China is the world’s top energy consumer and CO2 emitter, accounting for 30% of global emissions. Compiling an accurate accounting of China’s CO2 emissions is the first step in implementing reduction policies. However, no annual, officially published emissions data exist for China. The current emissions estimated by academic institutes and scholars exhibit great discrepancies. The gap between the different emissions estimates is approximately equal to the total emissions of the Russian Federation (the 4th highest emitter globally) in 2011. In this study, we constructed the time-series of CO2 emission inventories for China and its 30 provinces. We followed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions accounting method with a territorial administrative scope. The inventories include energy-related emissions (17 fossil fuels in 47 sectors) and process-related emissions (cement production). The first version of our dataset presents emission inventories from 1997 to 2015. We will update the dataset annually. The uniformly formatted emission inventories provide data support for further emission-related research as well as emissions reduction policy-making in China.

Recent increases in the frequency and scale of wildfires worldwide have raised concerns about the influence of climate change and associated socio-economic costs. In the western U.S., the hazard of wildfire has been increasing for decades. Here, we use a combination of physical, epidemiological, and economic models to estimate the economic impacts of California wildfires in 2018, including the value of destroyed and damaged capital, the health costs related to air pollution exposure, and indirect losses due to broader economic disruption cascading along with regional and national supply chains. Our estimation shows that wildfire damages in 2018 totaled $148.5 (126.1-192.9) billion (roughly 1.5% of California's annual GDP), with $27.7 billion (19%) in capital losses, $32.2 billion (22%) in health costs, and $88.6 billion (59%) in indirect losses. Our results reveal that the majority of economic impacts related to California wildfires may be indirect and often affect industry sectors and locations distant from the fires (e.g., 52% of the indirect losses-31% of total losses-in 2018 were outside of California). Our findings and methods provide new information for decision-makers tasked with protecting lives and key production sectors and reducing the economic damages of future wildfires.

China has entered the economic transition in the post-financial crisis era, with unprecedented new features that significantly lead to a decline in its carbon emissions. However, regional disparity implies different trajectories in regional decarbonisation. Here, we construct multi-regional input–output tables (MRIO) for 2012 and 2015 and quantitatively evaluate the regional disparity in decarbonisation and the driving forces during 2012–2015. We found China’s consumption-based emissions peaked in 2013, largely driven by a peak in consumption-based emissions from developing regions. Declined intensity and industrial structures are determinants due to the economic transition. The rise of the Southwest and Central regions of China have become a new feature, driving up emissions embodied in trade and have reinforced the pattern of carbon flows in the post-financial crisis period. Export-related emissions have bounced up after years of decline, attributed to soaring export volume and export structure in the Southeast and North of the country. The disparity in developing regions has become the new feature in shaping China’s economy and decarbonisation.

Carbon emission inventories are the foundations of climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities. In this study, we estimated production-based CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes in eleven cities in Hebei Province of China in 2012 and used input-output theory to measure their consumption-based CO2 emissions. By comprehensively comparing production-and consumption-based emissions, we found that six developed cities were consumption based with import-depended trade patterns, while the five other cities were production based, mostly medium in size, with the potential to transform into consumption-based cities with socioeconomic development. Emissions embodied in imports accounted for more than half of the consumption-based emissions in most cities, which shows the significance of interregional cooperation in tackling climate change. International cooperation is also important at the city level, as international imports also impacts consumption-based emissions. From the perspective of final use, emissions caused by fixed capital formation predominated in most cities and were determined by their economic development models.