Cover crops support the climate change mitigation potential of agroecosystems.

Cover crops have the potential to mitigate climate change by reducing negative impacts of agriculture on ecosystems. This study is first to quantify the net climate change mitigation impact of cover crops including land-use effects. A systematic literature and data review was conducted to identify major drivers for climate benefits and costs of cover crops in maize (Zea maize L.) production systems. The results indicate that cover crops lead to a net climate change mitigation impact (NCCMI) of 3.30 Mg CO2e ha-1 a-1. We created four scenarios with different impact weights of the drivers and all of them showing a positive NCCMI. Carbon land benefit, the carbon opportunity costs based on maize yield gains following cover crops, is the major contributor to the NCCMI (34.5% of all benefits). Carbon sequestration is the second largest contributor (33.8%). The climate costs of cover crops are mainly dominated by emissions from their seed production and foregone benefits due to land use for cover crops seeds. However, these two costs account for only 15.8% of the benefits. Extrapolating these results, planting cover crops before all maize acreage in the EU results in a climate change mitigation of 49.80 million Mg CO2e a-1, which is equivalent to 13.0% of the EU's agricultural emissions. This study highlights the importance of incorporating cover crops into sustainable cropping systems to minimize the agricultural impact to climate change.

Revisiting the relationship between natural resources and environmental quality- can ICT break the "resource curse" in the environment?

Despite the prevalence of discussions on the "resource curse", the impact of natural resources on environmental quality for better or for worse has not been clearly answered, this study aims to answer the question by introducing the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). To that end, by using the Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments (IV GMM) estimator and a sample of 102 developing and emerging economies from 2006 to 2016, this paper studies the impact of ICT on the relationship between natural resources and environmental quality. Specially, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) captures the environmental quality. The results show that natural resources have a significant negative effect on EPI, specially, EPI decreases by one unit with a 1% increase in natural resource rents. ICT significantly mitigates this adverse effect, and marginal effects analysis further confirms its positive moderate effects. The results proved to be robust by Lewbel 2SLS and Driscoll-Kraay techniques or other robust tests. It is noteworthy that the adverse effect of natural resources on EPI is greater and the mitigating effect of ICT is more pronounced in low-income countries and lower-middle income countries. Overall, these results remind resource-based countries to vigorously develop ICT, and apply intelligent exploration, digital monitoring, or other digital technologies to realize the high-efficiency use of natural resources, reducing environmental pollution and ecological damage.

Urban roadside greenery as a carbon sink: Systematic assessment considering understory shrubs and soil respiration.

Roadside greenery is an efficient strategy for maximizing ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration in urban settings. However, the quantification of carbon sequestration is not comprehensive because understory shrubs and soil respiration have not been thoroughly considered. We developed an integrated methodology that combined field measurements and greenhouse incubation to comprehensively assess carbon sequestration in roadside greenery systems. The system was defined as an 8 m long section comprising a single tree (Zelkova serrata), 79 shrubs (Euonymus japonicus), and soil. Annual carbon uptake by a tree was estimated using an allometric equation derived from an official government report. For shrubs, carbon uptake was measured in the field by monitoring CO2 concentration change in the chamber enclosing the leaves and stems. Annual carbon uptake by shrubs was estimated by using the regression equation among carbon uptake, air temperature, and photosynthetically active radiation. We also estimated shrub root respiration by combining net primary production (NPP) from the greenhouse incubation and measured pruning effect in the field. This enabled us to differentiate heterotrophic respiration from the total soil respiration. The overall methodology accurately assessed net ecosystem production (NEP) from the roadside greenery system, which is 0.528 kg C m-2 yr-1. If this figure is extended to all roads in the target city, it can offset daily carbon emitted from the total registered passenger vehicles in the target city. Considering that shrubs sequester an amount equivalent to 29.3 % of the carbon sequestered by tree species, the current greenhouse gas inventory should include shrubs as an important carbon sink. As we also revealed that roadside soil has high carbon vulnerability, proper soil management is needed to enhance NEP. Our systematic approach evaluating the carbon balance within the roadside greenery system can be applied to other cities, contributing to enhance global understanding of urban carbon cycle.

What influences the performance of carbon emissions in China?-Research on the inter-provincial carbon emissions' conditional configuration impacts.

The severe global warming issue currently threatens humans' existence and development. Countries and international organizations have effectively implemented policies to reduce carbon emissions and investigate low-carbon growth strategies. Reducing carbon emissions is a hot topic that academics and government policy-making departments are concerned about.Through necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA), this paper investigates local governments' configuration linkage effect and path choice to improve carbon emission performance from six dimensions: energy consumption, industrial structure, technological innovation, government support, economic development, and demographic factors. The research findings include the following: (1) Individual condition does not represent necessary conditions for the government's carbon performance. Among the two sets of second-order equivalence configurations(S and Q) (five high-level carbon performance configurations), those dominated by economic development or low energy consumption can produce high-level carbon performance. Therefore, the six antecedent conditions dimensions work together to explain how the government can create high levels of carbon performance. (2)According to the regional comparison, China's eastern, central, and western regions exhibit similarities and differences in the driving forces behind high carbon emission performance. All three regions can demonstrate carbon emission performance when all the factors are combined. However, when constrained by the conditions of each region's resource endowment, the eastern region emphasizes the advantage of economic and technological innovation, the central region favors government support and demographic factors, and the western region prefers upgrading industrial structure based on a specific level of economic development.

Addressing Health Equity in the Context of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration Technologies.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To describe the role of health equity in the context of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) technologies. RECENT FINDINGS: CCUS technologies have the potential to both improve and worsen health equity. They could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to climate change, but they could also have negative health impacts like air and noise pollution. More research is needed to fully understand the health equity implications of CCUS technologies. CCUS technologies have both health equity risks and benefits. Implementing misguided CCUS projects in vulnerable communities could exacerbate environmental injustice and health disparities and have the potential to increase carbon emissions. However, well-conceived projects could benefit communities through economic development. Governments, industry, and society should prioritize and expedite the reduction of CO2 emissions before considering carbon reductions via CCUS. Furthermore, CCUS projects must be thoroughly evaluated and should only proceed if they have demonstrated a net reduction in CO2 emissions and provide more benefits than risks to local communities. This underscores the importance of prioritizing health equity in the planning of CCUS projects.

Cost, market, and policy constraints on mitigating climate change through afforestation in China.

Afforestation is a promising nature-based climate solution for mitigating climate change, but it is subject to a complex web of biophysical, cost-benefit, market, and policy processes. Although its biophysical feasibility has been established, the cost, market, and policy constraints that affect climate change mitigation through afforestation are still unclear. Here, we estimate such cost, market, and policy constraints on the basis of biophysical feasibility. Our findings reveal that implementation costs are a more relevant constraint than opportunity costs on mitigating climate change through afforestation. The China Certified Emission Reduction market currently provides only a 0.308 % incentive for climate change mitigation through afforestation, due to market access constraints. The current market prices of China Certified Emission Reduction, China Carbon Emissions Trading Exchange, and Nature Based Carbon Offset in Voluntary Carbon Market constrain 88.15 %, 87.95 %, and 85.75 % of CO2 removal actions through afforestation, compared to the carbon price scenario (US$62.97 tCO2-1) of the EU Emissions Trading System. Moreover, land policy under the scenarios of prohibiting conversion of cultivated land to forest and forest restoration in degraded areas exhibit 8.87-29.59 % and 65.16-74.10 % constraints, respectively, on mitigating climate change through afforestation compared to land-use freedom conversion scenarios from 2020 to 2060. Thus, enhancing the incentive price of CO2 removal, addressing the market access barrier, strengthening cooperation between global carbon markets, and exploring carbon-neutral and food multi-oriented land policies can be valuable sources of mitigation efforts over the next 40 years.

Analyzing the spatiotemporal pattern of the decoupling degree between carbon metabolism and economic development in village and town units.

In the context of green and sustainable development and rural revitalization, analysis of the relationship between economic development and the evolution of carbon metabolism is of great significance for China's future transformation of development models. This study analyzed the spatial characteristics and spatiotemporal evolution pattern of the decoupling status between carbon metabolism and economic development of Laiwu during two periods from 2001 to 2018 at the village and town unit scales by using the Tapio decoupling model. The results showed that the growth rate of carbon metabolism from 2001 to 2009 was significantly higher than that from 2009 to 2018. The spatial heterogeneity of the decoupling states between economic development and carbon metabolism from 2009 to 2018 was significantly stronger than that from 2001 to 2009 in two units. From 2001 to 2018, the development trend gradually trended towards spatial imbalance. The decoupling status between villages and towns had a high degree of consistency from 2001 to 2009 and inconsistency from 2009 to 2018. From 2001 to 2009, the decoupling status of about 78% of villages was consistent with that of towns. Moreover, from 2009 to 2018, the consistency reduced to 32.2%, and the decoupling status of about 48% of villages was weaker than that of towns. According to the reclassification results of different decoupling state change types, from 2001 to 2018, about 52.2% of the villages had a decoupling state evolution type of eco-deteriorated economic development, which is an unsatisfactory development trend in a short time. Moreover, about 12.1% of the villages had a decoupling state evolution type of eco-improved economic development, which is a satisfactory development trend.

Does green investment affect environment pollution: Evidence from asymmetric ARDL approach?

Pollution in the environment is today the biggest issue facing the globe and the main factor in the development of many fatal diseases. The main objective of the study to investigate green investments, economic growth and financial development on environmental pollution in the G-7 countries. This study used annual penal data from 1997 to 2021. The panel NARDL (Non-linear autoregressive distributed lag) results affirm that the positive change of green investment and negative shock in green investment have a significant and positive association with environment pollution in G-7 nations. Our findings provide more evidence for the long-term asymmetry between financial development and environmental performance. However, the findings confirm that a positive modification in financial development has a positive and significant effect on environment pollution. Whereas negative shock in financial development is negative and insignificant relationship with environment pollution. Moreover, the outcomes of the study reveal that both positive shock in gross domestic product growth and negative shock of economic growth have a significant and positive link with environment pollution in G-7 countries. According to the findings, by lowering carbon dioxide emissions, green investments reduced environmental pollution in the G-7 nations over the long and short term. Moreover, it is an innovative research effort that provides light on the connection between green investments, financial development, and the environment while making mention to the EKC in G-7 countries. After all these, our recommendation is to increases green investment expenditures to reduce environmental pollution in the G-7 nations based on our findings. Additionally, one important way for the nation to achieve its sustainable development goals is to improve advancements in the financial sector.

Clean energy transition and climate vulnerabilities: A comparative analysis of European and non-European developed countries.

Currently, the world faces an existential threat of climate change, and every government across the globe is trying to come up with strategies to tackle the severity of climate change in every way possible. To this end, the use of clean energy rather than fossil fuel energy sources is critical, as it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pave the way for carbon neutrality. This study examines the impact of the energy cleanability gap on four different climate vulnerabilities, such as ecosystem, food, health, and housing vulnerabilities, considering 47 European and non-European high-income countries. The study considers samples from 2002 to 2019. This study precedes the empirical analysis in the context of a quadratic relationship between the energy cleanability gap and climate vulnerability. The study uses system-generalized methods of the moment as the main technique, while panel quantile regression is a robustness analysis. Fixed effect and random effect models have also been incorporated. The study finds that the energy cleanability gap and all four climate vulnerabilities demonstrate a U-shaped relationship in both European and non-European countries, implying that when the energy cleanability gap increases, climate vulnerability decreases, but after reaching a certain threshold, it starts to increase. Development expenditure is found to be negatively affecting food and health vulnerabilities in European nations, while it increases food vulnerability and decreases health vulnerability in non-European nations. Regarding industrialization's impact on climate vulnerabilities, the study finds opposite effects for the European and non-European economies. On the other hand, for both groups, trade openness decreases climate vulnerabilities. Based on these results, the study recommends speeding up the energy transition process from fossil fuel energy resources towards clean energy resources to obtain carbon neutrality in both European and non-European groups.

Influencing factors and spatiotemporal heterogeneity of livestock greenhouse gas emission: Evidence from the Yellow River Basin of China.

Livestock is one of major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in China. Clarifying spatiotemporal characteristics of GHG emissions from livestock and exploring influencing factors can provide reference for grasping regional changes of GHG emission and formulate strategies of carbon reduction for livestock industry. However, existing literatures considered both spatial and temporal impacts and dynamic evolution trend of these factors seldomly. This paper used the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to estimate GHG emissions of livestock in 114 cities of the YRB from 2000 to 2021. On this basis, spatiotemporal heterogeneity of influencing factors was analyzed by using geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model. Finally, future evolution trend of GHG emissions from livestock was predicted by combining traditional and spatial Markov chain. Four main results were listed as follows. Firstly, GHG emission in the life cycle of livestock industry increased from 57.202 million tons (Mt) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2000 to 77.568 Mt CO2e in 2021. Secondly, structure of livestock industry, labor flow and mechanization were vital factors that led to increase of GHG emissions from livestock. Positive effects of labor flow and mechanization were increasing year by year, while negative effect of urbanization and positive effect of economic development were decreasing year by year. Markov chain analysis shown that probability of keeping high level of GHG emissions of livestock in the YRB unchanged were 96% (T = 1) and 90% (T = 5), and there also existed a Matthew effect. In addition, probability of level transfer of GHG emission in urban livestock was spatially dependent. Government should formulate strategies for livestock development and optimize low-carbon transformation of energy structure for livestock and poultry husbandry based on local conditions and key driving factors in the future. Meanwhile, boundaries of administrative divisions should be broken to promote reduction of GHG emissions in livestock comprehensively.

Inequality characteristics and influencing factors of CO2 emissions per capita in Jiangsu Province, China.

Analyzing the inequality characteristics and influencing factors of CO2 emissions per capita (CEPC) is conducive to balancing regional development and CO2 emissions reduction. This study applied the Gini coefficient and Theil index to investigate the CEPC inequalities during 2005-2017 at the county level in Jiangsu Province, China. Considering the spatial spillover and interaction effects, the factors influencing CEPC were analyzed by a hierarchical spatial autoregressive model. The results showed that the inequalities in CEPC first increased and then decreased at the inter-regional, and inter-county levels. The spatial pattern of CEPC was stable, and there was a significantly positive spatial autocorrelation of CEPC at the county level. The High-High type counties were mainly located in Sunan (southern Jiangsu). The spatial interaction effects of the CEPC between the prefecture and county levels indicated that governments at the prefecture level should integrate their county governments to reduce the CEPC. Moreover, carbon intensity, GDP per capita, land urbanization, and industrial structure play an important role in reducing CEPC. Our findings provide a scientific basis for formulating reasonable and effective carbon emission reduction policies.

Combining the role of urbanization and renewable energy in sustainable development: testing the EKC hypothesis for Africa.

The pressing necessity to curb greenhouse gas emissions due to climate change has sparked significant scientific interest in comprehending the factors behind CO2 emissions, particularly concerning environmental sustainability challenges. Nonetheless, there exists a notable gap in our understanding of how the process of urbanization interacts with the utilization of renewable energy to impact CO2 emissions. This research endeavor seeks to evaluate the complex interplay among urbanization, renewable energy, and CO2 emissions across 46 African nations spanning from 1990 to 2019. To accomplish this objective, a variety of econometric methodologies are employed, including Driscoll-Kraay standard errors, IV-GMM, and method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) panel estimations to address issues like cross-sectional dependencies, endogeneity, heterogeneity, and panel Granger causality examination. The empirical results suggest that urbanization leads to an increase in CO2 emissions, whereas the consumption of renewable energy plays a role in enhancing environmental quality by reducing CO2 emissions. A significant outcome of the study is the revelation that a combination of urbanization and renewable energy leads to a decrease in carbon emissions. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is validated. Lastly, through the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test, it is uncovered that urbanization and renewable energy consumption exhibit a bidirectional relationship with CO2 emissions. To reduce dependence on fossil fuels and curb CO2 emissions, policymakers should promote renewable energy usage in urban areas.

Exploring the Environmental Impact of Telemedicine: A Life Cycle Assessment.

BACKGROUND: Telemedicine has emerged as a potential solution to mitigate the significant greenhouse gas emissions of the healthcare sector. A comprehensive evaluation is required to quantify the environmental benefits of its implementation. OBJECTIVES: The study aims to compare the environmental sustainability of in-person and virtual examinations for heart failure patients. METHODS: A standard life cycle assessment has been applied to quantify the equivalent CO2 of direct and indirect activities required to release a medical examination (virtual or physical) for a patient in an Italian hospital. Inputs of the analysis include electronic devices of hospital and patients, energy consumption, wastes, internet usage and patient travel. Depending on the type of visit (virtual or physical), inputs have been processed differently, considering actual consumption and utilization. RESULTS: Televisit reduces emissions from 9.77 kgCO2e to 0.41 kgCO2e. Transport and internet data use are key inputs for in-person (i.e., 98%) and telemedicine visits (i.e., 72%), respectively. DISCUSSION: Given the frequent car travels, telemedicine emerges as a tool to improve environmental benefits and reduce time for patients and caregivers.

Economic and environmental performance of microalgal energy products - A case study exploring circular bioeconomy principles applied to recycled anaerobic digester waste flows.

This study quantifies the financial and environmental impacts of a microalgal bioenergy system that attempts to maximize circular flows by recovering and reusing the carbon, nutrients, and water within the system. The system produces microalgal biomass using liquid digestate of an anaerobic digester that processes 45 metric tons of food waste and generates 28.6 m3 of permeate daily in California, and three energy production scenarios from the biomass are considered: producing biodiesel, electricity, and both. In all scenarios, the resulting energy products delivered only modest reductions in environmental impacts as measured by carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The carbon intensities (CIs) of biodiesel from this study were 91.0 gCO2e/MJ and 93.3 gCO2e/MJ, which were lower than 94.71 gCO2e/MJ of conventional petroleum diesel, and the CI of electricity from this study was 70.6 gCO2e/MJ, lower than the average electricity grid CI in California (82.92 gCO2e/MJ). The economic analysis results show that generating electricity alone can be profitable, while biodiesel produced via this system is not cost competitive with conventional diesel due to high capital expenses. Thus, generating electricity in lieu of biodiesel appears to be a better option to maximize the use of waste flows and supply lower-carbon energy.

The impact of urbanization and economic growth on carbon dioxide emission in sub-Saharan African countries: a perspective from the spatial-temporal approach.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is seeing exceptional urbanization and economic expansion rates. Therefore, the STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) parameters and the spatial econometric framework are used in this work to examine the influence of economic growth and urbanization on SSA's CO2 emissions. Likewise, to determine the spatial effect and understand how factors influence the spatial dependence of carbon emissions, the study builds a spatial Durbin model (SDM). In line with the findings, the spatial correlation test revealed the spatial correlations across various countries. This indicates that the changes in sub-Saharan African country's CO2 emissions impacted nearby countries and the countries themselves. Additionally, the findings reveal that, in the SSA's countries, urbanization, economic growth, industrial structure, trade, and population, excluding energy intensity, which failed the significant test, all positively influence CO2 outflows, in line with the spatial econometric model's findings. Thus, energy intensity shares an adverse impact on carbon emissions. As an outcome, energy intensity reduces carbon dioxide emissions in nearby nations and the entire region. Thus, the study recommends that policymakers account for the effects of spatial spillover when establishing low-carbon policies, encouraging a low-carbon lifestyle, promoting environmentally friendly technologies, and improving regional collaboration.

Does the "Belt and Road Initiative" benefit the environment? Insight from analysis of intra-industry trade in environment goods.

The expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has raised a wide range of concerns about its environmental impact. Therefore, from the perspective of environmental impacts, this study used the two-way fixed effect staggered differences in differences (TWFE Staggered DID) method to examine the impact of the BRI on the Environment Goods (EGs) intra-industry trade (IIT) between China and other Belt and Road (B&R) countries, including a sample of 191 countries, covering the period from 2010 to 2019 for eliminating the impact of COVID-19 and the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Because only 135 countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding between 2010 and 2019, this study treated these B&R countries as the study group, and the other 73 countries (non-B&R countries) as the control group. This study described EGs using the 54 6-digit code Environment Goods in Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System listed in the "APEC LIST OF ENVIRONMENT GOODS" published by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in 2012, and used the intra-industry trade index proposed by Grubel and Lloyd in 1971 to measuring dependent variable. The research results indicated that the BRI has significantly promoted bilateral EGs IIT. The mechanism test implied that, in addition to direct impacts, the BRI also has indirect impacts by boosting the energy restructuring of B&R countries. These results prove that the BRI has positive impacts on the environment. The heterogeneity test showed that there is a heterogeneous impact depending on the type of IIT, product categorization, B&R countries' income levels, and geographic environment. This study not only gives theoretical and empirical evidence of the positive environmental impacts of the BRI, but also provides practical guidance for the development of EGS IIT between China and B&R countries, thereby contributing to global carbon emissions reduction and environmental governance to some degree.

The relationship between money supply and inflation in Pakistan.

This paper investigates the long-run and short-run relationship between money supply and inflation in Pakistan, utilizing annual data spanning from 1981 to 2021. The key objective is to assess the impact of monetary policy, specifically money supply, on inflation dynamics in the country. To achieve this, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach is employed, which is suitable for analyzing cointegration among variables with mixed integration orders. The results reveal both short and long-run cointegration between inflation, money supply, unemployment, and interest rates. Notably, unemployment demonstrates a negative correlation with inflation, while money supply and interest rates exhibit a positive relationship. These findings underscore the importance of dedicated policy measures to manage inflation effectively. The paper concludes by recommending the establishment of a policy implementation body and collaboration between the government and the central bank to ensure financial stability and control inflation through well-calibrated monetary and fiscal policies.

Coal consumption and carbon emission reductions in BRICS countries.

The primary energy consumption structure of BRICS countries is dominated by fossil energy, particularly coal. Coal consumption in BRICS countries is a major driver underlying increased carbon emissions. Therefore, this study developed a spatiotemporal decoupling mode and incorporated factors related to coal consumption-induced carbon emissions into a spatiotemporal decoupling analysis method to provide differentiated and targeted policies for energy restructuring and emission reduction targets in BRICS countries. Moreover, a temporal-spatial decomposition logarithmic mean Divisia index model was developed using the spatiotemporal decoupling index method. The model is based on CO2 emissions generated by coal consumption in BRICS countries, with a primary focus on data from Brazil, Russia, South Africa, India, and China. The findings reveal distinct spatiotemporal distributions and driving effects of coal consumption and carbon dioxide emissions across various countries. Factors such as CO2 emission intensity, coal consumption intensity, economic output per capita, and population structure exerted either positive or negative effects on the distributional effect of the carbon emission-economic output per capita association in BRICS countries. Additionally, country-level heterogeneity in the influence of the distributional effects of CO2 emissions was observed within each BRICS country. Thus, different policies are needed to achieve carbon emission reduction targets in different countries.