Concerns about the environment and renewable energy are growing. Improving the perception of renewable energy in urban and rural households is required to promote green development and to learn about consumer preferences for renewable energy based on the gradual reduction in financial subsidies for photovoltaic (PV) power generation. This paper aims to estimate the willingness of consumers to pay for a Household PV system and explores the factors that affect consumers’ product selection, which is conducive to optimizing Household PV products and policies and is important for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Using a discrete choice model, this paper surveyed 765 urban and rural residents without installing Household PV systems in Tianjin, China. Subsequently, the respondents’ attribute preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for a Household PV system were analyzed using a logit regression analysis model. The influence of respondents’ socio-economic characteristics on WTP was analyzed. The empirical results showed that (1) price significantly impacts consumers’ PV adoption behaviors and consumers tend to choose cheaper PV products; (2) consumers are more willing to pay for the after-sales service (3959 USD/level) and traceable information (2176 USD/level), indicating their preference for these two attributes when considering options; (3) socio-economic variables, including gender and the number of minor children (i.e., children under the age of 18) at home, significantly impact consumers’ PV adoption behaviors. Males and consumers without minor children at home will pay more attention when selecting the products. Our research findings will provide valuable insights into policy making and the wide-ranging use of Household PV systems. Full article

Accelerating the promotion of the green transition can help to achieve high-quality development in manufacturing industries. In terms of policies that encourage the transition to green production, carbon trading is a direct and effective means of achieving this goal, and the carbon price is an important regulator in trading. Normally, firms respond to carbon prices by making three behavioral choices: production restrictions, pollution reduction, and the technological transition to green production. This study examines the effect of carbon price volatility on the decision to conduct green production, i.e., transforming to sustainable technologies and processes. In addition, this paper also investigates whether organizational resource slack and organizational technical standards moderate the relationship between the carbon price volatility and firms’ green transitions. The results suggest that a steadily increasing carbon price will motivate firms to make a green transition, but if the carbon price is volatile, firms will be reluctant to make a green transition. This tendency to make a green transition is stronger when firms have resource slack and have implemented green technical standards. The findings provide empirical evidence and policy implications regarding how manufacturing firms can accelerate their green transition. Full article

The carbon emissions in China contribute to around one-third of the world total. Therefore, China plays a critical role in global carbon emissions reduction. Over the last few years, the Chinese government has implemented a range of counter-measures to accelerate the green transition. In this research, we empirically investigate the relationship between carbon intensity and the green transition. Based on provincial panel data of Chinese manufacturing industries from 2008 to 2019, we measure the relationship between carbon intensity and green transition capacity in 30 provinces, employing the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to examine their influencing mechanism and regional heterogeneity. Furthermore, we use an intermediary model to investigate the influence of financial development on the relationship between carbon intensity and manufacturing green transition. We find that a U-shaped relationship exists, where increasing carbon emissions restrain the green transition initially but improve it later, such that the transition upgrades gradually. Regarding the regional heterogeneity, the GMM results show that carbon intensity has the most significant impact on the green transition in the central provinces, followed by western provinces. Meanwhile, financial performance is an essential contributor to the relationship, as more funds flow into contamination-dominated but profitable projects, thus inhibiting the transition. Urbanization and marketization are also included into threshold models, which suggest the existence of relevant threshold effects in the relationship. These findings have a referenced value suggesting that the local governments follow the U-shaped theory to reform the local carbon reduction policies and green development target according to the regional economic performance and geographical advantages. Full article

This study investigates whether natural gas exploitation is a blessing or a curse for provincial and prefecture economic growth. This study employs regression models and synthetic control methods (SCM) to investigate the research question based on hybrid panel and time-series data from 1993 to 2015 from 14 prefecture cities in Sichuan province in China. Based on the provincial data of Sichuan, the regression results show that natural gas exploitation is a curse for the provincial economic development of Sichuan because of the negative associations between gas resources and economic performance, for which the increasing rent-seeking in the province may partially account. However, the SCM results find that the local economy of Dazhou city may benefit from its sufficient natural gas resources in the short run, but it is not sustainable. Meanwhile, the gas resource has no significant contributions to the regional economic growth of Sichuan overall, which is partially attributed to the fact that resource exploitation has no significant spillover effects on some sustainable contributors, such as education, innovation, and others. The practical implication for the economic governors is that the resource-consumed economic route is not sustainable, although it may drive local economic growth in the short run. Full article

As an economic corridor, the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) connects the East to Western nations, where carbon emissions are gradually becoming severe. This study aims to provide solutions for dealing with carbon emissions from the transportation of the SREB in the Chinese range. By employing the Malmquist index method of data envelopment analysis (DEA), this study develops models to test the different carbon-reduction performances (CRP) of transportation in the Chinese provinces along the SREB. This study shows that carbon-reduction performance has improved since 2013 because of the improvements in transportation technology. Technical efficiency, including scale efficiency and pure technological efficiency, may improve carbon reduction, while the lagged technological progress restricts the CRP. It is further suggested that the provincial CRPs are different. The southwest provinces have the best decarbonization performance, followed by the northwest, while the northeast provinces, including Inner Mongolia, underperform compared to the others. Therefore, the government should release some technology-orientated policies as soon as possible to facilitate the improvements in technical efficiency and progress in transportation vehicles and infrastructures in order to consequently reduce carbon emissions. Full article

As an important energy base in China, Shanxi Province, in its economic development, has depended heavily on coal resources. However, enormous coal consumption produces a large amount of carbon dioxide and an aggravated ecological problem. In this paper, the super efficiency slack-based measure and data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model and Malmquist index were used to calculate the energy consumption and carbon emission efficiency of 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi in the period from 2000 to 2020. The results were as follows: (1) The primary form of energy consumption in Shanxi Province is the burning of coal, and the carbon emission efficiencies of the 11 prefecture-level cities are quite different. The technical efficiency, technological progress, and total factor productivity of Taiyuan and Shuozhou were found to be greater than 1 compared to other cities in Shanxi. (2) On the whole, although the carbon emission rate of Shanxi Province has slowed down, it still faces the problems of a large total emission base, high carbon emission intensity, and low efficiency of the unit carbon emission output. Industrial structure is the key factor restricting improvements in the efficiency of carbon emissions in Shanxi Province. (3) From the spatial and temporal evolution of the carbon emission efficiency in Shanxi Province, we can see that the carbon emission efficiency of the whole province gradually dispersed and improved from the central and northern regions to the southern regions during the period of 2000–2020. In order to achieve a low-carbon economy, Shanxi Province must optimize its industrial structure, accelerate research and development in low-carbon technologies, adjust the energy structure, and promote the construction of an energy supply system with clean low-carbon energy as the main source. Full article

A low-carbon economy is the most important requirement to realize high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. Utilizing the following models: a super-efficiency slacks-based measure model, a spatio-temporal correlation model, a bivariate LISA model, a spatial econometric model, and a geographically weighted random forest model, this study measured urban industrial eco-efficiency (IEE) and then analyzed its influencing effects on carbon emission in the Yangtze River Delta from 2000 to 2017. The influencing factors included spatio-temporal correlation intensity, spatio-temporal association type, direct and indirect impacts, and local importance impacts. Findings showed that: (1) The temporal correlation intensity between IEE and scale efficiency (SE) and carbon emissions exhibited an inverted V-shaped variation trend, while the temporal correlation intensity between pure technical efficiency (PTE) and carbon emissions exhibited a W-shaped fluctuation trend. The negative spatial correlation between IEE and carbon emissions was mainly distributed in the developed cities of the delta, while the positive correlation was mainly distributed in central Anhui Province and Yancheng and Taizhou cities. The spatial correlation between PTE and carbon emissions exhibited a spatial pattern of being higher in the central part of the delta and lower in the northern and southern parts. The negative spatial correlation between SE and carbon emissions was mainly clustered in Zhejiang Province and scattered in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, with the cities with positive correlations being concentrated around two locations: the junction of Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, and within central Jiangsu Province. (2) The direct and indirect effects of IEE on carbon emissions were significantly negative, indicating that IEE contributed to reducing carbon emissions. The direct impact of PTE on carbon emissions was also significantly negative, while its indirect effect was insignificant. Both the direct and indirect effects of SE on carbon emissions were significantly negative. (3) It was found that the positive effect of IEE was more likely to alleviate the increase in carbon emissions in northern Anhui City. Further, PTE was more conducive to reducing the increase in carbon emissions in northwestern Anhui City, southern Zhejiang City, and in other cities including Changzhou and Wuxi. Finally, it was found that SE played a relatively important role in reducing the increase in carbon emissions only in four cities: Changzhou, Suqian, Lu’an, and Wenzhou. Full article