碳中和实践进展、实现路径与展望

概述了国内外在碳中和实践与实现路径方面的研究进展,包括能源路径、技术路径、社会路径和政策经济路径。在此基础上,提出了应用实证数据和模型模拟开展碳中和定量评估、通过不同国家碳中和目标的比较和分析来评估全球碳中和能力和成本、加强不同碳中和路径与产业之间的相关性及多路径共同效应研究等建议。     

长沙市生态足迹与脱钩效应变化及预测分析

用改进的生态足迹因子对长沙市2002—2016年的生态足迹及其脱钩状态进行定量评价,并构建灰色GM(1,1)模型对长沙市生态状况进行预测。结果表明：长沙市生态足迹由期初的8.63×106hm2逐年增加到期末的1.16×107hm2,同期可利用生态承载力由1.99×106hm2逐年增加到2.03×106hm2,生态赤字由-6.65×106 hm2先升后降至-9.58×106hm2;灰色GM(1,1)模型预测得到2030年生态赤字将上升到-1 368.03 hm2。     

Is carbon dioxide emission convergence in the ten largest economies?

This study applies stationary test with a flexible Fourier function proposed by Enders and Lee (Enders, W. and J. Lee. 2012. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 74:574–99) to test the validity of carbon dioxide emission to assess its convergence, and the rationality of the existing policies in the 10 largest economies of the world. We find that our approximation has higher power to detect smooth breaks than the linear method, as the true data generating process of carbon dioxide emission convergence is in fact a stationary nonliner process. We examine the validity of carbon dioxide emission from the nonlinear point of view and provide robust evidence that clearly indicates that carbon dioxide emission is convergence in most countries, not depending on their development pattern. It implies that the existing policies in most countries are rational, and the United States, Japan, and Germany need more efforts in reducing the carbon dioxide emission.     

Oil-Induced environmental Kuznets curve in organization of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC)

This study investigates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in 10 of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). To realize the study’s aims a time series model is built based on the period 1977–2008, utilizing the ecological footprint as an environmental indicator and income, labour, capital, oil consumption and oil price as economic indicators. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, by comparing the short and long-run income elasticities, the EKC hypothesis is present in six OPEC countries namely Algeria, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Qatar and Kuwait. Moreover, the Toda–Yamamoto–Dolado–Lütkepohl (TYDL) causality tests outcome show that, after oil consumption, the most significant factors in increasing ecological footprint are labor and capital. This implies the relocation of pollution intensive industries to almost all of the OPEC countries. However, oil prices reduce environmental damage by its negative effect on the ecological footprint. From the outcome of this study it is important for the investigated countries to reduce their consumption of fossil fuel energy since it represents an important source of pollution. This can be achieved by allocating more labor and capital in projects and investments on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy saving.     

Blue carbon in human-dominated estuarine and shallow coastal systems

Estuarine and shallow coastal systems (ESCS) are recognized as not only significant organic carbon reservoirs but also emitters of CO₂ to the atmosphere through air–sea CO₂ gas exchange, thus posing a dilemma on ESCS’s role in climate change mitigation measures. However, some studies have shown that coastal waters take up atmospheric CO₂ (C_atm), although the magnitude and determinants remain unclear. We argue that the phenomenon of net uptake of C_atm by ESCS is not unusual under a given set of terrestrial inputs and geophysical conditions. We assessed the key properties of systems that show the net C_atm uptake and found that they are often characteristic of human-dominated systems: (1) input of high terrestrial nutrients, (2) input of treated wastewater in which labile carbon is highly removed, and (3) presence of hypoxia. We propose that human-dominated ESCS are worthy of investigation as a contributor to climate change mitigation.     

长江经济带碳排放现状及未来碳减排

长江经济带是我国"三大支撑带"之一,其碳减排目标实现对我国生态文明建设具有重要意义。采用2005~2013年长江经济带(含9省2市)的能源消耗与经济社会数据,通过数理统计,得出各地历年碳排放量、人均碳排放、能源强度、产业结构多元水平的具体数值及变化率,结合运用弹性计算和矩阵分类法,发现长江经济带碳排放存在空间与结构差异。研究结果显示:(1)长江经济带碳排放及增长率、人均碳排放及增长率、能源强度都高于全国平均水平,能源强度下降率低于全国平均水平;把长江经济带分为东中西三段区域,碳排放总量、人均碳排放及能源强度下降率梯度下降,碳排放增长率、人均碳排放增长率、能源强度梯度上升。(2)工业化开始越早、重工业化主导向生产性服务业主导转变越快、越充分地区,经济低碳化水平越高;通过提升产业结构多元化速度有利于碳减排。(3)长江经济带各地实现碳减排措施应有不同,东段地区应着重降低人均碳排放,中西段地区应着重于降低能源强度。(4)未来碳减排应兼顾公平与效率,各地区碳减排目标分配应结合各地支付能力、碳汇能力、生产效率、能源结构等因素来安排。     

Pathway and policy analysis to China’s deep decarbonization

The Paris Agreement marks the beginning of a new era in the global response to climate change, which further clarifies the long-term goal and underlines the urgency addressing climate change. For China, promoting the decoupling between economic growth and carbon emissions as soon as possible is not only the core task of achieving the medium- and long-term goals and strategies to address climate change, but also the inevitable requirement for ensuring the sustainable development of economy and society. Based on the analysis of the historical trends of the economy and social development, as well as society, energy consumption, and key end-use sectors in China, this paper studies the deep carbon emission reduction potential of carbon emission of in energy, industry, building, and transportation and other sectors with “bottom-up” modeling analysis and proposes a medium- and long-term deep decarbonization pathway based on key technologies’ mitigation potentials for China. It is found that under deep decarbonization pathway, China will successfully realize the goals set in China’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions of achieving carbon emissions peak around 2030 and lowering carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 60–65% from the 2005 level. From 2030 onward, the development of nonfossil energy will further accelerates, and the share of nonfossil energies in primary energy will amounts to about 44% by 2050. Combined with the acceleration of low-carbon transformation in end-use sectors including industry, building, and transportation, the carbon dioxide emissions in 2050 will fall to the level before 2005, and the carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will decreases by more than 90% from the 2005 level. To ensure the realization of the deep decarbonization pathway, this paper puts forward policy recommendations from four perspectives, including intensifying the total carbon dioxide emissions cap and strengthening the related institutional systems and regulations, improving the incentive policies for industrial low-carbon development, enhancing the role of the market mechanism, and advocating low-carbon life and consumption patterns.     

The impact of the carbon tax policy on green building strategy

As Green Corporate Social Responsibility spreads across the globe, the construction industry is under pressure to reduce the carbon emissions across their building projects. Between maximum profit and environment management, mathematical programming can be used as a decision support tool concerning the optimal green building projects portfolio. This environment strategic decision problem is addressed in this study where an activity-based costing decision model incorporating carbon tax costs and construction resources constraints is developed from the perspectives of capacity expansion and green technology outsourcing. The results illustrate the positive contribution of the mathematical programming approach to achieve viable green building projects portfolio solutions. Sensitivity analyses are carried out to analyse the impact of carbon footprint emission variation on maximum profit, and the corresponding results are discussed.     

Aqueous suspensions of carbon nanotubes: Surface oxidation, colloidal stability and uranium sorption

The objective of this study is to obtain information on the behaviour of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as potential carriers of pollutants in the case of accidental CNT release to the environment and on the properties of CNTs as a potential adsorbent material in water purification. The effects of acid treatment of CNTs on (i) the surface properties, (ii) the colloidal stability and (iii) heavy metal sorption are investigated, the latter being exemplified by uranium(VI) sorption. There is a pronounced influence of surface treatment on the behaviour of the CNTs in aqueous suspension. Results showed that acid treatment increases the amount of acidic surface groups on the CNTs. Therefore, acid treatment has an increasing effect on the colloidal stability of the CNTs and on their adsorption capacity for U(VI). Another way to stabilise colloids of pristine CNTs in aqueous suspension is the addition of humic acid.     

Adsorption of fulvic acid by carbon nanotubes from water

This study investigated adsorption of fulvic acid (FA) by single-walled (SWCNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and activated carbon. Adsorption of FA depends greatly on the adsorbent surface area and solution pH. SWCNT has higher adsorption than MWCNT and activated carbon. Lower E4/E6 (absorbance at 465 nm to that at 665 nm) and higher E2/E3 (absorbance at 250 nm to that at 365 nm) ratios of the residual FA in solution after adsorption than that of original FA in low pH ranges suggest that aromatic rich FA fractions with polar moieties readily adsorb on the adsorbents. The apparent interaction mechanisms between FA and CNT surfaces include electrostatic, hydrophobic, π-π and hydrogen-bond interactions. FA adsorption was reduced greatly with increasing pH because of the increase of electrostatic repulsion and the decrease of hydrophobic and hydrogen-bond interactions.