An integrated economic, energy, and environmental analysis to optimize evaluation of carbon reduction strategies at the regional level: A case study in Zhejiang, China

China plays a crucial role in responding to global climate change. Provinces are the main sources of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in China's economic and social development. However, it is still unclear how to achieve dual-carbon goals by formulating and implementing local policies to adapt to climate change. In this study, we take Zhejiang Province in China as the research object, based on the LEAP (Low Emissions Analysis Platform) model to construct four social scenarios under different policies, comprehensively considering regional economic characteristics, population, and energy consumption patterns. The results show that to achieve Zhejiang Province's goal of carbon peaking by 2030 while maintaining steady economic growth, additional measures are required to reduce energy consumption intensity or improve the power generation structure. Otherwise, energy demand will increase to 228.06 million tonnes of coal equivalent and carbon emissions will be 487.76 million tonnes in 2050. Moreover, developing clean energy and promoting CCUS technology can continuously reduce carbon emissions to 293.59 and 210.76 million tonnes respectively. The economic viability of CCUS power generation is contingent upon the development of carbon taxes in the future. Once the growth rate reaches 7.2%, power cost will be 167.77 billion RMB and CCUS will become economically advantageous in 2050.

Human activities along southwest border of China: Findings based on DMSP/OLS Nighttime light data

Human activities along southwest border of China exert significant influences on sustainable development of regional economy, politics, and environment among countries Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. However, related empirical studies remain very limited due to the low availability and comparability of small-scale statistic data in that region. Fortunately, Nighttime light (NTL) images provide uniform, consistent and valuable data sources. Using NTL data from 1992 to 2013, this article seeks to contribute the literature by investigating the trend of relative intensity of human activities between China and her southwest neighborhoods. We find that the human activities intensity of Chinese borderland maintained advantage over her neighborhoods, and the trend of this advantage is nonlinear. Regional development policy launched by Chinese government is considered to be a possible explanation.

Determining the spatial non-stationarity underlying social and natural environment in thyroid cancer in China

BACKGROUND

Light at night (LAN) is a physiological environmental factor related to thyroid cancer (TC). The spatial relationship between the number of TC incident cases, LAN, air pollution and other macro social factors and stationarity needs to be further examined to provide evidence for regional control of TC.

METHODS

Spatial econometrics methods for spatial nonstationarity were used to explore the impacts of LAN, air pollutants, economic factors, and population size on the number of TC incident cases in 182 Chinese prefecture-level cities and the local coefficients were further tested for nonstationarity. Temporally weighted regression (TWR), geographically weighted regression (GWR), and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) were compared in this study for model selection.

RESULTS

Based on the ordinary least squares (OLS), LAN, air pollutants, and urbanization all significantly affected the number of TC incident cases. GWR had the best goodness of fit, and the coefficients of all the variables passed the nonstationarity test. The strong positive impact of LAN was mainly concentrated in North China, air pollutants in Central China and neighboring regions, and urbanization in the eastern coast of China.

CONCLUSIONS

The locational factors of the prefecture-level city influence the spatial pattern of the number of TC incident cases. Governments should pay attention to this influence, adhere to the Health in All Policies principle, and formulate region-specific policies based on regional characteristics, which this study provides updated evidence for.

The response of regional well-being to place-based policy interventions

Enhancing the well-being of its citizens is the central remit of the EU's regional policy, but as yet, there is no analysis of the effects of EU regional policy on local well-being. The aim of this paper is to examine this relationship. To do this, we define a novel regionalised well-being measure and we exploit a dataset on regional expenditure in a continuous treatment framework. Based on both parametric and semi-parametric approaches, our analysis demonstrates that the EU regional development policy does influence regional well-being differently from GDP. We find evidence of a linear monotonic response of well-being growth to total transfers, although this effect varies according to the time lag considered and the level of development of the region.

Political alignment and project funding

We analyze the relationship between the party affiliation of politicians at different levels of government and the spatial distribution of funding for research, development and innovation projects. In particular, we are investigating whether more federal grants are being granted in Germany for projects in federal states whose government is led by the same political party as the responsible ministry at federal level. Our dataset contains detailed information on publicly funded projects in Germany in the period 2010-2019. Using a fixed-effects estimation approach, we find a link between grant allocation and party affiliation of funding for research, development and innovation projects, in particular smaller ones. For these projects, political alignment is associated with an average increase in public funding by almost 10,000 euro. Our results suggest that public funds for research, development and innovation projects could be used more efficiently than they are.

Geographical Differences in the Quality of Life in Poland: Challenges of Regional Policy

Commonly used in human geography, quality of life (QOL) refers to the way and degree to which objective human needs are met, not only existential ones, but also those regarding the development of the human personality. This article diagnoses QOL understood in this way in Poland and its changes between 2004 and 2018 (i.e. during modernization), which saw the continuation of systemic transformation after joining the EU. To fully identify the regularity of spatial differences in the analysed phenomenon, 380 local units are used as reference points. First, we formulated an operational definition of multifaceted QOL with its separate dimensions, as well as selecting and constructing organized indicators that can be determined at the local level. Then we quantified local differences in the rate of growth and the level of QOL using multivariate analysis. Third, on the basis of the obtained results, we sought to reach the most significant conclusions: (1) the dynamic economic growth, enjoyed in Poland in 2004-2018, did not change significantly the spatial diversity of the quality of life on a local level. (2) To a large extent, the persistent differences in the quality of life in Poland are related to the historical spatial differences in the level of urbanisation and the well-established, traditional economic structure of the specific territorial units. (3) A higher degree of urbanisation coupled with the service- and service and industry-related functional nature of the local units in Poland are conducive to a better quality of life. This confirms the regularities observed in the countries on the verge of a rapid economic development.

Recruitment of scarce competences to rural regions: Policy perspectives

This paper studies the perceived difficulty of recruiting scarce competencies to rural regions. Furthermore, the role of policy in facilitating and enhancing recruitment to and better skills matching in rural regions is discussed. Based on a survey targeted to the business sections of Swedish municipalities, the results show that recruitment is perceived to be difficult in both rural and nonrural regions and that the difficulty of recruiting for the right skills results in a lack of skills matching and constitutes an obstacle to growth. Rural regions located close to urban areas can to some extent mitigate these recruitment problems, and their locations pose less of a barrier in recruitment processes compared to those of remotely located rural regions. Which policies can help remedy recruitment problems faced in rural regions? In both rural and nonrural regions, incentives for writing off student debt and relocation support for accompanying persons and tandem recruitment are perceived to be the most promising policies. Rural regions are more receptive to the implementation of such policies. Finally, the need for flexibility and policies that can be adapted to the regional demand for labour are stressed.