Developing low-carbon cities through pilots

Wang, Yuefei; Song, Qinggong; He, Jianhong; Ye, Qi

doi:10.1080/14693062.2015.1050347

Cited by 134 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…China's new urbanization plan (2014e2020) calls for the promotion of low carbon development as well as the adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and urban construction modes (Bai et al, 2014). Chinese central government proposed to implement low-carbon urbanization, which attracted the attention of local governments and research scholars (Liu and Qin, 2016;Mittal et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of urbanization on carbon dioxide emissions efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Huang

Kwan

et al. 2018

Journal of Cleaner Production

148

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a b s t r a c tCities have been one of the most important areas of CO 2 emissions. It is increasingly important to research the effect of urbanization on CO 2 emissions, especially in large emerging and developing economies, due to the indispensable need for understanding the effect of urbanization on CO 2 emissions, evaluating carbon reduction tasks and providing the scientific basis for low-carbon urbanization. Utilizing a balanced panel dataset in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China, during the period of 2000e2010, this paper employed data envelopment analysis (DEA) window analysis and a spatial lag panel Tobit model to investigate the effect of urbanization on CO 2 emissions efficiency (the ratio of the target CO 2 emissions to the actual CO 2 emissions). The results show that the average CO 2 emissions efficiency was 0.959 in 2010, and CO 2 emissions efficiency ranged from 0.816 to 1 and exhibited spatial clustering in the region. The larger potential of CO 2 emissions reduction appeared in Zhenjiang and Yangzhou, indicating that more CO 2 emissions reduction tasks should be allocated to these two cities. Urbanization has negative effects on improving CO 2 emissions efficiency, and there is a U-curve relation between CO 2 emissions efficiency and urbanization, indicating that CO 2 emissions efficiency decreases at the early stage of urbanization, then increases when urbanization reach a high level. There is spatial spillover effect among the prefecture-level cities, suggesting that different prefecture-level governments should coordinate with each other to improve CO 2 emissions efficiency in the whole area. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita also plays a markedly positive role in improving CO 2 emissions efficiency. This research highlights the effect of urbanization on CO 2 emissions efficiency and the importance of improving CO 2 emissions efficiency in developing countries.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of urbanization on carbon dioxide emissions efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Huang

Kwan

et al. 2018

Journal of Cleaner Production

148

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“…Efforts to meet the targets were again enforced through the TRS. The central government also took full advantage of pilot programs such as low-carbon city pilots, low-carbon industrial park pilots, and emissions trading pilots to test strategies for reducing emissions (Biedenkopf, Van Eynde, & Walker, 2017;Goron & Cassisa, 2017;Liu, Wang, Song, & Qi, 2018;Wang, Song, He, & Qi, 2015).…”

Section: China: Hitting the Targetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to the future: Can Chinese doubling down and American muddling through fulfill 21st century needs for environmental governance?

Zhao

Young

et al. 2020

Env Pol Gov

Self Cite

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At the close of the last millennium, prominent thinkers projected that the political systems of leading economies would converge during the coming years. Yet, research has shown that China and the United States have developed distinctive institutionalized governance processes (IGPs) to address environmental issues. Can these distinctive processes persist in turbulent times? In reality, the two countries seem to be decoupling in their economic ties and diverging in political pursuit. Under the current circumstances, what can we say about the ability of the two systems to meet emerging environmental challenges of the 21st century? We argue that neither system is likely to experience fundamental change during the foreseeable future. Current developments are highlighting differences between goal‐based governance strategies prominent in China and the rule‐based strategies of the United States. As the urgency of solving transcendent problems like climate change rises and political tensions grow, it is essential to work with divergent systems to address common problems.

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“…The sustainable exploitation of clean energy and energy efficiency are the critical twin pillars to realize an LC energy structure [123,[125][126][127]. Clean energy technologies actively encouraged in pilot provinces and cities include both renewable and alternative energy technologies.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Clean energy technologies actively encouraged in pilot provinces and cities include both renewable and alternative energy technologies. Renewable energy technologies include solar energy, wind energy (small-scale wind generators), bio-energy, geothermal, hydropower, and tidal energy; alternative energy technologies comprises hydrogen fuel cells, cold-base methane, nuclear, natural gas, heat pump, carbon capture and storage, and microgrid [8,25,46,75,101,123,125,[127][128][129][130][131][132]. These different clean energy technologies are developed and applied to diverse urban domains to ensure energy security, climate change mitigation, and local economic development.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Known as the "Electricity Valley of China", this city is renowned for its solar photovoltaic industry, wind, and energy storage [31,134], and has integrated these technologies into the urban system. Furthermore, the city has established networking on knowledge management and technology cooperation, investment in the export of energy products, embarking on capacity building in urban planning, and providing financial support and mechanisms such as support funds and tax incentives [127]. Other cities, such as Chongqing and Shenzhen, have focused on the manufacture of wind, solar photovoltaic, natural gas, and utilization of the [8,135,136]; Kunming, Xiamen, and Rizhao have also focused on solar photovoltaic, waste-to-energy, and heat pump [60]; while Beijing, Ganzhou, and Guangzhou have established no coal-burning zones in the downtown district [127].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Hunter

Sagoe²,

Vettorato

et al. 2019

Sustainability

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Low carbon city (LCC) has emerged as the latest sustainable urbanism strategy in China as a response to climate change impacts. Yet, minimal scholarships have explored the sustainability of the urban planning model towards understanding the complexity of the components. Using a two-step triangulation approach, this paper presents a structured overview of the LCC initiative in China as it relates to the transition to a sustainability paradigm. The data collection approach includes a comprehensive review of 238 articles on LCC to identify and categorize LCC components. Furthermore, discourse and framing analysis was used to develop and synthesize a conceptual framework for assimilating the components into four core sustainable development principles: Integration, implementation, equity, and scalability and replicability. The results indicate that LCC development in China is bias towards economic and environmental technological innovations and strategies. Additionally, several critical sustainability issues of LCC pilots were identified. These include a lack of social equity planning concerns for the most vulnerable population, dearth of social reforms that cater to lifestyle and behavioral change, top-down planning and decision-making processes, a technocratic rationalization planning approach, inconsistent LCC targets on inter-generational justice concerns, absence of an effective national "sharing and learning" city-city network system, and several barriers to implementation. We conclude that the applied theoretical and conceptual inquiry into the field of LCC is pertinent to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable urban development.Sustainability 2019, 11, 4342 2 of 37 consumption [14][15][16][17]. This increasing energy consumption and coal dependency of the urban energy system has increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as China has become the world's largest energy consumer and carbon emitter [18,19]. A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics [20] suggests that despite a decline in GHG emissions between 2013 and 2016, emissions grew by 2.3% in 2018 due to a surge in urban construction. Therefore, after three decades of rapid physical and socio-spatial modernization, the country is facing significant negative externalities [16]. Local environmental pollution [6,16,[21][22][23], ecological deterioration [24], and energy shortage [21,25] have created health risks [26], have affected people's quality of life [27], and resulted in substantial economic losses [28] in megacities such as Tianjin and Beijing [29]. Concomitantly, China's cities are vulnerable to climate change impacts [17,30], as some cities have inadequate seawall defenses in low-lying areas [5], and are therefore exposed to flooding and extreme rainstorms [23]. In addition to this, some experience droughts from reduced precipitation, which can be attributed to low urban institutional capacity that creates limitations in climate governance and planning [31]. These complex and intractable problems have heralded a call for action, t...

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Developing low-carbon cities through pilots

Cited by 134 publications

References 19 publications

The effect of urbanization on carbon dioxide emissions efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta, China

The effect of urbanization on carbon dioxide emissions efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Back to the future: Can Chinese doubling down and American muddling through fulfill 21st century needs for environmental governance?

Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review

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