Green development challenges within the environmental management framework

New evidence of high-speed rail promoting green economic growth in the Yangtze River Economic Belt: empirical analysis based on difference-in-differences

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an important ecological barrier in China. From new perspectives, this paper explores the mechanism of high-speed rail (HSR) for green economic growth (GEG) in the YREB. This paper constructs 108 city panel data at the prefecture level and above in the YREB from 2003 to 2020. Difference-in-differences (DID) is adopted to research the impact of high-speed rail on GEG in the YREB. (1) HSR has significantly improved the GEG of the YREB. The effect value is 4.88%. The parallel trend test suggests that DID is valid. A time-varying instrumental variable combining average altitude and historical railway network is constructed for the endogeneity test. (2) Propensity score matching (PSM) and DID (PSM-DID) were employed to test the sample selection bias. (3) A battery of robustness tests, including the placebo test, variable replacement, and policy interference exclusion, is carried out. The conclusions are still valid. (4) HSR can promote the GEG of the YREB by encouraging technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and increasing ecological efficiency. The contribution rate from the largest to the smallest is ecological efficiency, industrial upgrading, and technological innovation. (5) Heterogeneity analysis shows that HSR has played an important role in encouraging GEG in the eastern, peripheral cities, and the downstream cities of the YREB. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions for promoting GEG in the YREB.

Digital economy and environmental governance performance: empirical evidence from 275 cities in China

Along with the steady worsening of environmental contamination, improving environmental governance performance (EGP) is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. This study adopts panel data from 275 Chinese cities to examine the holistic relationship between the digital economy (DE) and urban EGP in multiple dimensions. The relationship is tested using fixed-effects models, mediated effects models, panel threshold models, and the spatial Durbin models. Results indicated that (1) the DE can effectively improve urban EGP. The findings still hold after robustness tests using instrumental variable estimation and the introduction of exogenous policy shocks. (2) The analysis of mediating effects shows that green technology innovation and industrial structure optimization are critical transmissions. (3) The panel threshold regression results indicate a nonlinear incremental phenomenon of the significant impact of the DE on urban EGP when nighttime lighting data is used as the threshold. (4) Spatial spillover analysis shows a positive spatial spillover effect of DE development on EGP in the surrounding cities. (5) Spatial heterogeneity analysis states that the enhancement effect of DE development on EGP is more significant in eastern China. Furthermore, areas located within urban agglomerations are more influenced by the DE. These findings provide a policy reference for fully exploiting the environmental enhancement effects of the DE.

Evaluation of financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries in the context of green development: evidence from China

Strategic emerging industries are key areas to transform the traditional industrial model of high pollution, high energy consumption, and high emissions. This paper focuses on the measurement of financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries. On the one hand, in order to overcome the interference of external environment and statistical error existing in the traditional single data envelope model, the SSBM-BOOT five-stage model is proposed. On the other hand, Malmquist index method and Luenberger productivity method are combined to evaluate dynamic efficiency, which select Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei listed companies' data. The results show that (1) external environmental factors play a significant role in financing efficiency. The empirical results of the SSBM-BOOT five-stage model show that environmental factors "raise" the efficiency value of the whole Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. (2) Based on the revised data and the overall and decomposition results of SBM-ML index, it can be seen that the regional industry is still in the stage of scale expansion, and the financing efficiency depends on technological innovation that needs to be improved. Finally, the paper puts forward the concrete strategies of creating industrial development environment, promoting technological innovation, and establishing green investment and financing mechanism.

Exploring the Impact of “Double Cycle” and Industrial Upgrading on Sustainable High-Quality Economic Development: Application of Spatial and Mediation Models

In the context of the integration into the world economy, the domestic and international cycles of the economy constitute the basic pattern of economic operation. This pattern is closely related to the industrial structure, and obviously it can affect quality of the economic development. The Chinese government has put forward an international and domestic dual cycle strategy for reinforcing an environmentally sustainable high-quality economic development. Similarly, it seems critically important to explore what impact the “dual cycle strategy” and industrial upgrading will have on the environmentally sustainable high-quality economic development. To do so, this paper adopted a dataset ranging from the year 2004 to 2019 from a regional perspective in China, and an empirical research is carried out based on the spatial Dubin model-mediation effect model to analyze the impact of “dual cycle strategy” and industrial upgrading on environmentally sustainable high-quality economic development. The results of the study show that the rising industrial structure effect has emerged prominently. Both the “dual cycle” and industrial structure upgrading have a positive spillover effect on environmentally sustainable high-quality economic development. Further, the direct effect of domestic circulation is significant, but the indirect effect is not obvious. In addition, we found that the direct and indirect effects of international circulation are both significantly positive; industrial upgrading has a partial mediating effect in the “double cycle”. The study holds promising implications for a policy development.

Sustainable development in period of climate crisis

The ongoing process of climate change has shown that sustainable development of humankind is a necessity. Existing resources need to be used in a form of a circular economy, and no more in a linear economy as has been the case until now. Resources need to be better managed to meet the needs of future generations. Therefore, energy, water and environment systems need to be integrated in order to slow down their overexploitation. This paper discusses some of the latest developments in three main areas of sustainability, i.e., energy, water and environment, that emerged from the four "Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems" (SDEWES) Conferences that took place in 2020. The purpose of this review introduction article is to provide a brief introduction to the field and the articles included in this Virtual Special Issue. As such, it acts as an editorial paper for the virtual special issue of the Journal of Environmental Management, dedicated to the SDEWES 2020 conferences.

From Bitcoin to carbon allowances: An asymmetric extreme risk spillover

The Paris Agreement (COP21) sets out a global framework to limit global warming below 2C. Therefore, the target of carbon neutrality has a key role. In this context, countries have implemented cap-and-trade markets of carbon emissions allowances to manage the impact of CO2 released by companies. Over recent years, cryptocurrencies have given a new drive to pollution because of the massive energy consumption of mining activity. This paper investigates the tail relationship between the carbon credit market and the price of Bitcoin. For this purpose, we use two novel econometric models: the multivariate-quantile conditional autoregressive (MVMQ-CAViaR) model and Granger causality across quantiles. The results suggest that there is a downside risk spillover, i.e., tail co-dependence. We find that Bitcoin spillovers have a stronger impact on the carbon market. On the other hand, we show that the carbon market does not Granger-cause Bitcoin. The results of the Granger analysis confirm the multivariate quantile model's findings, i.e., Bitcoin influences the carbon market in the lower quantiles. We deem our results useful for policymakers to improve the framework of carbon emissions allowances.