Low-carbon Transition Research Articles

An Empirical Study on the Impact of Digital Economy Development Level on the Efficiency of Green and Low Carbon Transition in Chinese Cities

<p>As China's economic and social development enters a new growth stage, urban green transformation has gradually become an important means to promote high-quality development. In order to explore the effective methods of the impact of China's digital economy development level on the efficiency of urban green low-carbon transition, this paper, based on the statistical data of 263 prefectural-level cities in China during the period of 2012-2021, adopts Peking University's financial inclusion index as well as the five selected control variables, measures the efficiency of urban green low-carbon transition by using the SBM model and examines the impact of driving factors on urban green low-carbon transition by using the spatial Durbin lagged panel fixed-effects model. the influence of driving factors on the efficiency of green low-carbon transition in Chinese cities. It was found that: the digital economy index showed a positive correlation with urban green transition efficiency, and the corresponding positive influence coefficient was 0.523, and the influence of control variables on urban green transition efficiency showed differentiation characteristics, among which: the investment rate in environmental pollution control, the contribution rate of GDP in the service industry, and the professional investment rate in green transition showed a positive correlation with urban green transition efficiency, and the corresponding influence coefficients were 0.437, 0.304 and 0.348; the contribution rate of urban industrial GDP and urbanization level show inverse correlation with the efficiency of urban green transformation, and the corresponding inverse impact coefficients are -0.412 and -0.276, respectively. The conclusions of this paper are of great practical value for the formulation of policies to improve the efficiency of urban green transformation.</p>

Pericentricity on the Congolese copperbelt: how the DRC shapes Chinese cobalt supply chains and the low-carbon transition

ABSTRACT Through the case of cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), we examine the role of local politics in critical mineral sourcing and its implications for the lead processing and battery manufacturing industry in China. We propose a pericentric and multiscalar analysis of cobalt extraction to understand the connections and contingencies within the cobalt supply chain and DRC’s place within it. Pericentricity acknowledges geopolitics while emphasizing localized power dynamics that shape cobalt supply, as seemingly peripheral actors in the DRC influence core extractors, processors, and traders. Our analysis contributes to scholarship on African agency amid resource extractivism, highlighting Chinese dependency on foreign extractive political economies. While Chinese firms remain central in cobalt mining, processing, and battery manufacturing, the complex dependencies on local, provincial, and national systems must be understood in their intricacy and flux.

Using open-source tools to project bulk and critical material demand and assess implications for low-carbon energy and transport systems: Introducing Mat-dp model tools

Material demand is growing rapidly, increasing pressure on natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions. Accurate material demand projections require reliable estimates of material intensities- material amount required to produce a unit of output. However, there is a lack of comprehensive, up-to-date, and open-source material intensities. Studies that have estimated material demand usually focus on technology or location subsets, without reusable calculations and visualisations. To address these gaps, two open-source tools are introduced as part of the Material Demand Projections (Mat-dp) model: Mat-dp database, a comprehensive and open-source database of material intensities of energy and transport technologies; and Mat-dp pipeline, a tool to standardise, calculate and visualise results for given scenarios. The paper showcases the application of the tools and demonstrates material demand and supply considerations in planned and ongoing low-carbon transitions. The tools are, as far as the authors are aware, novel in their technology coverage and usable scenario sources.

Opportunity or Curse: Can Green Technology Innovation Stabilize Employment?

This study examines the influence of green technology innovation on employment in enterprises and explores the potential mechanisms behind this impact, which is critical to understanding the social impact of the green transition in the climate change scenario. This paper, based on detailed data from listed corporations in China between 2010 and 2020, discovers that the introduction of green technology innovation by corporations has a substantial positive impact on employment levels. The effects of green technology innovation on employment are both persistent and heterogeneous; they persist even two years later, with more significant effects observed in non-heavy-polluting industries, state-owned enterprises, and highly educated employees. This article also carries several policy implications. The findings presented in this paper provide useful insights into the potential employment consequences of the green transition as well as the reactions and adjustment behaviors that corporations exhibit in the low-carbon transition. Additionally, this development holds significant implications for other developing nations grappling with the challenges of switching to environmentally sustainable practices.

Is the Economy, Environment and Energy (3E) System Sustainable?—An Analysis of the Coordination Degree of Carbon Decoupling and Energy Equity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

As the climate crisis intensifies, the low-carbon transition seems to be the necessary path to maintain the sustainability of the 3E system. However, does it no longer pose potential threats to sustainability? In the context of the low-carbon transition, this study reveals hidden worries about the sustainability of the 3E system from an energy equity perspective, specifically focusing on the coordination between carbon decoupling and energy equity. This study innovatively calculates the level of carbon decoupling and energy equity in China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2008 to 2019 and explores the degree of coordinated development between carbon decoupling and energy equity by employing the coupling coordination model and bivariate local Moran index. The results show the following: (1) from 2008 to 2019, the energy equity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt showed steady improvement, but the overall level was still not high, being below 0.5; (2) the upstream and downstream regions showed more obvious resistance in maintaining the coordinated development of carbon decoupling and energy equity, but there are structural differences among them; (3) inter-basin differences were an important feature of the low-carbon economy and equitable energy development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in the past. This study provides policy implications and research insights for promoting the sustainability of the 3E system in transition countries from an energy equity perspective.

Techno-economic analysis and fuel applicability study of a novel gasifier-SOFC distributed energy system with CO2 capture and freshwater production

This study employs the water-gas-shift membrane reactor and multi-effect distillation with thermal vapor compression technologies to facilitate low-energy carbon capture and large-scale freshwater production in gasifier-solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems. The supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle and double-effect absorption refrigeration cycle are introduced to achieve waste heat cascade recovery. This work expands the fuel selection to 12 biomasses to explore the fuel adaptability and application scenarios of the system, and selects four representative cases to reveal their thermodynamic and economic attributes. The base scheme produces 21,635 ton/year freshwater and 1333 ton/year CO2, and achieves energy and exergy efficiencies of 70.68 % and 30.60 % with total cost rate of 23.21 $/h and levelized cost of products of 43.55 $/GJ. The gasifier and SOFC effort contributes to over 60 % of total irreversibility. Larch wood is preferred in resource-rich regions while wood residue, switch grass and wood chip are also prioritized; rice straw, rice husk, cotton stem and algal biomass are suitable for water-scarce areas. As key parameters change, Case-II consistently excels in power output, efficiencies and economic aspects, but lags in cooling capacity compared with other cases. This work provides a reference for low-carbon transition in the energy sector and large-scale freshwater production.

Pilot free trade zones and low-carbon innovation: Evidence from listed companies in China

The impact of pilot free trade zones (PFTZs) on companies' low-carbon innovation is not yet studied. In response, this paper considers the establishment of PFTZs as a quasi-natural experiment, using panel data on China's A-share industrial listed companies for the period 2010–2021 and utilizing the entropy balancing difference-in-differences (EB-DID) model to examine PFTZs' impact on companies' low-carbon innovation. The results show that: (1) PFTZs significantly promote companies' low-carbon innovation in pilot cities through the “promoting R&D effect” and the “environmental governance effect”; (2) Foreign capital positively moderates PFTZs' impact on companies' low-carbon innovation; (3) PFTZs' policy effect is characterized by spatial heterogeneity. The paper thus suggests that the government should improve the construction plans of PFTZs to ensure alignment with low-carbon development goals. Moreover, the government should also provide appropriate subsidies for low-carbon technology R&D to encourage innovation, implement advanced institutional systems to facilitate local companies' low-carbon transition, attract high-quality foreign investments to drive the inflow of innovation elements, and optimize the geographical distribution of PFTZs to maximize the spatial spillover effect.

“Take your responsibility”: the politics of green sacrifice for just low-carbon transitions in rural Portugal

The EU has recently taken important climate action, notably through the launching of the European Green Deal. However, EU action has been criticized for its potential to generate a heavy increase in mining of ‘critical minerals’ necessary for renewables technologies, and so create green sacrifice zones both overseas and within Europe. We explore the politics of green sacrifice making through an analysis of green governance practices and opposition to them in a case of a lithium mining conflict in rural northern Portugal. We find that institutional rearrangements attempt to reconfigure lithium mining as a force for sustainability in ways that enable capital accumulation. Such reconfigurations clash with concerns about maintaining a meaningful life in localities where mining would take place, as well as alternative definitions of the logic of the circular economy and of what the proper scales of decision-making for marginalized territories should be. Government and corporate action attempt to resolve these clashes by promoting a discourse of ‘responsibility’, which assigns public institutions the role of convincing communities to accept ‘green’ mining; to corporations the role of exercising corporate social responsibility; and to affected populations the role of subjects whose political action should conform to their consumption habits and help deliver a distinctive ‘European way’ of being responsible in a warming world. We conclude that green sacrifice is essential for maintaining economic growth and a liberal order of governance, delivered through a biopolitics of inclusion that exists side-by-side with attempts at self-constitution. We highlight a contradiction between what such praxis tries to achieve and ways in which some critical constituencies seek to address democracy challenges of just transitions.

Transitions for zero carbon futures: From just to generous

The ‘just transition’ concept has gained popularity in recent years and is being widely applied as a guiding concept within policy frameworks promoting low carbon transitions. Justice is at the heart of much of the policy rhetoric surrounding these transitions, favoured for the emphasis it places on fairness, equity and inclusivity. The use of justice as the guiding virtue for the transition has remained largely unquestioned. This paper examines the concept of just transition and experiments with positioning generosity as a guiding principle. It is argued that this may enable a more transformative, inclusive zero carbon future that prioritises wellbeing over mere survival. This does not seek to position a just transition and a generous transition in direct opposition to one another, instead intending to highlight how the concept of generosity might act as a catalyst for or complement to justice.

The role of emission disclosure for the low-carbon transition

We quantify the importance of emission disclosure for climate policies in a DSGE model for the euro area. A low-carbon energy and a fossil energy sector contribute to production and are financed by balance-sheet constrained intermediaries. We show that imperfect information on emissions by households (savers) is sufficient to create a palpable role for disclosure improvements. The underestimation of emissions from fossil energy firms (imperfect disclosure) provides these firms with too much funding. While improving disclosure in isolation has limited effects, it provides clear benefits in connection with higher carbon taxes: For a carbon tax increase by 50 euro/ton CO2, improving disclosure by 20 percentage points reduces the GDP costs by up to 14%. Over six years, this implies GDP benefits of 47 bn euro.

Towards Sustainable Development: The Impact of Agricultural Productive Services on China’s Low-Carbon Agricultural Transformation

In the context of carbon neutrality, the low-carbon transition in agriculture is crucial to achieving carbon mitigation through clean production. The provision of agricultural productive services (APS) is pivotal for modernizing farming practices in China. However, the impact of this on the low-carbon transformation has received limited attention. This research examined the non-linear relationship between agricultural productive services and low-carbon development, including verifying a threshold effect with APS as the threshold variable, employing panel data for 31 provinces in China from 2010 to 2021. The results of the study suggested that the effect of services associated with agricultural productivity on the transition of the agricultural sector to low-carbon practices varied across threshold ranges. Specifically, when the APS exceeded the threshold of 2.4396, a significant suppressive effect was observed on carbon emission intensity. Further analysis revealed that APS indirectly influenced the farmland scale and agricultural technological advancements, thereby promoting the low-carbon transition of China’s agriculture. Based on these results, it is recommended to intensify the development of APS in key cereal-producing regions, while emphasizing the harmonious progress of these services in conjunction with large-scale farmland management.

Comprehensive analysis of carbon emission reduction technologies (CRTs) in China's coal-fired power sector: A bottom-up approach

Carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction technologies (CRTs) in the coal-fired power sector play an imperative role in the mitigation of environmental challenges and reducing CO2 emissions to help achieve the 2 °C target. However, a compelling necessity persists for a unified framework that can effectively and accurately estimate the costs and potentials associated with CRTs, arising from the diversity of technologies and unit types. Therefore, this study employs a bottom-up approach to analyze the costs and potential of 25 advanced CRTs in the coal-fired power sector, excluding CO2 capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), across 19 types of coal-fired power units. This analysis amalgamates the CO2 reduction supply curve (CRSC) approach with levelized cost of CO2 reduction (LCOC) and a broken-even analysis which could reflect the sector's average carbon reduction cost. The outcomes reveal the following key insights: (1) These technologies collectively harbor a substantial CO2 conservation potential amounting to 925.61 Mt CO2, with a broken-even price of CNY 410.1/tCO2. This reduction could potentially lower 20%–25 % of CO2 emissions in China's power system in 2022, highlighting the crucial role of CRTs in achieving a low-carbon transition and national climate targets; (2)Steam turbine flow path retrofit (T8) not only offers a relatively high CO2 reduction potential (>60 Mt CO2), but also features a low cost (<CNY 150/tCO2) and high profit (>CNY 0.85/MWh). Prioritizing the development of this technology can significantly accelerate the low-carbon transition of coal power; (3) Carbon price have a paramount influence on the cost-effectiveness of CRTs and driving their adoption.

EOR Technology (Patents) and Science (Articles) Assessment of BRICS and nonBRICS with Growth Rates and Specializations within Responsible Global Energy Transition: A Critical Review

To achieve a low-carbon energy transition, it is essential to ensure that, as long as fossil fuels are needed, their production is sustainable, minimizing the environmental impact and securing resources for advancing greener technologies, in alignment with SDGs 7, 13, and 14. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) increases the recovery rates without new developments. The recent expansion of the BRICS consortium, involving major producers, underscores the need to evaluate their EOR technologies, particularly potential gaps that could hinder global energy transition strategies. We analyzed intermediate levels of technological readiness levels (TRLs) utilizing patents (TRL4-5) and articles (TRL3) for 18 EOR methods between 2002 and 2021. Composite indicators derived from patents including compound annual growth rate, specialization, concentration, diversification, and Gini inequality were employed. Both BRICS and nonBRICS exhibited analogous distributions in the articles (particularly Norway, United Kingdom, Canada) and patents (particularly Russia, China, and Ukraine). The decline in growth rates among BRICS and negative rates in nonBRICS suggest a technological plateau for traditional methods. However, environmentally low-impact EOR methods are experiencing exponential emergence (low salinity water, MEOR, polymers and macromolecular compounds, their associations with surfactants, and WAG). Both groups are self-sufficient in EOR, ensuring a responsible and low-impact energy transition. This ensures energy quality while facilitating the maturation of renewable technologies.

An efficient molten steel slag gas quenching process: Integrating carbon solidification and waste heat recovery

The iron and steel-making industries have garnered significant attention in research related to low-carbon transitions and the reuse of steel slag. This industry is known for its high carbon emissions and the substantial amount of steel slag it generates. To address these challenges, a waste heat recovery process route has been developed for molten steel slag, which integrates CO2 capture and fixation as well as efficient utilization of steel slag. This process involves the use of lime kiln flue gas from the steel plant as the gas quenching agent, thereby mitigating carbon emissions and facilitating carbonation conversion of steel slag while simultaneously recovering waste heat. The established carbonation model of steel slag reveals that the insufficient diffusion of CO2 gas molecules within the product layer is the underlying mechanism hindering the carbonation performance of steel slag. This finding forms the basis for enhancing the carbonation performance of steel slag. The results of Aspen Plus simulation indicate that 1 t of steel slag (with a carbonation conversion rate of 15.169 %) can fix 55.19 kg of CO2, process 6.08 kmol of flue gas (with a carbon capture rate of 92.733 %), and recover 2.04 GJ of heat, 0.43 GJ of exergy, and 0.68 MWh of operating cost. These findings contribute to the development of sustainable and efficient solutions for steel slag management, with potential applications in the steel production industry and other relevant fields.

Will Congo move up the battery supply chain? Strategic capitalism, friendshoring, and localized manufacturing in the time of the green transition

In recent years, countries where extraction of so-called green minerals occur have increasingly asserted themselves. Negatively dubbed as resources nationalism, these political decisions are more akin to a willingness to increase in-country value added for regions often suffering from centuries of colonial extractivism. In the battery sector, these strategies led to cobalt, lithium, and nickel producers aiming to develop local manufacturing of battery components. This article provides a prospective analysis of these dynamics and takes the example of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the recent announcement to establish the country as a supplier of cathodes materials and potentially even manufactured batteries. However, the road to becoming a midstream supplier is long and the current state of infrastructures presents significant barriers to a shift in the country's industrial base. Throughout this article, informed by ethnographic work, I address these challenges in the context of the low-carbon transition. The sustained post-colonial state of Congo's extractive complex and its location at the core of geopolitical competitions constitute a significant obstacle to the establishment of this new industry, while the metal-rich country tried to find its way and raison d'être in the volt rush currently underway.

Rational capacity investment for renewable hydrogen-based steelmaking systems: A multi-stage expansion planning strategy

To improve energy efficiency and mitigate environmental impact, the iron and steel industry (ISI) is responsible for implementing a low-carbon transition. The renewable hydrogen-based steelmaking system (RHSS) has emerged as an innovative energy system in the pathway of reducing the carbon footprint of ISI. Nonetheless, the sustainable development requirements of RHSS emphasize the critical need for well-planned capacity investments to boost its economic viability. This study introduces a novel planning strategy for RHSS referred to as a multi-stage expansion planning (MSEP) model, which is aimed to minimize the levelized cost of crude steel over the planning horizon from 2025 to 2050 (EU climate neutrality year). The MSEP model incorporates the construction sequence and dynamic techno-economic parameters to formulate investment strategies that adapt to changing system requirements and external conditions over the planning horizon. To address the complexity of the MSEP model, a rolling-horizon approach (RHA) is proposed to solve the model sequentially while integrating updated information. The proposed approach is benchmarked against both the single-stage approach and the perfect-sight approach through case studies. The numerical results show that the proposed RHA (i) guarantees a rational capacity investment strategy for RHSS considering the construction sequence and dynamic techno-economic parameters over multiple planning stages; (ii) achieves a reduction in the levelized cost of crude steel by approximately 50% relative to the single-stage approach; (iii) resolves the convergence issues encountered with the perfect-sight approach while achieving an optimal solution in a reasonable time frame. Additionally, sensitivity analysis evaluates the uncertainties of multiple factors on the planning results, while the robustness analysis confirms the applicability and adaptability of RHA across various scenarios.

The Dynamic Cointegration Relationship between International Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal Price

In this study, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the dynamic cointegration relationship between international crude oil, natural gas, and coal price indices from 2009 to 2023, revealing the changes and differences in the cointegration relationship between these three prices during different periods. Utilizing statistical analysis and economic modeling, we found significant cointegration among these energy prices during the initial decade-long observation period, indicating their close interaction in the global energy market influenced by supply and demand fundamentals, macroeconomic conditions, and geopolitical landscapes. However, since 2020, this long-standing stable cointegration relationship has been severely disrupted due to the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and escalating geopolitical tensions, leading to a notable increase in volatility and uncertainty in the energy market. Further analysis highlights that, in recent years, with the strengthening of global climate governance and the advancement of the low-carbon transition trend, fossil fuel markets, particularly high-carbon-emitting crude oil and coal markets, have undergone significant adjustments. Meanwhile, the role of natural gas as a transitional clean energy source has become increasingly prominent. The findings of this study have significant implications for energy policy formulation, market risk management, and strategic planning in the energy industry, while providing directions for future research on resilience and adaptability in the transition process of energy systems.

Stacked energyscapes: Conceptualizing fossil fuel and renewable energy entanglements in low-carbon transitions

Energy transitions are often characterized as discrete progressions away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, typically in different geographic spaces, which result in “winning” and “losing” communities. Policies have been enacted to encourage renewable energy investment in “losing” fossil fuel extractive communities. Such conceptualizations do not sufficiently consider how fossil fuel extraction and renewable energy intersect with and shape each other in these spaces. We introduce the term “stacked energyscapes” to better characterize these interactions. Rather than replacing a fossil fuel-based energy system, we argue that renewable energy is “stacked” atop it, entangling their sociotechnical “energyscapes” together in ways that can both accelerate and slow the transition. We develop this conceptualization based on a review of 149 journal articles, policy papers, and news articles of energy transition case studies, primarily focused on the U.S. We identify and analyze five key domains where stacked energyscapes manifest: land, labor, infrastructure, finance, and policy and regulation. Conceptualizing energy transitions as stacked energyscapes can sharpen understandings of transitions in extractive communities so as to better enable just transitions and reduce the environmental footprint of the energy sector.

Lost in communication: The vanished momentum of just transition in South Korea

As problems of injustice observed in the decarbonization process arose, energy scholars have recently sought remedies to address social justice concerns under the banner of just transition. What remains elusive in the existing literature is the role of communication between proponents of policy ideas and the public in fostering social consensus around just transition, particularly within non-Western contexts. The research presented here aims to fill the aforementioned knowledge gap by investigating reasons behind the vanished momentum of a just transition policy in South Korea, despite a public atmosphere accepting of the need for low-carbon energy transition. Employing natural language processing on 2022 news articles and 32,211 online comments, our research reveals that the public perception of just transition has been influenced heavily by ideologically-driven interpretations of the meaning of justice. This is due primarily to the failure of the speakers of just transition to effectively communicate its intended scope and content. The findings underscore the importance of communication in building a shared understanding of just transition aligned with deep core beliefs of a society to ensure its public acceptance and long-term viability.

Prerequisites for Business Development in South-Eastern Europe in the Conditions of Polycrisis and Digital Transformation

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to identify prerequisites for business development in the conditions of polycrisis in the EU member states of South-Eastern Europe. In the context of digital transformation and the low-carbon transition, this can have an impact on changing their economic policy. Design/Methodology/Approach: The object of research are selected macroeconomic performance indicators of selected EU member states from Southeast Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia), which are key their business development. The subject is the determination for the business development in conditions of polycrisis and digital transformation. Methodology is mainly based on descriptive analysis and statistical analysis. The main hypothesis proves the statement that in the conditions of polycrisis in the studied period between 2018 and 2022, the three SEE countries (Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia), underestimate the significance of business development in the field of investments and innovations, reforms and institutional environment, and fiscal policy efficiency. Findings: Identifying key determinants that respond to exogenous shocks in specific regions of the EU may be useful for changing its fiscal policy and also help countries take measures to create the conditions for business development. Also, it can lead to optimization of corporate management and investment processes.