The intrinsic interactions between urbanization processes and vegetation dynamics represent an emerging research frontier in human-environment systems science. However, previous studies have predominantly examined the effects of urban expansion rather than urban shrinkage on vegetation change. This study investigates the complex relationship between urban population shrinkage and vegetation dynamics, using multisource datasets from 665 Chinese cities spanning the period 2000-2020. Direct impact analysis reveals that population shrinkage generally facilitates vegetation recovery, exhibiting significant time lag and spatial spillover effects. Indirect-effect analyses further demonstrate that population shrinkage affects urban vegetation change through three mediating pathways: land use policy, urban spatial form, and environmental quality. Furthermore, this study proposes a novel hypothesis elucidating the spatial evolution characteristics of urban shrinkage and its impacts on vegetation across divergent urbanization stages. This research clarifies the complex response mechanisms between urban shrinkage and vegetation change, offering significant implications for green transformation strategies in shrinking cities and the advancement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Energy transition is pivotal for climate mitigation and energy security. As one of China's four core economic regions, the Sichuan-Chongqing Region faces distinct challenges in its energy transition. Existing studies rarely quantify interdependencies across energy, environment, health, and economy. This study develops a full-chain assessment framework coupling the LEAP-SC model, LC-IMPACT method, and modified human capital approach to simulate "energy optimization, emission reduction, health improvement, economic value" pathways in China's Sichuan-Chongqing region (2023–2060), incorporating an intergenerational equity perspective. Key findings include: (1) Achieving carbon peaking necessitates coordinated transitions in both energy consumption and production sectors, with electricity playing a central role; (2) Energy transition generates synergistic health benefits and significant indirect economic gains by drastically reducing greenhouse gases and other air pollutants, particularly PM2.5, NOX and SO2; (3) Premature deaths attributable to air pollution are projected to decline steadily, with young and middle-aged populations capturing the largest share of economic dividends. However, the benefits for children may be underestimated, and the elderly require enhanced health protection. (4) Sensitivity analysis confirms that while absolute values vary with parameter changes, the core patterns of intergenerational distribution and PMF pathway dominance remain robust across all scenarios. This research offers a scientific foundation for planning regional energy transition pathways and promoting equitable energy transition. Owing to its adaptable research methodology, it also provides valuable insights for other developing countries with similar natural conditions in achieving their energy transition and meeting SDG7.

Balancing benefits with environmental protection is a key priority in national trade management. While previous studies have shown that the environmental costs and economic benefits of trade are unevenly distributed across countries, less is known about how employment substitution or creation influences environmental-benefit inequalities. Here, we introduce a novel benchmark-based method to objectively reassess global trade inequality from a multi-factor perspective, incorporating global employment transfer data. Our findings indicate a weak correlation between most embodied factor transfers, except between carbon and employment. Meanwhile, global trade’s ability to create employment is weakening, the outward transfer of employment opportunities is reshaping environmental and economic inequalities, and countries that benefit from environmental-economic exchanges (such as South Korea) are facing new challenges. Therefore, international policies should coordinate carbon responsibility allocation with employment stabilization, improve management of trade embodied virtual resources, and enhance workforce adaptability to structural changes to promote equitable and sustainable global development.

The performance of China's rapid urbanization is critical for the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In response to challenges such as environmental pollution, social inequality, and resource scarcity, China has proposed and enacted a new urbanization strategy. However, it remains to be evaluated whether this new approach to urbanization aligns with the principles of sustainable development and whether it is genuinely sustainable. This study constructs an indicator system tailored to measure the sustainability of urbanization at both the national and provincial levels in China. It then uses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals index calculation method to assess urbanization sustainability separately at these two levels. The findings regarding urbanization sustainability are then integrated with the urbanization rate, and the elasticity coefficient method is employed to evaluate the status of sustainable urbanization in China from 2010 to 2021. The results show a steady improvement in the sustainability of urbanization in China from 2010 to 2021, with environmental performance surpassing social and economic dimensions. Although eastern provinces consistently outperformed their central and western counterparts, regional disparities have gradually narrowed over time. Most provinces experienced notable progress in multiple dimensions, while a few, including Shaanxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, and Hainan, showed signs of regression. Among the 17 goals, SDG 16 was the only one to exhibit a negative trend, primarily due to the insufficient number of legal professionals relative to population growth. This study provides references and recommendations for the future promotion of sustainable urbanization in China, as well as insights for the practice and research of sustainable urbanization in other countries.

Improving energy efficiency is a critical pathway for facilitating energy transition and mitigating climate change. This study employs the Super-SBM model to measure provincial energy efficiency in China from 2010 to 2022, followed by the Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index to decompose dynamic changes in efficiency and examine regional disparities. Furthermore, a panel data regression model is utilized to identify key influencing factors. The findings reveal that: (1) China's energy efficiency exhibited an overall upward trend during the study period, though significant interprovincial and interregional disparities persisted. (2) High-efficiency regions demonstrated a pronounced clustering effect, particularly in South, East, and Central China, while Northwestern, Southwestern, and Northeastern regions remained low-efficiency zones, indicating distinct polarization characteristics. (3) The GML index exhibited notable fluctuations but remained above 1 in most provinces, suggesting sustained improvements in energy efficiency across China. (4) Urbanization level and environmental regulations were positively correlated with energy efficiency, whereas industrial structure, energy consumption patterns, government intervention, and trade openness exerted negative effects. These results provide valuable insights for policymakers to formulate region-specific strategies aimed at enhancing energy efficiency and accelerating the low-carbon transition.

China’s energy transition is crucial for realizing its carbon neutrality goals and mitigating climate change, but few studies have systematically explored its progress and spatiotemporal heterogeneity. To fill the research gap, this study developed a framework for measuring energy transition, aimed at analyzing the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving factors of energy transition in China at both the national and provincial levels from 2000 to 2020. The results show that: (1) China's energy transition exhibits significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity, undergoing a trend of initial decline followed by acceleration, with 2010 marking a pivotal year. Western and Southern China performed better than Northern, Central and Northeastern China on the energy transition. (2) Resource endowment plays a pivotal role in energy transition but exhibits a dual nature. The traditional path dependency of coal consumption has significantly decelerated energy transition, particularly in Northern China. Conversely, abundant hydropower resources have notably accelerated China's energy transition, especially in Southwestern China. Moreover, rapid growth in low-carbon technologies and green investments has significantly facilitated China's energy transition, particularly evident in Eastern, Central, Southwestern, and Northwestern China. The findings of this study can provide valuable insights for policymakers to optimize energy transition strategies.

International trade profoundly impacts global land resource redistribution, creating significant inequalities. However, there is still a considerable gap in studies on land transfer and resulting environmental consequences. This study aims to illuminate inequality patterns by examining the global transfer dynamics of embodied cropland, forestland, and pasture in 2001, 2011, and 2021. The results reveal a notable increase in transfers within developing regions, rising from 21.8 % to 37.1 %. The direction of the largest shifts changed in embodied cropland and forestland. Embodied land outflows from developing regions were mainly related to primary products, while those from developed regions came from manufacturing and services. The carbon losses from trade-induced land use changes indicated that the world experienced an average loss of 37.25 million MgC/yr from carbon sink and 17.60 PgC from carbon storage in 2011. Developing regions not only provided land resources to developed regions but also bore the resulting carbon sink and storage losses. To prevent international trade from worsening regional inequalities and spreading environmental impacts, concerted efforts in improving land-use efficiency and conserving carbon stocks are alternative pathways to foster and promote global sustainability.

[Objective] Energy transition is a key path to achieving China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, and exploring the impact of energy transition on the urban-rural income gaps can provide a scientific basis for realizing equity in the transition. [Methods] Based on the panel data of 108 cities at the prefecture level and above in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2010 to 2020, this study employed spatial analysis and fixed-effects model to analyze the characteristics of the temporal and spatial change of energy transition and urban-rural income gaps, and to reveal the correlation between the two and their regional heterogeneity of this relationship. [Results] (1) The performance level of energy transition of cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows an overall upward trend, and the energy transition index values of provincial capital cities has remained at a high level for a long time. At the same time, urban-rural income gaps have been narrowing year by year, showing a pattern of high in the west and low in the east. (2) The relationship between energy transition and urban-rural income gaps in cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was U-shaped. With the improvement of the performance level of energy transition, urban-rural income gaps showed the characteristic of decreasing and then increasing. (3) There was a significant difference in the relationship between energy transition and urban-rural income gaps in cities in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with the upstream showing an inverted U-shaped relationship and the middle reaches showing a U-shaped relationship, and the downstream showing no significant correlation. This suggests that the energy transition paths of cities in the upstream region were gradually moving towards a fair direction, while the opposite was true in the midstream region, and that urban and rural residents in the downstream region were less sensitive to the socioeconomic effects caused by energy transition. [Conclusion] Therefore, diversified energy transition policies should be formulated in accordance with the actual development of the upstream, midstream and downstream, so as to effectively prevent the negative impacts of the transition and actively promote the just energy transition and the balanced development of urban and rural regions.

New urbanization often leads to land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), which inevitably affects ecosystem services (ESs). Although it is traditionally believed that urbanization reduces ecosystem services, some studies have shown that reasonable urban development facilitates ecosystem conservation. Previous studies have focused on the impacts of urbanization on either LUCC or ESs, with fewer dynamic assessments of the coordination of the three. Taking China’s contiguous poor areas (CPAs) as an example, this study applied coupling coordination, path analysis, and a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) model to identify the dynamic relationship among urbanization, land use, and the environment and then predicted their coupling coordination under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP-RCP) in 2035 using the Patch Generation Land Use Simulation (PLUS) and a random forest model. The results of the study show that (1) urbanization, land-use change, and environmental loads in China’s CPAs showed an inconsistent upward trend. There was a slight overall decrease in ESs before 2013, which was consistent with the early stage of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC); after that time, they showed different characteristics. (2) From 2000 to 2018, the coupling coordination degree of CPAs decreased slightly due to urbanization, geographic factors, and grassland and unused land. LUCC was essential to maintaining the system balance. The SN (southern contiguous poverty area) was at a basic level of coordination, while the other regions showed a moderate imbalance. (3) According to scenario projections, the degree of coupling coordination in all regions will increase by 2035. Environmental prioritization and sustainable routes are the best options for CPAs’ development. The SN is more stable, while the WN (western contiguous poverty area) has the lowest coupling coordination. (4) Environmentally friendly urbanization should be carried out with land management tailored to local conditions. Measures that could be recommended include establishing ecological pilot zones in SN areas, prioritizing the protection of grassland ecosystems in WN areas, and promoting intensive land use in the NN (northern contiguous poverty area). The present study offers a novel perspective on the interplay between the economy and the environment at the county level and achieves predictive coupling coordination through the integration of PLUS and random forest models. This investigation into coordinated urbanization–LUCC–ES development in CPAs yields valuable insights for enhancing environmental and economic well-being in similar regions within China, as well as globally.

The increasingly complex interrelation between energy use and trade is challenging the secure and sustainable management of energy. However, limited knowledge of the cascading risks of embodied energy in trade is understood. An embodied energy network of China's interprovincial trade was established based on China's multiregional input-output tables for 2012 and 2017. The pivotal nodes, main flows, and flow trajectories within the embodied energy network were identified using the complex network model. Subsequently, the cascading effects within the embodied energy network were simulated using a cascading failure model. The results indicate that a substantial portion of embodied energy flows is concentrated within a few provinces and sectors. Within the provincial-sectoral network, approximately 50% of the edges carry 90% of the embodied energy flows. Sectors exhibiting robust influence, significant intermediary capacity, and pronounced centrality assume pivotal positions within the network. Due to cascading effects, a supply crisis in one crucial province or sector can spread quickly, affecting the integrity of the entire energy network. This study contributes to ensuring regional energy supply security and offers fresh insights into mitigating and addressing cascading risks in the energy system within and beyond China.

Context China’s high-speed economic development was accompanied by rapid urbanization for forty years, guided by a series of changing policies enacted by the central government. However, did China become more sustainable both economically and environmentally? Or more specifically, did it operate within or towards a safe and just space (SJS)? Although numerous relevant studies exist, these questions have not been adequately addressed, and a multi-scale landscape perspective is needed. Objectives The main objective of this study was to examine China’s urbanization trends, associated institutional changes, and their impacts on the nation’s sustainability trajectory during the past four decades. Specifically, we intended to analyze the impacts of urbanization and related policies on the spatial patterns, temporal trends, shortfalls, and complex nexus of the different dimensions of SJS across scales in China. Methods We apply the SJS framework, which integrates eight environmental ceilings and seven social justice foundations, to examine China’s urbanization, socioeconomic dynamics, and institutional changes, as well as their impacts on sustainability at multiple spatial scales. Segmented regression and correlation analysis were used to analyze the relationship of SJS with landscape urbanization and governance across China. Results Since the implementation of China’s Western Development Plan, China has faced increasing challenges of overshoots in CO 2 emissions, phosphorus and nitrogen loading, ecological footprint, and material footprint on a per capita basis. However, our analysis showed that, by 2015, China met nearly all basic social justice needs. The pattern of SJS showed geospatial gradients of increasing social justice (except material footprint), multi-footprints, and CO 2 from eastern to central, northeastern, and western regions, and from developed to developing provinces. The tradeoffs between social justice, environmental safety, and regional equality remain pronounced across heterogeneous landscapes with different levels of urbanization. The western region’s material footprint expanded enormously, but mainly for consumption in the eastern region of China. Conclusions China’s development in the past four decades is characterized by enormous economic growth, rapid urbanization, much improved living standards, highly fragmented landscapes, and increasing environmental problems. To promote sustainability, China should continue to implement the strategy of high-quality development and promote ecological civilization. Regional landscape-based approaches are needed to explicitly recognize geospatial heterogeneity and disparities, and better understand the urbanization-governance-landscape nexus for promoting a safer and more just China.

Understanding the embodied carbon transfer in inter-provincial trade and its employment-economic spillover effects is of crucial value in achieving carbon equity management. Surprisingly, few studies have focused on the intrinsic relationship between embodied carbon, embodied GDP, and embodied employment in iinter-provincial trade and its equity implications. Based on the 2012 and 2017 multi-regional input-output tables, our study of inter-provincial trade in 30 Chinese provinces shows that: 1) net outflows of embodied carbon were concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin region and the eastern and southern coastal regions, while net inflows were in the central and northwestern regions; 2) embodied carbon, GDP, and employment were characterized by nearby transfer, complementary energy economy, and asymmetric transfers in and out; and 3) western provinces, which relied heavily on traditional energy and heavy chemical industries, gained a competitive disadvantage implying by the internal relationship between net transfers of embodied carbon, GDP, and employment. To mitigate the inequity of inter-provincial carbon trade, top-down climate goals must be aligned with bottom-up socio-economic incentives to achieve balanced regional development and improved public welfare.

The cascading effects of climate change have inflicted severe damage on natural ecosystems and socio-economic systems, posing formidable challenges to economic, social, and environmental development. However, a notable gap exists in systematic literature reviews that comprehensively detail current research in this domain. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by providing a systematic overview of the existing literature. Using the Citespace tool, we conducted a scientometric analysis of relevant literature spanning the years 1994 to 2022. This analysis allowed us to identify research priorities and trends by examining publishing countries, institutions, journals, and keywords. Our findings reveal a continuous increase in the number of relevant publications, with discernible stages of growth: slow, stable, and rapid. The United States is a prominent contributor in this area, with the largest number of publications, but Australia has the strongest international collaboration. However, geographical characteristics distinguish collaboration among different institutions, with cross-regional cooperation in research remaining relatively weak. Notably, research in developing countries is underrepresented, highlighting a priority for future investigations. Research focus areas encompass climate cascading in both natural systems and socio-economic systems, climate change mitigation, adaptation, and their co-benefits. The research hotspots have shifted from ecosystems and biodiversity towards human well-being and sustainable development. Future endeavors will emphasize curbing the negative cascading effects of climate change and promoting the integrated evolution of natural-human systems. The outcomes of this research hold the potential to provide a robust foundation for climate cascading studies, inform policymaking, and contribute significantly to sustainable development.

作为社会复合生态系统的重要理论,城市生态位一直是研究重点,但缺少尺度效应的深入观察.以浙江省为例,首次将地市-区县-乡镇三个尺度进行横向对比,构建了多个尺度适用的城市生态位评价模型.研究通过生态位宽度、生态位重叠度、生态位分异指数和引力模型方法,对825个乡镇,71个区县和11个地市的3个尺度的生态位进行了探讨.研究结果表明:从生态位宽度来看,浙江省的生态位发展不均衡,地市尺度呈现反"C"结构,衢州市和丽水市生态位宽度最小,杭州市、湖州市和宁波市生态位宽度最大.且研究尺度越大、生态位宽度越大,则尺度效应作用越大.从生态位分异程度来看,随着尺度的缩小,分异程度逐渐增大,其中社会生态位分异程度最大.表明尺度效应在发展越不平衡的生态位维度中作用力越大.从生态位重叠度和引力模型来看,生态位宽度小的区域往往面临竞争难以摆脱困境,而生态位宽度大的区域更容易将竞争转化为合作.出现强者越强,弱者越弱的两极分化现象,丽水市和衢州市竞争最激烈而杭州市和宁波市合作更为便利.浙江省各地市可以通过资源再造、协同发展和借力帮扶策略优化区域发展.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) supplies many ecosystem services (ESs) that maintain local and global pan-Asian populations and ecosystems. The effects of climate change on ES provision in the QTP will have far-reaching impacts on the region and the many downstream ecosystems and countries that depend on ESs from the "Third Pole". This study undertook a systematic assessment of ES provision, trade-offs and synergies between four ESs (raw material provision, water yield, soil retention, and carbon storage) under future climate scenarios (representative concentration pathway). The results show that: (1) the total amount of the four ESs on the QTP is predicted to increase from 1980 to 2100 for three climate change scenarios. (2) The spatial pattern of ESs on the QTP will not change significantly in the future, and the grassland and forest ESs in the central and southern regions are predicted to increase significantly. (3) The synergistic interactions among ESs were generally consistent at three spatial scales (10 km (pixel), county and watershed scales), but with more significant synergistic effects at the watershed scale. This demonstrates the necessity for the examination of scale-dependent ES dynamics and interactions. This study will supply a reference for further research on long-term ES assessments, especially the dynamic ES changes and the spatial scale dependency of the ES interactions, and provide evidence-based strategies for formulating ecosystem management on the QTP under climate change.

生态系统是一个开放性复杂巨系统,要解决"双碳"问题需要运用系统思维、站在全局的角度和建设生态文明的高度进行考虑和规划;而从我国工业化发展阶段、能源结构、碳中和起点强度等方面来看,实现双碳目标面临着多重阻力和艰巨的挑战.这就需要我们运用政治、经济、科技、舆论等手段,综合考虑减排与增汇两种途径,从能源效率、能源结构、产业结构等方面入手,以关键性问题为导向,从技术、经济、制度三个层面多维发力,逐一突破,推动经济社会系统全面实现绿色低碳转型;推动全方位、全链条、系统性的能源生产、转化和管理方式转变;实行可再生能源配额制度和绿证交易制度;采取经济激励政策,平衡低碳技术与传统技术路线之间的成本差额,引导资本流向低碳技术领域;着力突破清洁能源利用的瓶颈,切实改变能源结构,全面实现城市和乡村的绿色转型.

The potential for mitigating climate change is growing worldwide, with an increasing emphasis on reducing CO2 emissions and minimising the impact on the environment. African continent is faced with the unique challenge of climate change whilst coping with extreme poverty, explosive population growth and economic difficulties. CO2 emission patterns in Africa are analysed in this study to understand primary CO2 sources and underlying driving forces further. Data are examined using gravity model, logarithmic mean divisia index and Tapio's decoupling indicator of CO2 emissions from economic development in 20 selected African countries during 1984−2014. Results reveal that CO2 emissions increased by 2.11% (453.73 million ton) over the research period. Gravity centre for African CO2 emissions had shifted towards the northeast direction. Population and economic growth were primary driving forces of CO2 emissions. Industrial structure and emission efficiency effects partially offset the growth of CO2 emissions. The economic growth effect was an offset factor in central African countries and Zimbabwe due to political instability and economic mismanagement. Industrial structure and emission efficiency were insufficient to decouple economic development from CO2 emissions and relieve the pressure of population explosion on CO2 emissions in Africa. Thus, future efforts in reducing CO2 emissions should focus on scale-up energy-efficient technologies, renewable energy update, emission pricing and long-term green development towards sustainable development goals by 2030.

China has grown into the world’s largest tourist source market and its huge tourism activities and resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are particularly becoming a concern in the context of global climate warming. To depict the trajectory of carbon emissions, a long-range energy alternatives planning system (LEAP)-Tourist model, consisting of two scenarios and four sub-scenarios, was established for observing and predicting tourism greenhouse gas peaks in China from 2017 to 2040. The results indicate that GHG emissions will peak at 1048.01 million-ton CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e) in 2033 under the integrated (INT) scenario. Compared with the business as usual (BAU) scenario, INT will save energy by 24.21% in 2040 and reduce energy intensity from 0.4979 tons of CO2 equivalent/104 yuan (TCO2e/104 yuan) to 0.3761 Tce/104 yuan. Although the INT scenario has achieved promising effects of energy saving and carbon reduction, the peak year 2033 in the tourist industry is still later than China’s expected peak year of 2030. This is due to the growth potential and moderate carbon control measures in the tourist industry. Thus, in order to keep the tourist industry in synchronization with China’s peak goals, more stringent measures are needed, e.g., the promotion of clean fuel shuttle buses, the encouragement of low carbon tours, the cancelation of disposable toiletries and the recycling of garbage resources. The results of this simulation study will help set GHG emission peak targets in the tourist industry and formulate a low carbon roadmap to guide carbon reduction actions in the field of GHG emissions with greater certainty.