While the urgent need to change residents' behaviors to achieve low-carbon societies is widely recognized, it is still unclear how urban and rural differences affect low-carbon behavioral drivers. This study investigated the mental factors of low-carbon behavior by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to develop an integrated framework incorporating ingroup and outgroup norms. The structural equation model and multiple linear regression analyses were subsequently conducted with data from 5763 surveys conducted in Zhejiang, China. The results show that perceived behavioral control and environmental attitudes strongly predict low-carbon behaviors. Furthermore, ingroup and outgroup norms indirectly influence low-carbon behavior by shaping environmental attitudes. Crucially, our findings reveal a significant urban-rural disparity in which norm conflict negatively moderates the attitude-behavior relationship in urban areas but not in rural areas. The findings expand the knowledge about social psychological drivers that influence low-carbon behavior in rural and urban areas and provide further insights into the driving forces and resistance in low-carbon governance.

The impact of environmental policy stringency on energy efficiency innovation has been studied well without considering renewable energy storage and electrification to meet demand for energy structural transition in China. Based on these past studies, this paper introduces the CGE model to analyze carbon tax stringency via carbon productivity by accounting for the electrification and learning-by-doing effect of renewable energy. Through comparing the performance of the uniform and differentiated carbon tax, it is found that the differentiated carbon tax always has a worse environmental performance in reducing carbon emissions due to less energy efficiency improvement than uniform one. While uniform carbon tax at stricter level gains more economic and environmental benefits on sectoral and overall aspects in long term because of greater improvement on sectoral carbon productivity in energy-intensive industries. Furthermore, these findings at a large level reveal the intricate interaction among carbon tax, sectoral carbon productivity, renewables-related subsidy, electrification, and the learning-by-doing of renewables for accelerating the energy structural transition and simultaneously achieving the coordination between economic growth and environmental protection.

Transforming diets toward sustainability requires more than broad recommendations, which begin with a detailed understanding of what people eat. In many cultures, especially in Asia, food is consumed in the form of complex, culturally specific dishes rather than isolated ingredients. Yet, most existing assessments of dietary sustainability remain disconnected from how meals are experienced in daily life. Here, we develop a comprehensive dataset capturing both the nutritional composition and environmental footprints of 1,000 recipes from Sichuan and Cantonese cuisines, two of the most influential and widely consumed culinary traditions in China. We combine ingredient-level nutritional analysis with life cycle assessments that account for emissions, land use, and water consumption across production, transportation, and cooking. Our data reveal large intra-cuisine variation in health and sustainability metrics, shaped by ingredient combinations and cooking techniques. By aligning real-world culinary practices with quantitative sustainability metrics, this dataset lays the groundwork for culturally grounded dietary transitions and supports a new generation of food policy, public guidance, and behavioral research rooted in dietary habits.

The pathway towards carbon neutrality in regions with a relatively light industrial structure and scarce renewable energy resources presents a challenge when balancing energy efficiency improvements with the expansion of renewable energy. Therefore, this study investigates the effectiveness of carbon pricing and carbon quota control as regional carbon abatement policies. The findings demonstrate that carbon taxes are less effective than carbon emission quota control in economic growth and carbon abatement due to their weaker impact on energy efficiency enhancement and structural transition in the energy and industrial sectors. Moreover, stricter carbon pricing, determined by carbon emission goals, leads to greater reduction in sectoral carbon intensity but slower GDP growth caused by the accelerated decline of manufacturing and infrastructure industries compared to carbon intensity quota policies. In addition, carbon pricing derived from carbon emission and intensity quota policies increases reliance on domestically imported electricity, which is constrained by the availability of renewable energy resources.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set the agenda for future development, with economic, environmental, and social sustainability as the three pillars of sustainability. Achieving the SDGs requires understanding the combined impact of current policies over time. The Inclusive Wealth (IW) Index integrates economic, environmental, and social dimensions, providing a comprehensive tool for assessing sustainability at the regional level. However, its use in forecasting future sustainability trends is limited, restricting its applicability in guiding long-term policy development. Developing countries, particularly those reliant on coal-fired power generation, face the dual challenges of promoting economic growth while mitigating the impacts of climate change. Renewable energy (RE) offers a potential solution to reduce carbon emissions, but it also presents economic and infrastructural challenges. This study proposes a new framework that combines the computable general equilibrium and Greenhouse Gas-Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies models to estimate future sustainability under the IW framework, focusing on RE development, air pollution alleviation, and carbon emission abatement. Using Shandong Province as a case study, the framework provides a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of RE development on the economy, carbon damage, and health capital. Our results indicate that carbon pricing can increase reliance on electricity transmission for the low-carbon transition, while local RE replaces local thermal power to some extent. The findings show that the development of RE and domestic electricity transmission positively impacts GDP, air pollution alleviation, carbon abatement, and human health capital, which can be further accelerated by carbon tax policies. The co-benefit of air pollution reduction and carbon abatement provides valuable insights for policymakers, suggesting that policies promoting energy structural shifts may be beneficial for sustainable development.

Since the New Era began,China has further promoted the reform of the property rights for natural resources.This round of reform is a systematic innovation,including values,governances and mechanisms,policies,and management models,made on the Chinese path to modernization road of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.Ten experts and schol-ars from disciplines such as management,economics,resource science,sociology,geography,and the practical field of natural resource management explored the progress and theoretical sig-nificance of the reform.They discussed the background,problems,guidance,mechanism,poli-cies,modes,and inspiration.Specifically,the reform of property rights for natural resource as-sets has significantly promoted institutional innovation in ecological civilization construction since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.It aims to address the urgent need for sound institutional mechanisms for state-owned natural resources,including those between the central and local governments and between the government and the market.The value orientation of this round of reform is to promote the transformation of the single-fac-tor values of natural resources into the overall values of the ecosystem.Currently,the country is optimizing the relationship between the central and local governments by promoting the pilot of the principal-agent mechanism,and clarifying the relationship between the government and the market by enhancing the role of the market.The 20th CPC Central Committee's Third Ple-nary Session further emphasized"improving the property rights system and management framework for natural resources",outlining the requirements and direction for reform.The re-form belongs to the innovation of socialist public ownership,which has the significance of building China's independent knowledge and can also make new contributions to enriching property rights theory.

Carbon emissions have become a major contributor to global climate change, with the building sector representing one-third of the global energy demand, and the residential sector accounting for 70 % of final energy demand worldwide. The energy consumption for building cooling has grown rapidly in recent years. Housing retrofits have shown potential in improving building energy efficiency and thus aligning with objectives for energy -saving and carbon emissions reduction in the residential sector. Based on survey data from 28 provinces in China, this study estimates the impacts of housing retrofits on the building energy consumption for air conditioners, as well as impacts on the resulting carbon emissions. Employing Endogenous switching regression to mitigate self-selection bias and the consequent endogeneity problem, the analysis reveals that housing retrofits can reduce building energy consumption and consequent carbon emissions. Furthermore, factors including household characteristics, building attributes and geographic location can influence both residential energy consumption and carbon emissions. In addition, low-income households, families with children and those living in self -owned houses can benefit the most from housing retrofits. This study also offers recommendations to reducing household energy consumption and carbon emissions through improved renovation practices. These insights are instrumental for policymakers in identifying targeted policy objectives across diverse demographic groups. The findings hold relevance for other developing countries with large amounts of inefficient housing stock during rapid urbanization, and those prone to global warming, aiding their pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals.

Metropolitan areas are pivotal in driving national economic growth,advancing harmonious regional development,and participating in competitive international collaboration.Consistent with international consensus,China's planning policies define metropolitan areas as a one-hour commuting circle.Simultaneously,these planning protocols particularly highlight the importance of industrial specialization and intercity collaboration,with the objective of developing modern urban agglomerations characterized by a well-defined spatial structure,complementary urban functions,and an integrated industrial division.This study uses the 2017 intercity input-output table analysis to examine patterns of industrial division and functional synergy in Chinese metropolitan areas.The findings are as follows:(1)From the perspective of industrial division and functional synergy,Chinese metropolitan areas can be categorized into four distinct spatial structures:the single-center dispersed structure,the core-periphery structure,the peripheral expansion structure,and the multi-center network structure representing an advanced phase in the spatial evolution of metropolitan areas.(2)The spatial network of industrial chains in Chinese metropolitan areas is predominantly governed by the flow of processing and manufacturing links.There is a substantial gap in the processing and manufacturing links between the Beijing and Tianjin metropolitan areas compared to similar types of metropolitan areas,and there is considerable potential for enhancing the productive service links in the Guangzhou,Chengdu,and Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan metropolitan areas.(3)The essence of transforming Chinese metropolitan areas into functionally complementary industrial cooperation areas is to further refine the spatial network of the industrial chains,strengthen functional synergy between cities,and encourage spatial integration in the metropolitan areas.(4)Single-center dispersed structure metropolitan areas,including Shijiazhuang,Chengdu,Wuhan,and Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan should initially transition toward a core-periphery structure.In contrast,peripheral expansion structure metropolitan areas such as Nanjing and Hangzhou metropolitan areas,and core-periphery structure urban agglomerations such as Tianjin,Shenzhen,Guangzhou and Beijing metropolitan areas should progress toward a multi-center network structure.

随着"两山"转化路径的地方实践探索,生态产业发展逐渐成为生态文明建设的重要组成部分,有学者提出了生态产品第四产业的概念,但其概念内涵、范围边界、核算框架等仍有待进一步明晰.从生态产品第四产业以生态资源为核心投入要素的本质特征出发,通过扩展生产函数、分离出投入要素中的生态资源,阐述了对生态产品第四产业概念内涵的理解.生态产品第四产业关注终端产品及服务价值中生态资源所创造的贡献,因此以经营性产品为最终形式的生态产品是生态产品第四产业的重点关注对象.在此基础上,探讨了GEP、IW和生态产品第四产业的关系,并基于环境经济核算体系(SEEA)与投入占用产出技术提出了生态产品第四产业核算框架的构建思路.

The development of digital economy in Xiong’an New Area has achieved notable results. In order to develop high-end high-tech industries and promote industrial transformation and upgrading,Xiong’an New Area is also faced with challenges such as strengthening restoration mechanism and improving urban functions, extensively absorbing the elements of innovation, Cultivating market players, The challenges brought by the highly overlapping of the two plans of Beijing and Xiong’an New Area. Therefore, this paper proposes to coordinate the interest relationship between Beijing and Xiong’an New Area, adjust the industrial development orientation of Xiong’an New Area, balance the relationship between administrative logic and market logic, and reflect on the cultivation of market subjects.

Achieving common prosperity is the essential requirement of Chinese path to modernization. Reducing regional income disparity is one of the important ways to achieve common prosperity. From the viewpoint of common prosperity, this paper aims to empirically examine the impacts and mechanism of the evolution of urban agglomeration spatial structure on the regional income disparity within urban agglomeration based on night-time light data analysis. It is found that polycentric structure of urban agglomeration can promote reduction of regional income disparity compared with the single-center model. This result provides an evidence for convergence effect of income disparity under the polycentric structure. The results of mediation effect test confirm that labor mobility and functional specialization across the cities are the two pathways to reduce regional income disparity within urban agglomeration. In contrast, frequent and rapid labor mobility plays a relatively stronger mediating effect. Therefore, the positive role of the multi-center space development strategy can be actively played to promote the free flow of labor and deepen the functional division of labor between cities, thereby creating a favorable development environment for narrowing the income gap between regions and promoting common prosperity.

美国学者Cronon把未经人类改造的自然称为"第一自然(first nature )",经过人类改造的自然称为"第二自然(second nature)".自然资源是先天性的自然地理条件,属于first nature 的范畴.一般来说,在经济发展初期,产业发展对自然资源的依赖较强,first nature对于经济发展的重要性较为突出.

空间集聚是城市经济的基本特征,城市高质量发展要求城市走集约发展之路,使全要素生产率的提升成为经济增长的主要动力源.文章基于中国工业企业数据库微观数据和卫星夜间灯光数据,实证检验了城市密度对企业全要素生产率的影响及作用机制.研究结果证实,城市密度对企业全要素生产率具有正向促进作用,不同时间段和不同区域的数据样本均证实了这种正向作用是稳健的,研究结论为城市密度效应提供了证据支持.中介效应检验证实,城市密度通过贸易成本、厚劳动市场、知识溢出来影响企业全要素生产率,其中,知识溢出发挥了最重要的中介作用.此外,城市密度效应还受到企业异质性的影响,小型企业和劳动密集型企业从城市集聚中获益更大.研究结论为精明增长的城市集约发展模式提供了经济学微观机制的解释,精明增长模式符合新型城镇化注重质量内涵提升的战略导向,结论证实其可以作为城市高质量发展的抓手之一.

This is the first study utilizing carbon tax revenue to the renewable energy generation with Learning-by-doing (LBD) in the CGE model. This investigation demonstrates how induced technologically change (ITC) in the power sector offsets negative impacts on economic growth caused by the carbon tax in China. Business-as-usual scenario (without carbon tax) shows a significant impact of LBD on GDP growth and CO2 emission reduction. Under a policy scenario with carbon tax, the results show that the negative impact on economic growth can be alleviated to less than 0.12%. If total carbon tax revenue was used for the subsidy to wind and solar power, even a positive impact on GDP growth will occur in the long-term. Therefore, the results verified and demonstrated the synergic effect of carbon pricing and the LBD process that economic loss caused by carbon tax could be offset by ITC in the renewable energy power sector. GDP decomposition shows that unexpensive electricity affected by ITC is beneficial to drive development of low-carbon energy, which can mitigate shock of carbon tax on heavy dependence on fossil fuel. This paper also provides policy implications that the LBD process will positively play a key role in energy structural shift under climate policy, making a great effort to climate mitigation.

Carbon abatement efforts in China are penetrating to sub-national level. Zhejiang province, as the 4th wealthy region in China and important player in global market (e.g., textiles, cloth, petroleum and chemical products), lacks in-depth study of its climate change mitigation efforts, especially after China’s accession to the WTO in 2001. This paper analyzed carbon emissions and intensity in Zhejiang province using most comprehensive and time-series dataset available to date since 2002. Its carbon emissions were growing at a declining speed and carbon intensity was almost halved. The leading emitters largely agglomerate around Hangzhou bay, close to Zhoushan Port and Shanghai Port. The growth in absolute emissions primarily arose from higher investment (344.0 Mt) and exports (298.4 Mt), while the slower growth was mainly due to emission intensity reductions (-249.8 Mt) across the production system and inflows of emission-intensive products from the rest of China. Similarly, the declined carbon intensity was mainly attributed to emission intensity effect. Structural adjustments within the developing economy affected carbon intensity mainly through changes in emissions, rather than value added. The final demand structure effects were sometimes significant, but generally exogenously driven. Market based policies targeting producer and household behaviors are desired for further decarbonization.

Can environmental regulation promote green innovation and the productivity of cities? The “Compliance Cost” (CC) perspective and the “Porter Hypothesis” (PH) offer contrasting views, whereas the existing empirical results are inconclusive. This paper aims to highlight the roles of multifaceted government interventions, including government-to-firm subsidies, tax levies on firms, and environmental infrastructure provisions, in moderating environmental regulation for realizing PH. Based on the fixed-effects models for Chinese prefecture cities from 2005–2013, we found that environmental regulation positively impacted green innovation but negatively affected productivity. The results of moderating effects suggest that environmental regulation can better promote green innovation if it is compounded with more government-to-firm subsidies, lower firm tax burdens, and increased environmental infrastructure provisions. We further decomposed the impacts of these interventions across seven fields of green innovation and found that subsidy and tax burden relief were especially effective in facilitating more GI in the sector of transportation and alternative energy production. This paper amplifies the theoretical framework of PH by accentuating the analytical lens of multifaceted government interventions but also provides insights into how local governments can effectively design “carrot-and-stick” policies to realize PH at the city level.

当前学术界对于GEP的概念内涵和核算方法仍在探索之中,而地方实践已然走在理论研究之前.GEP核算是生态服务价值的货币化评价,主要是为了科学认识生态系统服务的潜在价值,不等同于生态服务价值的市场显现;核算的出发点是为了更好保护自然资本,而非生态产品价值转化.GEP核算通过货币化评价生态服务价值,将自然资本保护更好地纳入经济社会发展决策,为完善生态补偿机制、进行生态文明绩效考核、引导人造资本和人力资本进入生态产业化提供重要参考依据.GEP和GDP都是流量,将GEP直接转化为GDP在逻辑上不成立.如何使GEP核算更好地服务于生态产品价值实现,需要在理论上厘清逻辑关联,在实践中明晰政策边界.

2018年全国生态环境保护大会提出加快建设以产业生态化和生态产业化为主体的生态经济体系.生态产业化要求依托地方生态优势,发展生态农业、生态工业、生态旅游等"生态+"产业,使具有商品属性的生态产品进入市场,通过交易实现其价值,将绿色生态的正外部性转化为现实的经济价值.由于许多生态资源处于零星分散的状态,制约着生态产业化的推进.近年来兴起的"两山银行"作为生态资源资产经营管理平台,其主要目的是破解生态产业化经营面临的生态产品难度量、难抵押、难交易、难变现等瓶颈制约,实现"存入绿水青山,取出金山银山"的目标.本文基于浙江省"两山银行"的实践,梳理了"两山银行"运作机制,分析了其在生态产业化中的作用.研究发现,"两山银行"通过零散资源的收储与整合、产权重组与流转,在克服生态产业化经营的规模门槛方面起到了一定的作用,助推了生态产业化进程,但存在着重资产收储、轻市场运营等问题,现亟需推动"两山银行"转型升级,以适应生态产业化发展的需要.