Environmental Forcing and Policy Synergy: A Multidimensional Approach in the Governance of Air Pollution and Carbon Emission.

Policy synergies effectively contribute to the integrated management of air pollution and carbon emissions, which is crucial for safeguarding ecosystem stability and public health. This study uses the causal network model of Gaussian process regression to analyze the combined impacts of dynamic and static carbon emission reduction and air quality policies on carbon emissions and air quality. The causal effects of policy measures and their synergistic effects are also examined. The study results indicate: (1) There is significant geographical heterogeneity in the implementation of environmental policies and regional economic development, with the economically developed eastern coastal regions adopting more stringent carbon emission and air pollution control measures, while the western provinces adopt relatively lax environmental policies. (2) The synergistic effect of carbon emission reduction policies and air quality policies exists, and the two types of static policies are substitutable for managing carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution. (3) Policies' forced effect exists, where the exacerbation of environmental problems leads to the formation and implementation of policies. (4) The value added by the secondary industry is a key motivation for forming carbon emission reduction policies and air quality control policies. Additionally, the value added by the secondary industry directly impacts the incidence of respiratory diseases (e.g., tuberculosis). Finally, dynamic and synergistic policy recommendations are proposed based on the study's findings.

Sentiment analysis of online reviews of energy-saving products based on transfer learning and LBBA model.

With the exacerbation of global climate change and the growing environmental awareness among the general public, the concept of green consumption has gained significant attention across various sectors of society. As a representative example of green consumer products, energy-saving products play a crucial role in the timely realization of dual carbon goals. However, an analysis of online comments regarding energy-saving products reveals that the majority of these products still exhibit shortcomings in terms of efficacy, noise level, cost-effectiveness, and particularly, energy-saving appliances. This study focuses on the user-generated online comments data from the Taobao e-commerce platform for Grade 1 energy-saving refrigerators. By employing text mining techniques, the study aims to extract the essential information and sentiments expressed in the comments, in order to explore the consumption characteristics of Grade 1 energy-saving refrigerators. Moreover, the LBBA (LDA-Bert-BiLSTM-Attention) model is utilized to investigate the consumer topics of interest and emotional features. Initially, the LDA model is adopted to identify the attributes and weights of consumer concerns. Subsequently, the Bert model is pre-trained with the online comment data, and combined with the BiLSTM algorithm and Attention mechanism to predict sentiment categories. Finally, a transfer learning approach is utilized to determine the sentiment inclination of user-generated online comments and to identify the primary driving factors behind each sentiment category. This research employs sentiment analysis on online comments data regarding energy-saving products to uncover consumer sentiment attributes and emotional characteristics. It provides decision-makers with a comprehensive and systematic understanding of public consumption intentions, offering decision support for the efficient operation and management of the energy-saving product market.

How does government regulation shape residents' green consumption behavior? A multi-agent simulation considering environmental values and social interaction.

Green consumption is an inevitable choice to alleviate environmental pressure and promote sustainable development. Residents' green consumption behavior decisions are influenced by a combination of external government regulation and internal consumer psychological factors. This study incorporated regret theory and environmental values into a multi-agent model to simulate residents' green consumption behavior under various government regulation scenarios. The results show that in the absence of government regulation, residents have little motivation to actively choose green consumption. In terms of a single policy, government subsidy is more conducive to promoting green consumption behavior than government penalty, and the evolutionary trend of group decision making becomes more stable with increased policy intensity. However, neither of the two single regulatory policies can fully promote residents' environmentally conscious consumption decisions. Therefore, a combination of "carrots" (government subsidy) and "sticks" (government penalty) is required to motivate a significant increase in the number of residents who choose green consumption behavior. In addition, the intensity of social interaction between residents is found to influence the stability of behavioral evolution, with higher intensity (i.e., more neighbors) resulting in greater fluctuations in group behavior but driving more residents toward green consumption. These findings can provide a theoretical reference for policy formulation of green consumption behavior.

Climate co-benefits of VOC control policies in China based on a cross-scale approach.

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) contributing to smog formation, have been an important indicator of atmospheric governance during China's "14th Five-Year Plan". VOC would be possibly incorporated into the scope of environmental protection tax, but previous studies have seldom explored impacts of VOC control policies at national and regional levels. Here, we design a national uniform VOC control policy, as well as two regionally differentiated policies based on regional disparities in PM2.5 concentrations and energy intensity by using a cross-scale dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Our analysis is to assess the impacts of these policies on VOC, CO2, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), and PM2.5 emissions, air quality and environmental equity, and to estimate health benefits, policy costs and net benefits. We find that national and regionally differentiated VOC control policies generally lead to VOC emission reductions and generate co-benefits on emission reductions in CO2, SO2, NOX and PM2.5 at national and provincial levels. However, regional emission leakage exists due to differences in the provincial costs of VOC mitigation. The regionally differentiated VOC pricing policies are found to be more effective to enhance environmental equity than the uniform policy. In particular, the regionally differentiated VOC control policy based on provincial energy efficiency is found to be superior to other policies in terms of improve air quality. Furthermore, the human health benefits associated with VOC pricing policies would partially offset policy costs at both the national and regional levels. Our results suggest that policymakers would pay attention to developing regions with low energy efficiency which have the great emission reduction potential. Advanced producing technology and further end-of-pipe control measures to reduce non-combustion PM2.5 emissions are needed. VOC policy designed based on provincial energy efficiency provides great insights for environmental policy making to accomplish 2035 goal of building a Beautiful China.

Determinants of the embodied CO2 transfers through electricity trade within China.

There is unequal spatial distribution of resource endowment, population density, industrial structure, and economic development with diverse differences in labor, energy, and capital productivities in China. However, previous studies paid little attention to the determinants of CO2 transfers embodied in electricity trade. In this study, we use both the absolute and comparative advantage theories to reveal the determinants of embodied CO2 transfers through electricity trade within China. Results show that China's electricity sector has higher labor productivity but lower asset efficiency and energy productivity than that of mining and manufacturing sectors. The large-scale electricity trade alleviates the shortage of electricity supply in developed regions by outsourcing to the less-developed regions, reduces the unequal spatial distribution of coal and natural gas reserves, and changes CO2 flow embodied in power grid. Econometric analysis shows that coal reserve contributes to the increase of embodied CO2 emission, while natural gas reduces the embodied CO2 emission. The regional differences in the opportunity cost of labor productivity of non-electricity sector are the dominant factor of the embodied CO2 transfers through electricity trade within China, while asset efficiency and energy productivity are not significant in the regressions. Our findings could provide details about China's power grid expansion when confronting climate mitigation in the future.

The progress and trend of pro-environmental behavior research: a bibliometrics-based visualization analysis.

Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) has always been a hot topic in academic and practical, and it is highly necessary to explore the research progress and development trend of PEB. Based on 1038 relevant literatures published and the Web of Science core database, this paper used citation analysis, co-word analysis and cluster analysis methods to systematically analyze the dynamic evolution process of PEB's research topics, knowledge base and subject areas. The results show that PEB research is currently in a period of rapid growth. And PEB research presents typical multidisciplinary characteristics, mainly focuses on Psychology-Education-Social, Economics-Economic-Political, Environmental-Toxicology-Nutrition and other disciplines. Then, this study also finds that the PEB research hotspots mainly concentrated in seven directions such as "Environmental cognition, emotion and motivation process", etc., which can be further classified into three horizontal levels and three vertical levels. This study will provide valuable theoretical and practical reference for the future research of PEB.

Identifying what shapes the words and actions of residents' environmentally friendly express packaging: Evidence from a two-stage payment model.

Voluntary purchase of environmentally friendly products is crucial to alleviating ecological degradation caused by human activities that revealing residents' payment decision-making mechanism is indispensable. Most current studies do not distinguish residents' payment decision-making behavior as a two-stage process of willingness to pay (WTP) and expected payment (EP), and research on negative factors needs to be deepened. To make up for the shortcomings, this study decomposes residents' environmentally friendly express packaging payment decision-making behavior into WTP and EP, and selects positive and negative antecedent variables. Then, the Double-Hurdle Model is used to explore the effects of variables. The results show that residents' EP is 2.68-3.89 RMB per item. Performance expectancy has a positive effect, and risk perception has a negative effect on WTP and EP. Additionally, influencing factors of WTP and EP differ, with facilitating conditions enhancing WTP, while social influence and green advertising acceptance promoting EP. Interestingly, effort expectancy has a positive impact on WTP but a negative effect on EP. Female residents with higher education and family monthly income have higher WTP and EP. The research shed light on residents' payment and recommendations on the promotion of environmentally friendly products are further proposed.

How does government regulation promote green product diffusion in complex network? An evolutionary analysis considering supply side and demand side.

China has launched a series of regulation policies that promote the diffusion of green products to drive the green development of resources and environment. This study proposes an evolutionary game model of green product diffusion by providing a joint "supply side - demand side" regulatory framework. It simulates the effects of government regulation on green product diffusion in complex network, the related numerical simulation analysis is carried out through a case of electric vehicles diffusion. The study confirms that (1) On the supply side, green subsidies, environmental taxes, and carbon trading market can successfully increase green product diffusion to 0.84, 0.7, and 0.65. On the demand side, green consumption vouchers, as well as publicity and education can increase green product diffusion to 0.7 and 0.67. (2) Among the order-based regulatory instruments, high environmental taxes and poor participation in carbon trading market can inhibit the spread of green products, while low green consumption vouchers fail to stimulate the purchase of green products. It is crucial to enhance emotion-based regulatory instruments like publicity and education. (3) Neither order-based nor emotion-based regulation can achieve complete diffusion of green products. This study provides new insights of green product diffusion under government regulation and its implementation effects.

Comparative evaluation for recycling waste power batteries with different collection modes based on Stackelberg game.

The new energy vehicle industry is booming, but the subsequent problem of vehicle power batteries' "scrap tide" is still severe. How to establish and improve the end-of-life power battery recycling system to avoid the "catastrophic" environmental consequences has become an urgent global problem needing a solution. This article constructs three recycling models for manufacturer recycling, retailer recycling, and mixed recycling. By using Stackelberg game and market real data, the influence of carbon trading policy outside the supply chain, power battery endurance capacity and advertising effects within the supply chain on the selection of recycling channels was studied. The results showed: (1) Different recycling channels did not affect the wholesale price, retail price, and market demand for raw material power batteries in the positive supply chain; (2) The total profit function of manufacturers and retailers had a "U-shaped" non-linear relationship with power battery endurance capacity and has a positive linear relationship with the advertising effect. Taking the R&D endurance capacity of 0.4 and the total endurance capacity of 62 kWh as the lowest dividing point, it will decrease first and then increase; (3) The increase in the recycling competition coefficient had a greater impact on the consumption of carbon emission rights in the mixed recycling model than on savings in carbon emission rights, and retailers were the indirect "victims" of rising carbon trading prices; (4) Endurance capacity, advertising effects, and carbon trading prices determined the economics of the recycling model and the carbon emission reduction potential. Manufacturers, retailers, and governments can refer to the value range of each variable to select the most appropriate recycling mode.

Public psychological distance and spatial distribution characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Chinese context.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency, which continues to have a significant impact on the functioning of society and the public's daily life. From the perspective of psychological distance (PD), this study used descriptive, differential, and spatial autocorrelation analysis methods to explore the cognitive distance, emotional distance, expected distance and behavioral distance of the Chinese public in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of 4042 valid sample data found that: (1) The event emotional distance and subject emotional distance were both furthest from the event and subject psychological distance dimensions, and anger about the event was the strongest. (2) The government was the most appealing subject in the process of pandemic prevention and control, but at the same time, the public's sense of closeness to the government was also lower than that of the other three subjects, e.g., medical institutions. (3) Different pandemic regions showed significant differences in PD. Mean scores of PD in each risk region were as follows: High-risk regions > medium-risk regions > low-risk regions. (4) From a global perspective, no spatial autocorrelation was found in PD. However, from a local perspective, high-value regions (provinces with distant PD) are mainly concentrated in the southern regions (Guizhou, Guangxi, Hainan, Jiangxi), and low-value regions (provinces with close PD) are mainly concentrated in North China (Shanxi, Hebei, Beijing). Combined with the relevant conclusions, this paper put forward policy recommendations.

Knowledge mapping analysis of international research on environmental communication using bibliometrics.

Environmental communication (EC) is of great significance to the practice of environmental protection by human society, as it involves disseminating ecological and environmental information, communicating environmental risks, and increasing environmental awareness among the audience. In this study, knowledge mapping analysis was used to systematically review research in the field of EC. A scientometric analysis (1900-2020) was carried out on 2219 journal articles obtained from the Web of Science database to explore the basic characteristics, research hotspots, and research frontiers of EC research. The results revealed that: (1) Research on EC received widespread attention since the beginning of the 21st century, and 2010 was an important turning point in the study of EC. EC research shows the trend of interdisciplinary development. (2) Well-known universities in western countries and from around the world constitute the main body of current EC research. However, there is still a lack of international cooperation in the field of EC research. (3) Climate change, as a complex scientific issue, is not only a global environmental issue, but also the most concerned and hot issue in the field of EC. It has a strong political attribute and has become a major issue that cannot be ignored in politics. (4) According to the timeline analysis of research hotspots, EC research was innovatively divided into an initial stage, a development stage, and a rising stage. Combined the keyword bursts result with the research hotspots analysis, the research frontier of EC was divided into four periods. Finally, the shortcomings of this study are summarized and directions for future research of EC are proposed by considering the following four aspects: research perspective, research content, research paradigm and method, and research context.

Green Credit, Financial Constraint, and Capital Investment: Evidence from China's Energy-intensive Enterprises.

The green credit policy is an important green financial tool that can achieve the win-win scenario with economic development and environmental protection through the reasonable allocation of credit resources. Using the green credit guidelines (GCGs) in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this study explored the impacts of the green credit policy on the capital investment of energy-intensive enterprises in a difference-in-differences framework and established the mediation effect model to analyze the mechanisms. The empirical results showed that the capital investment of energy-intensive enterprises was significantly reduced after the promulgation of the GCGs. Considering the intermediary paths along with the green credit policy on energy-intensive investment through financial constraints, the total bank loans and long-term bank loans played partial intermediary roles, whereas the short-term bank loans as mediator variable showed no significant intermediary effect. The findings of this study illustrated that the green credit policy has been well implemented and promoted in China. It inhibited energy-intensive investment, which is of great significance to improving the efficiency of resource utilization and promoting green and low-carbon development.

Co-evolutionary simulation study of multiple stakeholders in the take-out waste recycling industry chain.

Take-out waste causes severe environmental pollution and wastes resources; thus, recycling of take-out waste is an urgent problem that must be addressed. From the co-evolutionary viewpoint, we used evolutionary game theory to build a tripartite game model involving government, consumers and enterprises, and then made simulation analysis using Vensim® software, exploring the evolutionary equilibrium and the main driving factors. The simulation results showed that (1) no matter what government's, consumers' or enterprises' initial strategy is, through imitation and evolution, the three will eventually arrive at the state in which government chooses regulation, the consumer chooses a green approach, and an enterprise chooses to participate in the recycling industry chain. (2) The consumer (government) plays a role of promoter (guide) in the evolutionary process in the take-out waste recycling industry chain. (3) The higher the regulatory costs or penalties for enterprises not participating in the recycling industry chain, and the larger the subsidy to consumers for choosing a green approach and to enterprises for participating in the recycling chain, the sooner the government will stabilize a no-regulation strategy. (4) The higher the cost of enterprise participation in the recycling chain, the later the government will arrive at the stabilization strategy. (5) The higher the penalty to an enterprise, the earlier the enterprise will evolve to the stabilization strategy; the higher the subsidy to consumers (enterprises), the earlier consumers (enterprises) will evolve into the stabilization strategy, and the higher the cost of enterprise participation, the later the enterprise will evolve into a stable strategy. This study is expected to provide a reference for governments to formulate effective waste management policies.

Employee-Organization Pro-environmental Values Fit and Pro-environmental Behavior: The Role of Supervisors' Personal Values.

This study examines the relationship among the employees-organization pro-environmental values fit (E-O PEVs fit), supervisors' PEVs and employees' pro-environmental behaviors (PEB). Informed by the PEB, organizational values and employee-organization fit literature, we propose and test hypotheses that under egoistic, altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, E-O PEVs fit versus non-fit have significant effects on employees' private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB, identifying supervisors' PEVs as a moderator. An empirical investigation indicates that the effect of E-O PEVs fit on employees' private-sphere PEB and public-sphere PEB varies as the value orientation differs. More specifically, under the context of altruistic and biosphere-value orientations, if the organizational PEVs do not match the employees' PEVs, especially when the former exceeds the latter, employees' PEB will rise as the organizational PEVs increase. As for egoistic value orientation, when organizational PEVs exceed employees' PEVs, not only will public-sphere PEB stop decreasing and tend to stabilize, but also private-sphere PEB will rise to a slight degree. Furthermore, compared with altruistic and biospheric values dimensions, supervisors who promote egoistic PEVs will have a more significant effect on the relationship between global E-O PEVs fit and employees' PEB. Finally, we suggest that the goals of an organization and its supervisors need to be combined within the actual situation of Chinese corporations to truly implement corporate green practices by balancing the profit goal and the environmental goal.

Urban residents' response to and evaluation of low-carbon travel policies: Evidence from a survey of five eastern cities in China.

To address the problems of excessive energy consumption and global climate change, the Chinese government has issued numerous policies to guide urban residents' low-carbon travel behavior. To evaluate the validity of these policies from the perspective of public opinion, this study summarizes 22 policies from the four vantage points of economics, administration, technology, and public information and then measures residents' response to and evaluation of policies based on survey data on 1977 urban residents using stratified random sampling in five cities in eastern China. The results indicate that from the viewpoint of policy response, administrative policies for promoting public transport show the highest degree of response, followed by public information, technological, and economic policies. Specifically, the responses to parking and congestion fee policies are relatively stronger than those to vehicle purchase tax, vehicle and vessel tax, and fuel surcharge policies. Moreover, the responses to fuel surcharge policy are even weaker than car-restriction policies, including license-plate number restriction, license-plate lottery, and license-plate auction policies. From the viewpoint of policy evaluation, administrative policies for promoting public transport obtain the highest evaluations, followed by economic and technological policies. Residents' evaluations of car-restriction and public information policies are the lowest. In addition, a four-paradigm model is introduced to illustrate residents' reactions to each policy in terms of response and evaluation. Finally, several implementation strategies, including the anterior, concurrent, optional, core, supporting, and assisting policy options are proposed to guide urban residents' low-carbon travel behavior.

Embodied carbon dioxide flow in international trade: A comparative analysis based on China and Japan.

Carbon dioxide embodied flow in international trade has become an important factor in defining global carbon emission responsibility and climate policy. We conducted an empirical analysis for China and Japan for the years 2000-2014, using a multi-region input-output model and considering the rest of the world as a comparison group. We compared the two countries' direct and complete carbon dioxide emissions intensity and bilateral economic activities such as imports and exports, production and consumption to analyze the difference between China and Japan. The results showed that the intensities of carbon emissions in all sectors of China were higher than that in Japan and that China's annual production-based emissions were greater than consumption-based emissions, the opposite of these relationships in Japan. China was a typical net carbon export country, and carbon embodied in its imports and exports continued to increase throughout the study period. In contrast, Japan's volume and growth rate of embodied carbon emissions were far less than China's and Japan was a typical net carbon import country. Finally, the conclusions of this study support recommendations for the formulation of international carbon emission responsibility allocation, domestic abatement policy as well as China's trade policy.

An urban energy performance evaluation system and its computer implementation.

To improve the urban environment and effectively reflect and promote urban energy performance, an urban energy performance evaluation system was constructed, thereby strengthening urban environmental management capabilities. From the perspectives of internalization and externalization, a framework of evaluation indicators and key factors that determine urban energy performance and explore the reasons for differences in performance was proposed according to established theory and previous studies. Using the improved stochastic frontier analysis method, an urban energy performance evaluation and factor analysis model was built that brings performance evaluation and factor analysis into the same stage for study. According to data obtained for the Chinese provincial capitals from 2004 to 2013, the coefficients of the evaluation indicators and key factors were calculated by the urban energy performance evaluation and factor analysis model. These coefficients were then used to compile the program file. The urban energy performance evaluation system developed in this study was designed in three parts: a database, a distributed component server, and a human-machine interface. Its functions were designed as login, addition, edit, input, calculation, analysis, comparison, inquiry, and export. On the basis of these contents, an urban energy performance evaluation system was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2015. The system can effectively reflect the status of and any changes in urban energy performance. Beijing was considered as an example to conduct an empirical study, which further verified the applicability and convenience of this evaluation system.

Moral Values Congruence and Miners' Policy Following Behavior: The Role of Supervisor Morality.

Ethical culture construction is beneficial to maximize policy following behavior (PFB) and avoid accidents of coal miners in an economic downturn. This paper examines the congruence between coal mine ethical culture values (ECVs) and miners' moral values (MVs) and the relationship with PFB. To shed light on this relationship, supervisor moral values (SMVs) act as a key moderator. We build on the initial structure of values to measure ECVs, MVs, and SMVs. At the same time, available congruence was defined to describe the relationship between the two values. Drawing upon a survey of 267 miners in Chinese large state-owned coal mining enterprises, results revealed that ECVs-MVs congruence had a linear relationship with intrinsic PFB (IPFB) and a non-linear relationship with extrinsic PFB. These findings demonstrate that SMVs had a moderating effect on the relationship between ECVs-MVs congruence and extrinsic PFB. Thus, we continued to calculate the available congruence scope in tested enterprises. Furthermore, this study gives relative management proposals and suggestions to improve miners' moral standards and to reduce coal mine accidents.

Policy and Practice Model of Public-Private Partnership in Public Hospitals during the New Medical Reform Period.

Purpose: Since the beginning of the new health care reform in 2009, the state has illustrated the top design and health care improvement strategy of "encouraging social capital to participate in the reform of public hospitals", in accordance with the program's general objective. All areas have been explored on this matter and the results obtained are very interesting, not to mention the acquisition of significant experience. At present, the existing business models in China are mainly the following: Rebuild-Operate-Transfer (ROT), franchise business model, Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model, mixed ownership model and business insurance model. This paper introduces a variety of alternative models, and provides a simple analysis of the advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, for the reform of public hospitals, the government shares should go into franchise mode or mixed ownership, and all property rights should be transferred to the government to ensure the conservation and proliferation of state-owned assets.

The impact of interaction on the adoption of electric vehicles: Mediating role of experience value.

The widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) largely depends on the acceptance of the public. Previous studies pay more attention to the factors affecting EV adoption from the customer perspective but lack the perspective of the interaction between sellers and customers. Based on a survey of 1,014 respondents in China, this work developed a research model analyzing the effect of interaction on the intention to purchase EVs and using experience value (EPV) as the mediating variable. The results showed that the functional experience value (FEV) was positively affected by the environment-customer interaction (ECI). The FEV, emotional experience value (EEV), and social experience value (SEV) were all positively affected by salesman-customer interaction (SCI). In addition, they all had positive impacts on purchasing intention (PI). We further analyzed the differences in the interaction between the different business models. Compared with multi-business model car companies, the ECI for single-business model car companies had a more positive impact on the PI. However, the impact of ECI for single-business model companies on PI was negative. The SCI of single-business model car companies positively impacted the PI, whereas the SCI of multi-business model car companies had no significant impact on the PI. These findings provide insight into further understanding the mechanism of interactions affecting EV adoption and help perfect future promotion strategies.