Multicity comparative assessment and optimized management path of sustainability of the economy-energy-environment system: A case study of core cities in China's three major economic circles.

Coordinated and stable development of economy-energy-environment (3E) systems represents a long-term strategy for the sustainable development of humankind. Following the research idea of "indicator system construction-3E system evaluation-obstacles identification-optimization management," this article innovatively constructs a multiangle and comparable methodology system for evaluation and optimized management of the 3E system and considers the core cities of three economic circles in China as cases for empirical research. The results show that all the coordination degree levels were of good or high quality, which was at the highest level in the country. The sustainability degree of the three cities showed an upward trend; of these, Beijing had the highest sustainability degree, followed by Guangzhou and Shanghai. Obstacle degree analysis shows that technology investment and energy factors were common factors hindering sustainable development of the 3E systems of the three cities, and each city also had its own unique factors that acted as obstacles. On this basis, this article formulates region-specific policy recommendations in order to provide a useful reference for top-level design for the government. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:875-887. © 2023 SETAC.

Interaction mechanism and spatial effect of cross-regional haze pollution based on a multisectoral economy-energy-environment (3E) model and the evidence from China.

The transboundary characteristics and multisectoral factor interaction mechanism of haze pollution have aroused widespread attention but remain understudied. This article proposes a comprehensive conceptual model that clarifies regional haze pollution, further establishes a theoretical framework on a cross-regional, multisectoral economy-energy-environment (3E) system, and attempts to empirically investigate the spatial effect and interaction mechanism employing a spatial-econometrics model based on China's province-level regions. The results demonstrate that (1) regional haze pollution is a transboundary atmospheric state formed by the accumulation and agglomeration of various emission pollutants; moreover, there is a "snowball" effect and a spatial spillover effect. (2) The formation and evolution of haze pollution are driven by the multisectoral factors of 3E system interaction, and the findings still hold after theoretical and empirical analysis and robustness tests. (3) Significant spatial autocorrelation exists for the 3E factors, presenting different clustering modes with a dynamic spatiotemporal evolution, particularly in the high-high (H-H) mode and low-low (L-L) mode. (4) Significant heterogeneous impacts of economic and energy factors on haze pollution are identified, namely, an inverted "U-shaped" relationship and a positive linear association, respectively. Further spatial analysis demonstrates a strong spatial spillover and obvious path dependence among local and neighboring regions. Policymakers are advised to consider multisectoral 3E system interaction and cross-regional collaboration. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:1525-1543. © 2023 SETAC.

Evaluation of carbon neutrality capacity based on a novel comprehensive model.

The Chinese government actively participates in global climate governance and has proposed to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. Due to large differences in regional development, local governments need to comprehend their own carbon neutrality status and then scientifically plan a path to achieve carbon neutrality. In this study, we constructed a new carbon neutrality capacity evaluation indicator system named CNCIS, which can dynamically reflect the balance of energy, economy and environment in the process of reducing carbon emissions. In addition, to scientifically evaluate the carbon neutrality capacity, we proposed a novel comprehensive evaluation model, namely, the BWM-Entropy TOPSIS method, which can solve the unbalanced weighting and low efficiency problem in weighting indicators and improve the applicability of TOPSIS. Finally, based on real data from 30 provinces in China, we proved the effectiveness of our method and analyse the reasons for the different carbon neutrality capacities of the provinces. The main findings are as follows: (1) Clean and efficient utilization of energy had the greatest impact on achieving carbon neutrality, which is mainly represented by carbon emissions intensity, CO2 emissions per capita and coal consumption per capita. (2) In the energy, economy and environmental aspects, the factors that most affect carbon neutrality were carbon emissions intensity, the volume of technology marketing and water consumption per capita respectively. (3) Sorted by carbon neutrality capacities, the provinces could be divided into three categories, in which economically developed provinces more easily achieve carbon neutrality while resource-based provinces are the hardest. Based on these results, corresponding suggestions were proposed to help local governments scientifically plan a path to achieve carbon neutrality.

Optimization of the Beijing Economy-Energy-Emissions System 2021-2035: A Scenario Simulation Analysis Based on a System Dynamics Model.

This paper constructs an Economy-Energy-Emissions (3E) System Dynamics Model using the megacity of Beijing, China, as an example, to estimate the effects of different policy scenarios (including three single-policy scenarios and four combined-policy scenarios) on the core variables of Beijing's 3E system from 2021 to 2035. The results suggest two main points. (1) Following the current development trend, the proportion of the GDP represented by the added value of advanced high-precision industries (Gao Jing Jian in Chinese) will only be 43% in 2035, implying a limited role in promoting economic growth. Despite effective control of total energy consumption, fossil energy's share of total consumption will reach 57% by 2035, hindering the process of making the energy consumption structure cleaner and leading to failure to achieve the targeted inflection point in CO2 emissions by 2025. PM2.5 control shows some successful results and will decrease to 19 µg/m3 in 2035. However, a gap compared to other world-class cities remains. (2) The implementation of a single policy for either industrial structure optimization, energy structure transformation, or emissions control cannot simultaneously meet the goal of high-quality coordinated development of Beijing's 3E system, whereas the comprehensive implementation of policies in all three dimensions is demonstrably effective.

Research on the ecological efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta region in China from the perspective of sustainable development of the economy-energy-environment (3E) system.

Balancing the relationship between economic development, energy utilization, and environmental protection has become an important task in China's Strip Planning and Construction. This article takes the annual panel data from 2005 to 2015 as the research object firmly grasps the research basis of the Economy-Energy-Environment (3E) System, and focuses on building a new research framework from both internal and external perspectives of the eco-efficiency index to achieve the exploratory research on regional ecological efficiency changes and influencing factors. First of all, it uses super-efficient slacks-based measure (SBM) model which introduces undesired outputs to measure eco-efficiency at different levels. Then, it applies Malmquist index to calculate total factor productivity and structural efficiencies. Finally, it selects six indicators and uses the STIRPAT regression model to analyze external factors. The results indicate that (1) the overall ecological efficiency is effective and maintaining a good momentum of development. Among all the cities and provinces, Shanghai and Zhejiang provinces play the role of "stabilizers," while Jiangsu and Anhui provinces act as "accelerators." (2) All 41 prefecture-level cities can be divided into four different types, i.e., "high-high", "low-high", "low-low," and "high-low" cities, and there is an obvious phenomenon of spatial clustering; (3) pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency is the core driving force for the improvement of ecological efficiency. (4) Anhui and Jiangsu provinces show a U-shaped relationship, while Zhejiang province shows an inverted U-shaped relationship. Graphical abstract The structure of introduction-body paragraphs-conclusion carbon.

Further improvement on delay-range-dependent robust absolute stability for Lur'e uncertain systems with interval time-varying delays.

This paper investigates improved delay-range-dependent robust absolute stability criteria for a class of Lur'e uncertain systems with interval time-varying delays. By using delayed decomposition approach (DDA), a tighter upper bound of the derivative of Lyapunov functional can be obtained, and thus the proposed criteria give results with less conservatism compared with some previous ones. An integral inequality approach (IIA) is proposed to reduce the conservativeness in computing the allowable maximum admissible upper bound (MAUB) of the time-delay. The developed stability condition is expressed in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) that manipulates fewer decision variables and requires reduced computational load. Finally, three numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed stability criteria.