Climate-Related Development Finance, Energy Structure Transformation and Carbon Emissions Reduction: An Analysis From the Perspective of Developing Countries

With the frequent occurrence of extreme weather in cities, economic, ecological and social activities have been greatly impacted. The adverse effects of global extreme climate and effective governance have attracted more and more attention of scholars. Considering the differences between developed and developing countries in climate response capacity, a key issue is how to encourage developed countries to provide adequate assistance to developing countries and enhance their enthusiasm to participate in addressing climate change challenges. Given this background, we evaluated the carbon emission reduction effects of developing countries before and after a “quasi-natural experiment” which involved obtaining the assistance of climate-related funding from developed countries. Specifically, we analyzed the assistance behavior for recipient countries and found that climate assistance can effectively reduce the carbon emissions level of recipient countries, and this result has a better impact on non-island types and countries with higher levels of economic development. Furthermore, the achievement of this carbon emissions reduction target stems from the fact that climate assistance has promoted the optimization of the energy structure of recipient countries and promoted the substitution of renewable energy for coal consumption. In addition, climate-related development finance plays a significant role in promoting the scientific and technological level of recipient countries, especially the development impact of the adaptive climate-related development finance. Therefore, this paper suggests that the direction of climate assistance should focus more on island countries and countries with low economic development level, and pay more attention to the “coal withdrawal” of recipient countries and climate adaptation field.

CO2 abatement economics - a practical view

The present studies aim at bridging between sophisticated scientific research and the broader society. The present work examines the economic stimulus required for the intended transition from fossil sources to renewables. To estimate cost competitiveness in energy supply from the various primary sources, a practicable, yet comprehensively levelized and fully described framework is applied. The estimates are compared with previous field reports and projection studies. In result, renewables have principally become cost-competitive to fossil sources in energy production. The overall transition to renewables is found to potentially come cost-neutral. It is argued that no special discounting be necessary if carbon emissions reduction is established in the order of 3 %/year (year-on-year) for about 100 years. Regarding transmission belts, it is advocated to cap plain CO2 pricing at 50 $/tCO2 and moreover, to emphasize distributive and differentiative regulation when considering free-market-based mechanisms such as CO2 pricing and carbon certification/crediting.

Location-specific co-benefits of carbon emissions reduction from coal-fired power plants in China

Climate policies that achieve air quality co-benefits can better align developing countries’ national interests with global climate mitigation. Since the effects of air pollutants are highly dependent on source locations, spatially nuanced policies are crucial to maximizing the achievement of co-benefits. Using the coal power industry as a case study, this study presents an interdisciplinary approach to assessing facility level co-benefits at every specific source location in China. We find that co-benefits range from US$51-$278 per ton CO2 reduction nationwide and are highly heterogeneous spatially, with “hotspot” regions that should be the priority of emissions reduction policies, and that provinces should use different techno-economic strategies to reduce emissions. The location-specific co-benefit value plus a carbon price serves as a unified environmental indicator that enables policy makers to more accurately understand the social costs of electricity generation from coal burning and provides a scientific framework for geographically nuanced policymaking.

Life cycle assessment of crushed glass abrasive manufacturing from recycled glass

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the key motivation factors to determine the characteristics of green abrasives, contributing to carbon emissions reduction, reduce waste generation and build up a recycling-based sustainable blasting industry. Such aim can be evaluated through life cycle assessment as a structured basis for evaluating the performance of environmental impacts and benefits of green abrasives application in blasting industry. Crushed glass is one of zero free silica content abrasives from recycled glass, and it is widely used due to inert and safe characteristics. Database of life cycle inventory (LCI) are obtained through literature review. Production of 1 ton/year of crushed glass abrasives has been modelled at gate-to-gate boundary where the human health appears as the major impact potentials (0.71 DALY, disability-adjusted life year) at the production stage. The selection of 100% recycled glass as the raw materials in the supply chain has led to insignificant impact potentials of resources scarcity and ecosystem damages per unit production of 1 ton of crushed glass at USD 4.79 and 0.06 species. year, respectively.

Spatial distribution and regional difference of carbon emissions efficiency of industrial energy in China

The three-stage super-efficiency slack-based measure and data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model with undesirable outputs is used to calculate carbon emissions efficiency of industrial energy (CEEIE) of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2017. Then ArcGIS software is used to illustrate the spatial distribution of CEEIE, and Dagum Gini ratio is calculated to decompose the regional difference. The results show that the spatial distribution of CEEIE changes from disorder to order and provinces characterized with high or low CEEIE cluster in space over time. The total Dagum Gini coefficient indicates that the interprovincial difference in CEEIE across China is gradually expanding, which is mainly induced by the difference between regions. Our findings attach more importance to interregional integration policies for carbon emissions reduction in China.

Green routing in a two-level network of cross docks given the shipping price (Case study: Pegah Co.)

In this study, a green routing model is provided in a two-level network of cross docking given the shipping price. Three objectives were proposed in this model including: total cost reduction, shipping costs reduction and carbon emissions reduction. The overall objective of the model, is getting the best route in the distribution network which will impose the least cost and also minimizes emissions of environmental pollutants. For the model to approach the real situation, Pegah corporation’s warehouses and distribution network are considered as a case study. Solving the developed model was carried out by GAMS. By the size of the problem increasing, the running time of the program is notably increased and this means the problem is np-hard. So, in order to solve the model in medium and large dimensions, we used meta-heuristic MOGWO and NSGA II algorithm. The results of investigating various problems with meta-heuristics, indicates the high performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of the time needed and the response achieved. Results indicated that the proposed model reduced the emission of environmental pollutants along with total cost and shipping cost reduction. Also given the time window, the products were shipped to customers in a timely manner.

Carbon Emissions Reduction and Corporate Financial Performance: The Influence of Country-Level Characteristics

Using a cross-country dataset covering 9265 observations on 1785 firms representing 53 countries over the period 2004–2019, this study investigates the relation between carbon emissions reduction and corporate financial performance (CFP). We perform OLS regressions with fixed effects. We found that carbon emissions reduction increases the return on assets, the return on equity, and the return on sales, whereas it has no effect on the Tobin’s Q and the current ratio. The positive relationship with the return on assets is stronger for firms with a higher responsibility score. We study country characteristics by modeling GDP growth, overall emissions within a country, and the presence of carbon emissions legislation. Our results indicate that the overall carbon emissions of a country and the presence of carbon emissions legislation are related to both corporate carbon emissions reduction and CFP. Moderating effects of the country’s overall emissions and the presence of carbon emissions legislation do not affect the relationship between carbon emissions reduction and CFP. Despite the further understanding gained, the issue of whether it “pays to be green” can still not be resolved well.

Information Disclosure, Coal Withdrawal and Carbon Emissions Reductions: A Policy Test Based on China’s Environmental Information Disclosure

How to better explore a diversity of emissions reduction paths has become the key to China achieving carbon peak and carbon neutralization goals as well as transforming the existing energy structure as soon as possible. Based on this, from the perspective of information flow, this study used the differences-in-differences method (DID) to identify the “net effect” of the carbon emissions reduction caused by China’s environmental information disclosure. The results showed the following: first, environmental information disclosure could effectively promote regional carbon emissions reductions and had a better effect on the central and western regions and low carbon emissions density regions. Second, the achievement of carbon emissions reduction targets was mainly attributed to the positive impact of information disclosure in the process of “coal withdrawal.” Finally, this study also found that environmental information disclosure helped to promote the positive effect of clean energy development on “coal withdrawal,” and the promotion of public awareness regarding environmental supervision helped to strengthen the external impact of environmental information disclosure on regional carbon emissions reduction.