformation Centre (MRTC) have been trained and were given home composting kits. A centralised composting site was set up where one volunteer has been identified as the key player to manage daily composting operation. Food waste bins were collected and converted into compost through a five-step process at the composting site. A technical advisor from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia transferred the knowledge and technology to the villagers in terms of hands-on training, overall operation, compost quality analysis and post-application study of compost on plants. This study aims to empower the community to implement the food waste composting practices in a sustainable manner that would fulfill the societal and economic needs. The challenges and lessons gained through the 8 months engagement are reported. Post-training and end of project surveys were conducted to assess the performance of the community engagement. The survey concluded that the volunteers require extrinsic motivation from external organisations to continue the LCS initiatives until a tangible economic impact is generated. Community’s daily commitment and limited communication facilities in rural areas made continuous engagement a challenge. The project also drew a lesson of importance in collaboration with different stakeholders for greater impact and optimisation in resources that would require further study.

A study on mitigation potential in service building sector: Efficient technology implications of China’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution

In 2015 China submitted its “Intended Nationally Determined Contribution” (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in preparation for the Conference of Parties 21. China’s INDC called for several low carbon actions toward 2030, and one of the important actions by 2030 in the China’s INDC is to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emission per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level. In this study, we concentrate in service sector and estimates CO2 emission from six sub-sectors: office building, retail and store, hotel and restaurant, education, health care and others. Considering the gap of tertiary industry development and climate diversity across regions, we base our study on regional analysis and the study subject includes 31 provincial regions of mainland China. We first use a bottom-up cost optimization model called AIM/Enduse to evaluate the CO2 reduction potential brought about by efficient technologies in China’s service buildings. Then we design mitigation scenarios to examine the achievability of China’s INDC as well as the efforts of service sector in achieving the CO2 reduction target stated in China’s INDC. The results show that the service sector has a certain potential to succeed a no-regrets CO2 reduction target by 2030. For achieving China’s INDC target, all six sub-sectors need implement more efficient technologies. Reduction rates vary across provinces due to climatic variations and different development statuses of tertiary industry.

Research on Low-carbon Mode Construction from the Perspective of Organizational Legitimacy

A conception model of enterprise low-carbon management legitimacy is explored through the theoretical deduction and three conclusions are put forward by the verification of case analysis Danfoss, GE and Hitachi. It is proved that the formation of low carbon enterprise management mode is a process of internal integration and external adaptation; As for the construction of internal enterprise low-carbon management builds in an order of low-carbon consciousness rating system-service-oriented production low carbon management ritual; Low-carbon management ritual is a continued activation process, the formulation of which should experience a long term with the cognitive schemata, low-carbon action framework, low-carbon production process and low-carbon product design.

The role of attitudinal motivations and collective efficacy on Chinese consumers’ intentions to engage in personal behaviors to mitigate climate change

ABSTRACTThe Chinese government has recently pledged to reduce its CO2 emissions by 2030. Industrial use of energy, however, is just one source of greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese consumers’ more affluent lifestyles also lead to increased consumption of energy, which can result in greenhouse gas emissions. Based on a survey of 516 Chinese consumers, the present investigation examined whether their attitudinal motivations and collective efficacy are related to their intentions to engage in personal actions that may help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Results show that the utilitarian motivation related to the effectiveness of personal actions to alleviate climate change, motivation to express their moral values, self-esteem maintenance motivation, and collective efficacy predicted their attitudes toward these personal actions. Collective efficacy was in turn predicted by future orientation, norms, and the utilitarian motivation. Finally, attitudes and collective efficacy were two major considerations that predicted behavioral intentions. Implications for programs to promote low-carbon actions and lifestyles among Chinese consumers are discussed.

Differential environmental psychological factors in determining low carbon behaviour among urban and suburban residents through responsible environmental behaviour model

Anthropogenic climate change has created significant concern, especially among policymakers. Psychological (human) factors have been acknowledged for their contribution in affecting behaviour, including low carbon behaviour and impede carbon emissions impacts. However, policymakers had lay little attention on this matter. Urban and suburban regions lead to attribution of differentiated public low carbon behaviour. This study aims to examine low carbon behaviour among urban and suburban Malaysians by using Responsible Environmental Behaviour Model. A nationwide study was conducted to examine environmental awareness and behaviour from 13 states and three federal territories. A total of 6616 valid questionnaires completed in person were collected following face-to-face distribution in urban and suburban areas throughout Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was conducted using SmartPLS software version 2.0 M3. The results showed that prediction of low carbon behaviour by low carbon awareness among residents differs significantly across urban and suburban areas. The findings from this study highlighted the interrelationship of psychological factors in determining low carbon behaviour. The results were used as a reference base for policymakers in designing more sophisticated nationwide-sustainable-development and decision-making of low carbon action plan.

Low Carbon Governance in Indonesia and India: A Comparative Analysis with Recommendations

The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 by the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked a milestone in that many developing countries submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) could serve as one foundation to achieve their NDCs. Much of the literature on NAMAs has focused on discussions on the basic concept, and its variance from past initiatives. The lack of attention to the governance aspect is a sizable blind spot since cities will require new institutional arrangements as well as implementing capacities to realize projected reductions. This is particularly pronounced at the sub-national level where knowledge of NAMAs remains relatively limited. The paper indeed finds that the significant variation between India and Indonesia's low carbon development is indeed attributable to these governance arrangements. Low carbon actions in India's cities exhibit a higher degree of institutionalization because of a relatively longer history of delegating national government responsibilities to subnational governments. In the case of Indonesia, city efforts started more recently and are primarily standalone or small pilot projects with minimum coordination with the national or within the subnational government.

Scaling up local carbon action: the role of partnerships, networks and policy

The transition to a low-carbon society is imperative to climate change mitigation and requires cross-sectoral action at multiple levels. A growing literature emphasizes local action, but less is written about scaling up action at a county level. Combining three analytical perspectives – transition theory, strategic niche management and the middle-out – we examine the evolution and scaling up of local community-scale carbon action in Oxfordshire county. Our analysis is based on four local-level research projects. By identifying the roles and strategies of local actors in the development and scaling up of low carbon innovation and action, we conclude that local meso-level actors are crucial for catalyzing initial stages of county-level transitions, but limited in their capacity to scale up low-carbon innovation.

The failure of marginal abatement cost curves in optimising a transition to a low carbon energy supply

One of the tools used to optimise actions in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy is to use Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC) curves. Whilst these are known to be imperfect they are widely used to prioritise actions and often in a way that is incorrect. In particular, whilst their use for measures which have positive costs and a net reduction in carbon emissions can correctly rank the measures for effectiveness, use for ranking measures which have a net negative cost, including a wide range of energy efficiency measures, is entirely inappropriate and leads to perverse and incorrect outcomes. As a result, many assessments of low carbon actions are fundamentally flawed in their ranking of effectiveness and action is needed to overcome this and allow an optimum outcome. An alternative approach is suggested here.

Empirical Research of Low Carbon Lifestyle Basing on a Structural Equation Model

There is more and more research of low carbon economy. Most articles pay more attention to the supply aspect. This phenomenon actually followed the idea that one’s supply will create the demand for oneself. This paper argues that demand constraints are of same importance in the development of a low carbon economy in China. When we turn to demand constraints, we will pay attention to low carbon lifestyle naturally. In this article, the structure equation model is applied to analyze influential factors of low carbon economy, including low carbon awareness, acceptance, action and personal background factors. In the last, the paper proposes the countermeasures of establishing low carbon lifestyle.

Low-Carbon Policy and Action in the Chinese Mainland: An Overview of Current Development

This paper analyzes existing low carbon policies as well as policy instruments in the Chinese mainland, where policy making is focused shapely on how to enhance energy efficiency in the high energy-consuming sector of industry to ensure optimal reduction of its energy intensity and carbon emission. In terms of implementation, command and control instruments significantly outweigh market-based instruments. And, among the instruments, Target Responsibility Contracts (TRCs) dominate and work the most effectively.

Research on the Development Mechanism of the Low-Carbon City

After the UN climate conference in Copenhagen and the Cancun conference in Mexico, the world pays more attention to low-carbon development. Low-carbon city is an important path to develop the low-carbon economy. Countries all over the world have take action now: Britain’s climate change action plan; Danish’s low-carbon communities; Japan’s low-carbon society action plan. In the sixth nationwide population census, urban population closes to the rural population. Urban create 70 percent GDP, it is also a major source of carbon emissions. How economic development decouple from carbon emissions in the process of industrialization, it is a major problem encountered in China. In this paper, it describes the process of the low-carbon city evolution and the concept of the low-carbon city firstly, then it analyses the status of low-carbon city construction in our country secondly, finally the paper puts forward countermeasures. The countermeasure will has important meaning to develop low-carbon economy in our country.