The perceived effectiveness and hidden inequity of postpandemic fiscal stimuli.

The world has committed trillions in fiscal expenditures to reboot the economy in the post­COVID-19 era. However, the effectiveness and the equity impacts of current fiscal stimuli are not fully understood. Using an extended adaptive regional input­output model, we assess the short-term impacts (2020 through 2022) of feasible stimuli on the global economy and the labor market. Our findings show that the stimuli pledged by 26 countries, i.e., 2.4 trillion euros in total, are effective in keeping the recession short and shallow by saving 53 million to 57 million jobs (compared to the no-stimulus scenario). However, the stimuli exacerbate income inequity at the global scale if we define "equity" as those who suffer more from the pandemic should receive more assistance. Low-skilled workers in these countries, who suffer more from the pandemic than high-skilled workers, benefit 38 to 41% less from the job-creation effects of the current fiscal stimuli. As an alternative, low-carbon stimuli can achieve a balance between effectiveness and equity at the global level. Low-carbon stimuli save 55 million to 58 million jobs and decrease income inequality by 2 to 3% globally compared to the currently pledged stimuli. Country-level situations are more complicated, as modifying the current stimuli to achieve more "greenness" brings win­win in effectiveness and equity in some countries, while in the others, more greenness and equity are at the expense of less job savings. Our findings underscore the need to consider the overlooked trade-offs between effectiveness, equity, and greenness, both globally and nationally, when designing further postpandemic fiscal stimuli.

Linking the Environmental Pressures of China's Capital Development to Global Final Consumption of the Past Decades and into the Future.

China's rapid growth was fueled by investments that grew more than 10-fold since 1995. Little is known about how the capital assets acquired, while being used in productive processes for years or decades, satisfy global final consumption of goods and services, or how the resource use and emissions that occurred during capital formation are attributable to past or future consumption. Here, enabled by a new global model of capital formation and use, we quantify the linkages over the past 2 decades and into the future between six environmental pressures (EPs) associated with China's capital formation and attributable to Chinese as well as non-Chinese consumption. We show that only 35% of the capital assets acquired by China from 1995 to 2015, representing 32-39% of the associated EPs (e.g., water consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and metal ore extractions), have been depreciated, while the majority rest will serve future production and consumption. The outsourcing of capital services and the associated EPs are considerable, ranging from 14 to 25% of depending on the EP indicators. Without accounting for the capital-final consumption linkages across time and space, one would miscalculate China's environmental footprints related to the six EPs by big margins, from -61% to +114%.

Incorporating Health Cobenefits in Decision-Making for the Decommissioning of Coal-Fired Power Plants in China.

China's coal-fired power industry urgently needs deep decarbonization to meet the challenge of climate change. Regional air quality improvement and the health benefits can motivate efforts to achieve low-carbon goals. However, the health cobenefit per amount of carbon reduction may vary drastically across power plant units. The strategy of targeting more health cobenefits has been considered in designing an efficient carbon mitigation pathway, whereas this issue has not been analyzed at the unit level. In this study, an indicator called health benefit by carbon reduction (H/C) was constructed for each power unit to assess the relative potential of obtaining health cobenefits. The results reveal that the distribution of H/C values among units is extremely uneven: the first 1, 5, and 20% of the total carbon emission contributed to nearly 20, 40, and 70%, respectively, of the total health effects. The additional health benefits from H/C optimization were evaluated, and the decommissioning pathway of China's coal-fired power industry for achieving more health benefits was explored.

Implications of near-term mitigation on China's long-term energy transitions for aligning with the Paris goals.

In the international community, there are many appeals to ratcheting up the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs), in order to narrow the 2030 global emissions gap with the Paris goals. Near-term mitigation has a direct impact on the required efforts beyond 2030 to control warming within 2°C or 1.5°C successfully. In this study, implications of near-term mitigation on China's long-term energy transitions until 2100 for aligning with the Paris goals, are quantified using a refined Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) with six mitigation scenarios. Results show that intensifying near-term mitigation will alleviate China's transitional challenges during 2030-2050 and long-term reliance on carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDR). Each five-year earlier peaking of CO2 allows almost a five-year later carbon neutrality of China's energy system. To align with 2°C (1.5°C), peaking in 2025 instead of 2030 reduces the requirement of CDR over the century by 17% (13%). Intensifying near-term mitigation also tends to have economic benefits to China's Paris-aligned energy transitions. Under 2°C (1.5°C), peaking in 2025 instead of 2030, with larger near-term mitigation costs by 1.3 (1.6) times, has the potential to reduce China's aggregate mitigation costs throughout the century by 4% (6%). Although in what way China's NDC is to be updated is determined by decision-makers, transitional and economic benefits suggest China to try its best to pursue more ambitious near-term mitigation in accordance with its latest national circumstances and development needs.

Heterogeneity of resilience and the curvilinear relationship between childhood trauma and resilience among people with schizophrenia.

Background: As a group with a high incidence of childhood trauma, the differential characteristics of resilience in schizophrenia and its relationship with childhood trauma are still unclear. Methods: A total of 626 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia were selected from four psychiatric hospitals in northern China. Childhood trauma and resilience were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-short form (CTQ-SF) and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), respectively. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify the potential classes of resilience. A generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) and restricted cubic spline (RCS) was used to explore and determine the shape of the relationship between childhood trauma and resilience. Results: Model fits of LPA showed three heterogeneous classes of resilience: moderate resilience levels (n = 312; 49.06%); high resilience levels (n = 171; 26.89%) and low resilience levels (n = 153; 24.06%). Resilience scores fluctuated depending on amount of exposure to childhood trauma. The GAMM results verified the non-linear relationship between resilience and childhood trauma, with an estimated degree of freedom higher than 1 (4.573) and p = 0.003. RCS fitted for ordinary least square (OLS) regression models determined a smooth continuous cubic curve of resilience across childhood trauma levels, and the two turning points of the curve line were 41.04 and 54.74 for childhood trauma. Discussion: Our findings confirm the people-specific differences in the level of resilience in schizophrenia and describe the cubic curvilinear relationship between childhood trauma and resilience, which provides data support for mechanistic research and intervention in related fields.

Hidden delays of climate mitigation benefits in the race for electric vehicle deployment.

Although battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are climate-friendly alternatives to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), an important but often ignored fact is that the climate mitigation benefits of BEVs are usually delayed. The manufacture of BEVs is more carbon-intensive than that of ICEVs, leaving a greenhouse gas (GHG) debt to be paid back in the future use phase. Here we analyze millions of vehicle data from the Chinese market and show that the GHG break-even time (GBET) of China's BEVs ranges from zero (i.e., the production year) to over 11 years, with an average of 4.5 years. 8% of China's BEVs produced and sold between 2016 and 2018 cannot pay back their GHG debt within the eight-year battery warranty. We suggest enhancing the share of BEVs reaching the GBET by promoting the effective substitution of BEVs for ICEVs instead of the single-minded pursuit of speeding up the BEV deployment race.

Air pollution rebound and different recovery modes during the period of easing COVID-19 restrictions.

Although COVID-19 lockdown policies have improved air quality in numerous countries, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the extent to which recovery has resulted in air pollution rebound, and the differences and similarities among regions' recovery modes during the period of easing COVID-19 restrictions. Here, we used daily air quality data and the recovery index constructed by a city-pair inflow index for 119 cities in China to quantify the impact of recovery on air pollution from March 2 to October 30, 2020. Findings show that recovery has significantly increased air pollution. When the recovery level increased by 10 %, the concentration of PM2.5, SO2, and NO2 respectively deteriorated by 1.10, 0.33, 1.25 µg/m3, and the average growth rates of three air pollutants were about 3 %-6 %. Moreover, we used the counterfactual framework and time series clustering with wavelet transform to cluster the rebound trajectory of air pollution for 17 provinces into five recovery modes. Results show that COVID-19 has further intensified regional differentiations in economic development ability and green recovery trend. Three northwestern provinces dependent on their resource endowments belong to energy-intensive recovery mode, which have experienced a sharp rebound of air pollution for two months, thereby making green recovery more challenging to achieve. Three regions with a diversified industrial structure are in industrial-restructuring recovery mode, which has effectively returned to a normal level through adjusting industrial structure and technological innovation. Owing to local policies and the outbreak of COVID-19 in other countries, six provinces in policy-oriented and international trade-oriented recovery modes have not fully recovered to the level without COVID-19 until October 2020. The result highlights the importance of diversifying industrial structure, technological innovation, policy flexibility and industrial upgrading for different recovery modes to achieve long-term green recovery in the future.

The dynamics of CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic development: evidence from the top 28 greenhouse gas emitters.

Previous studies have done more research on the relationship between carbon emission reduction, energy consumption, and economic growth in specific countries or regions, which rarely consider the issue of heterogeneity between countries or regions, and also lack the refinement of energy consumption categories. Using panel data from 2000 to 2017, this paper divided the top 28 global carbon emission countries into developed countries and developing countries, and explores co-integration and causality between renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon emission. Results suggested that there is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in all economies. There is a two-way causal relationship between economic growth in developed countries and consumption of renewable and non-renewable energy, while there is no significant relationship between economic growth and energy consumption in developing countries. There is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions and renewable energy in all economies, but there are significant differences; there is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions in developed countries and non-renewable energy, and only one-way causality exists in developing countries.

Individualism and nationally determined contributions to climate change.

Ratcheting up the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to achieve the Paris Agreement goals requires a better understanding of the enablers and barriers behind NDC formulation. However, existing quantitative analyses on the drivers of NDCs from an anthropological perspective are elusive. This study proposes both a conceptual framework and empirical analysis of how cultural values link with the pledged NDCs. The findings show that individualism (IDV) is a significant and robust predictor for the mitigation levels of NDCs, after controlling for affluence level, renewable energy proportion, democracy and other socioeconomic factors. For every 10-point increase in the IDV score (say from the score of Canada to Australia or from the score of Vietnam to Mexico), the committed per-capita emission in 2030 relative to 1990 levels decrease by 14%-22%. However, such a correlation is absent when assessing the mitigation ambitions using various fair benchmarks. This study underscores the necessity of considering more cultural context and nuances in tackling common climate problems, and advocates for developing tailored climate communication strategies to enhance the NDCs.

Environmental-social-economic footprints of consumption and trade in the Asia-Pacific region.

Asia-Pacific (APAC) has been the world's most dynamic emerging area of economic development and trade in recent decades. Here, we reveal the significant and imbalanced environmental and socio-economic effects of the region's growths during 1995-2015. Owing to the intra-regional trade of goods and services, APAC economies grew increasingly interdependent in each other's water and energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) and PM2.5 emissions, and labor and economic productivity, while the environmental and economic disparity widened within the region. Furthermore, our results highlight APAC's significant role in globalization. By 2015, APAC was engaged in 50-71% of the virtual flows of water, energy, GHG, PM2.5, labor, and value added embodied in international trade. While the region's final demand and trade grew less resource- and emissions-intensive, predominantly led by China's transformations, APAC still lags behind global averages after two decades. More joint efforts of APAC economies and attention to sustainable transformation are needed.