scholarly journals Funding Sustainable Cities: A Comparative Study of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City and Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changjie Zhan ◽  
Martin de Jong ◽  
Hans de Bruijn
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
National Level ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Low Carbon City

China has gone through a rapid process of urbanization, but this has come along with serious environmental problems. Therefore, it has started to develop various eco-cities, low-carbon cities, and other types of sustainable cities. The massive launch of these sustainable initiatives, as well as the higher cost of these projects, requires the Chinese government to invest large sums of money. What financial toolkits can be employed to fund this construction has become a critical issue. Against this backdrop, the authors have selected Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (SSTEC) and Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City (ILCC) and compared how they finance their construction. Both are thus far considered to be successful cases. The results show that the two cases differ from each other in two key aspects. First, ILCC has developed a model with less financial and other supports from the Chinese central government and foreign governments than SSTEC, and, hence, may be more valuable as a source of inspiration for other similar projects for which political support at the national level is not always available. Second, by issuing bonds in the international capital market, SSTEC singles itself out among various sustainable initiatives in China, while planning the village area as a whole and the metro plus property model are distinct practices in ILCC. In the end, the authors present a generic financing model that considers not only economic returns but also social and environmental impacts to facilitate future initiatives to finance in more structural ways.

scholarly journals Ideas, Institutions and Interests: The Politics of China’s Energy Policy Change 1996-2015

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yang Gao
Keyword(s):  
Energy Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Chinese Government

<p>This study investigates and explains the shift of the relative priority in China’s energy policy in the 1990s and 2000s. Between 1996 and 2015, the priority of China’s national energy policy had shifted from an emphasis on energy supply security to energy demand efficiency. A central question this study seeks to answer is: what forces led to this shift of policy priority?  To answer the question, this study proposes a multi-layered and cross-sectoral analytical framework based on Historical Institutionalism theory. It focuses on the complex interaction between ideas, institutions and interests to understand the politics of China’s energy policy change. This study establishes a model of policy change as a means of institutional adaptation to manage an emerging mismatch between evolving ideational patterns at the national level, and the persistence of certain interest-seeking behaviour shaped by historically-formulated institutions at the subnational level.  With the introduction of the “Socialist Market Economy” idea in the early 1990s, China began to deepen its reform on two sets of fundamental institution that define China’s state-industry relations and central-local intergovernmental relations. Over time, the reforms profoundly impacted the development of China’s two major energy-based industrial value chains, namely the Coal-Metallurgical Value Chain (CMVC) and the Oil-Petrochemical Value Chain (OPVC), by shaping their asymmetrical institutional connections with Chinese government at central and local levels. At the national level, the 1990s reforms helped to build strong institutional connections between the central government and the OPVC, which greatly contributed to China’s energy security in the 2000s. However, decentralising and marketising most heavy industries allowed interest-seeking local governments to build strong institutional connections with the CMVC, causing the 1990s reforms to produce an unintended consequence of heavy industrialisation that has significantly changed China’s economic structure. Such uncontrolled heavy industrialisation, revealed by the country’s declining energy efficiency in the early 2000s, had increasingly went against a new generation of Chinese top leadership’s “Scientific Development” idea. A major energy policy shift was therefore initiated and utilised by the central government to curb the heavy industrialisation. The central government’s institutional connections with the coal-based heavy industries, especially those in the CMVC, were rebuilt and strengthened.  Overall, this study provides a more sophisticated understanding of how ideas, institutions and interests dynamically interact to produce major policy change in the context of a transitional state.</p>

Research on the Calculating Method of Low-Carbon City Public Transit Bearing Rate

2014 ◽  
Vol 548-549 ◽  
pp. 1828-1834
Author(s):  
Zi Qiang Lei ◽  
Rui Lin Wu ◽  
Jie Yin ◽  
Ping Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Large City ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
City Development ◽  
Slow Transport ◽  
Low Carbon City ◽  
The City

Low carbon is the trend of the future city development. Based on low carbon city concept, first of all, the reasonable development of low carbon urban traffic modes has been studied, for the slow transport, public transport and private transport between the proportion of low carbon city traffic have been analyzed; secondly, according to the commitments of Chinese government on Copenhagen World Climate Assembly in 2009, it has studied the low carbon city public transport minimum rate calculation method, puts forward the calculation formula of minimum bearing rate; Finally, taking a super-large city in central of China for example and using the formula above, the lowest rate of implementing low carbon urban public transport of the city in 2020 is calculated. Results show that on the basis of the city in 2008, the target year of 2020 is also need to increase 11% of the public transportation bearing rate.

scholarly journals Prospects, Politics, and Practices of Solar Energy Innovation in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frauke Urban ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Sam Geall
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Solar Pv ◽  
Trade Offs

This article examines the prospects of, and politics and practices around, solar energy in China. It examines two different solar energy technologies, namely, solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar water heaters (SWHs), to understand how different pathways for low-carbon innovation are supported and constrained by (the lack of) political support at the national and local level, the interactions between state and nonstate actors, as well as how they relate to changing practices among consumers. This article also discusses obstacles and trade-offs. We find two very different approaches to solar energy. The solar PV industry in China is experiencing increased domestic growth, after many years of being mainly export-oriented. Prices declined rapidly in recent years, and solar PV also enjoys much political and financial support from the central government and local governments. However, there are high bureaucratic and technical hurdles to get grid connected and access the feed-in-tariff, particularly for individual users. SWHs on the other side are a “homegrown” Chinese technology that is ubiquitous in China, particularly in rural areas; that is easy to install and use; and that has developed from the grassroots levels to mass products with relatively little government support. Although being largely neglected by high-level discussions and plans, SWHs could contribute much to low-carbon transitions that are driven at the local level in China.

scholarly journals Ideas, Institutions and Interests: The Politics of China’s Energy Policy Change 1996-2015

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yang Gao
Keyword(s):  
Energy Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Chinese Government

<p>This study investigates and explains the shift of the relative priority in China’s energy policy in the 1990s and 2000s. Between 1996 and 2015, the priority of China’s national energy policy had shifted from an emphasis on energy supply security to energy demand efficiency. A central question this study seeks to answer is: what forces led to this shift of policy priority?  To answer the question, this study proposes a multi-layered and cross-sectoral analytical framework based on Historical Institutionalism theory. It focuses on the complex interaction between ideas, institutions and interests to understand the politics of China’s energy policy change. This study establishes a model of policy change as a means of institutional adaptation to manage an emerging mismatch between evolving ideational patterns at the national level, and the persistence of certain interest-seeking behaviour shaped by historically-formulated institutions at the subnational level.  With the introduction of the “Socialist Market Economy” idea in the early 1990s, China began to deepen its reform on two sets of fundamental institution that define China’s state-industry relations and central-local intergovernmental relations. Over time, the reforms profoundly impacted the development of China’s two major energy-based industrial value chains, namely the Coal-Metallurgical Value Chain (CMVC) and the Oil-Petrochemical Value Chain (OPVC), by shaping their asymmetrical institutional connections with Chinese government at central and local levels. At the national level, the 1990s reforms helped to build strong institutional connections between the central government and the OPVC, which greatly contributed to China’s energy security in the 2000s. However, decentralising and marketising most heavy industries allowed interest-seeking local governments to build strong institutional connections with the CMVC, causing the 1990s reforms to produce an unintended consequence of heavy industrialisation that has significantly changed China’s economic structure. Such uncontrolled heavy industrialisation, revealed by the country’s declining energy efficiency in the early 2000s, had increasingly went against a new generation of Chinese top leadership’s “Scientific Development” idea. A major energy policy shift was therefore initiated and utilised by the central government to curb the heavy industrialisation. The central government’s institutional connections with the coal-based heavy industries, especially those in the CMVC, were rebuilt and strengthened.  Overall, this study provides a more sophisticated understanding of how ideas, institutions and interests dynamically interact to produce major policy change in the context of a transitional state.</p>

scholarly journals Benchmarking Analysis of Carbon Emission in China and Foreign Countries from the Perspective of Urbanization

2021 ◽  
Vol 241 ◽  
pp. 02003
Author(s):  
Jun Wang ◽  
Hua Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Carbon Emission ◽  
National Level ◽  
Energy Structure ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
City Construction ◽  
Low Carbon City

With the further aggravation of global warming and the increasingly serious problems of ecological environment, the construction of low-carbon cities has become an inevitable choice for the global response to climate change and the sustainable development of economy and society. In order to understand the basic situation of China’s low-carbon cities more specifically, this paper selects countries with different urbanization rates to carry out benchmarking analysis with China, hoping to draw on the experience of other countries from the national level through multi-dimensional comparison, and guide the direction of China’s future urban development. Firstly, this paper selects the basic indicators such as the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions, per capita carbon emissions and carbon emissions per unit GDP of each country; Secondly, it compares the proportion of coal in energy and other indicators, and analyzes the energy structure of each country in depth; Thirdly, it compares the trend of carbon emissions in each country among 1990-2017. Finally, in order to reflect the carbon emission in the development of urbanization, this paper uses the “urbanization carbon emission index”, which is the ratio of per capita carbon emission and urbanization rate, to show the relationship between the degree of urbanization and carbon emission. Through benchmarking analysis, we can more clearly understand the overall trend of low-carbon city construction in different countries, recognize the gap between China and other countries, and better guide the development of low-carbon cities in China in the future.

‘Low carbon city development’ (LCCD) as a strategy for sustainable cities: The case of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Rescalvo ◽  
Maite Lasa ◽  
Natasha D’Silva ◽  
Ramiro Barrios ◽  
Leo Sommaripa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
City Development ◽  
Low Carbon City

scholarly journals Assessing CO2 Emissions from Passenger Transport with the Mixed-Use Development Model in Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Xianchun Tan ◽  
Tangqi Tu ◽  
Baihe Gu ◽  
Yuan Zeng ◽  
Tianhang Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Travel Demand ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Passenger Transport ◽  
Transport Accessibility ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
Mixed Land Use ◽  
Low Carbon City

Assessing transport CO2 emissions is important in the development of low-carbon strategies, but studies based on mixed land use are rare. This study assessed CO2 emissions from passenger transport in traffic analysis zones (TAZs) at the community level, based on a combination of the mixed-use development model and the vehicle emission calculation model. Based on mixed land use and transport accessibility, the mixed-use development model was adopted to estimate travel demand, including travel modes and distances. As a leading low-carbon city project of international cooperation in China, Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City Core Area was chosen as a case study. The results clearly illustrate travel demand and CO2 emissions of different travel modes between communities and show that car trips account for the vast majority of emissions in all types of travel modes in each community. Spatial emission differences are prominently associated with inadequately mixed land use layouts and unbalanced transport accessibility. The findings demonstrate the significance of the mixed land use and associated job-housing balance in reducing passenger CO2 emissions from passenger transport, especially in per capita emissions. Policy implications are given based on the results to facilitate sophisticated transport emission control at a finer spatial scale. This new framework can be used for assessing the impacts of urban planning on transport emissions to promote sustainable urbanization in developing countries.

scholarly journals Does the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy Promote Green Technology Innovation? Based on Green Patent Data of Chinese A-Share Listed Companies

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3695
Author(s):  
Jintao Ma ◽  
Qiuguang Hu ◽  
Weiteng Shen ◽  
Xinyi Wei
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
Objective Assessment ◽  
Green Technology ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Corporate Financing ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Low Carbon City ◽  
The Impact ◽  
A Share

To cope with climate change and achieve sustainable development, low-carbon city pilot policies have been implemented. An objective assessment of the performance of these policies facilitates not only the implementation of relevant work in pilot areas, but also the further promotion of these policies. This study uses A-share listed enterprises from 2005 to 2019 and creates a multi-period difference-in-differences model to explore the impact of low-carbon city pilot policies on corporate green technology innovation from multiple dimensions. Results show that (1) low-carbon city pilot policies stimulates the green technological innovation of enterprises as manifested in their application of green invention patents; (2) the introduction of pilot policies is highly conducive to green technological innovation in eastern cities and enterprises in high-carbon emission industries; and (3) tax incentives and government subsidies are important fiscal and taxation tools that play the role of pilot policies in low-carbon cities. By alleviating corporate financing constraints, these policies effectively promote the green technological innovation of enterprises. This study expands the research on the performance of low-carbon city pilot policies and provides data support for a follow-up implementation and promotion of policies from the micro perspective at the enterprise level.

scholarly journals Towards Deep Decarbonisation of Energy-Intensive Industries: A Review of Current Status, Technologies and Policies

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2408
Author(s):  
Anissa Nurdiawati ◽  
Frauke Urban
Keyword(s):  
Technological Development ◽  
Steel Production ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Price Support ◽  
Reference Case ◽  
Technological Trajectories ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Energy Intensive Industries

Industries account for about 30% of total final energy consumption worldwide and about 20% of global CO2 emissions. While transitions towards renewable energy have occurred in many parts of the world in the energy sectors, the industrial sectors have been lagging behind. Decarbonising the energy-intensive industrial sectors is however important for mitigating emissions leading to climate change. This paper analyses various technological trajectories and key policies for decarbonising energy-intensive industries: steel, mining and minerals, cement, pulp and paper and refinery. Electrification, fuel switching to low carbon fuels together with technological breakthroughs such as fossil-free steel production and CCS are required to bring emissions from energy-intensive industry down to net-zero. A long-term credible carbon price, support for technological development in various parts of the innovation chain, policies for creating markets for low-carbon materials and the right condition for electrification and increased use of biofuels will be essential for a successful transition towards carbon neutrality. The study focuses on Sweden as a reference case, as it is one of the most advanced countries in the decarbonisation of industries. The paper concludes that it may be technically feasible to deep decarbonise energy-intensive industries by 2045, given financial and political support.

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