Suchergebnisse

Empirical studies demonstrate that, although substantial improvements in energy efficiency have already been made, there still exist significant economic potentials - even in energy intensive sectors. Realising these potentials will reduce costs for energy services and improve overall economic efficiency, but employment gains are likely to be small. Technological progress in energy efficiency may foster economic growth and export rates for energy efficient products can be expected to continue, in particular, if policies are appropriately designed to realise untapped efficiency potentials and to encourage innovation in energy efficient technologies.

China's 14th Five-Year Plan, for the period 2021–25, presents a real opportunity for China to link its long-term climate goals with its short-to medium-term social and economic development plans. China's recent commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 has set a clear direction for its economy, but requires ratcheting up ambition on its near-term climate policy. Against this background, this paper discusses major action areas for China's 14th Five-Year Plan after COVID-19, especially focusing on three aspects: the energy transition, a new type of sustainable urban development, and investment priorities. China's role in the world is now of a magnitude that makes its actions in the immediate future critical to how the world goes forward. This decade, 2021–2030, is of fundamental importance to human history. If society locks in dirty and high-carbon capital, it raises profound risks of irreversible damage to the world's climate. It is crucial for China to peak its emissions in the 14th Five-Year Plan (by 2025), making the transition earlier and cheaper, enhancing its international competitiveness in growing new markets and setting a strong example for the world. The benefits for China and the world as a whole could be immense.

There is a growing concern among both individuals and policy makers in relevance to increasing CO2 emissions across the world. As a result, international organizations have started to pressurize economies to minimize their carbon emissions by increasing the share of clean energy consumption in total energy use. Hence, the goal of this paper is to empirically explore to what extent both domestic (stock market) and foreign (FDI inflows) capital affect clean energy uses across the EU, the G20, and OECD, spanning the period 1993–2012. The results of long-run elasticities document that both FDI and stock market developments play a significant role in promoting clean energy uses across all three-country groups. The results also suggest that clean energy consumption has a considerable positive and negative effect on economic output and CO2 emissions, respectively, while the political globalization has a substantial negative impact on carbon emissions across the EU, the G20 and OECD economies. ; N/A

Bangladesh is a globally important emerging economy with rapidly increasing energy demand. The Bangladeshi government's primary capacity expansion plan is to install 13.3 GW of new coal by 2021, including the 1.3 GW Rampal coal power plant to be developed in the Sundarbans. Inadequate geospatial and economic information on clean energy investment opportunities are often a significant barrier for policy makers. Our study helps fill this gap by applying a new method to assess energy investment opportunities, with focus on understanding land-use conflicts, particularly important in this context as Bangladesh is constrained on land for agriculture, human settlements, and ecological preservation. By extending a geospatial multi-criteria analysis model (MapRE) we analyze the cost of various renewable energy generation technologies based on resource availability and key siting criteria such as proximity to transmission and exclusion from steep slopes, dense settlements or ecologically sensitive areas. We find there is more utility-scale solar potential than previously estimated, which can be developed at lower costs than coal power and with minimal cropland tradeoff. We also find significant potential for decentralized roof-top solar in commercial and residential areas. Even with a conservative land use program that reserves maximum land for agriculture and human settlement, there is more renewable energy capacity than needed to support Bangladeshi growth. This study provides critical and timely information for capacity expansion planning in South Asia and demonstrates the use of geospatial models to support decision-making in data-limited contexts.

Central and Eastern Europe, in the heartland of Eurasia, is an important region for the mutual construction of the "Belt and Road", and also a key region for foreign cooperation of China's energy industry. According to the renewable energy development goals of Central and Eastern European countries, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will increase to more than 25% by 2030. The renewable energy will become one of the important routes to achieve energy transformation and clean emissions in Central and Eastern Europe. At present, the proportion of renewable energy consumption in some Central and Eastern European countries is still significantly lower than the EU's 2030 target; therefore, the pace of energy transformation will be further accelerated. Since China has advanced technology and rich experience in wind power, hydro-power, photovoltaic, nuclear power and other clean energy fields, it can cooperate with Central and Eastern European countries in green energy project development, smart grid, engineering construction, pipe network construction and other fields. The cooperation between the two sides is highly complementary, conforms to the theme of the era of global sustainable development, vigorously promoting the green development of the "Belt and Road", and consolidating the people-to-people bond of jointly building the "Belt and Road". This study focuses on the energy development trend of China and Central and Eastern European countries, explores the cooperation paths of the two sides in the energy field, and puts forward targeted reference suggestions for further deepening cooperation between the two sides.

This paper examines the impact of clean energy consumption (CEC) on economic growth (EG) and CO2 emissions (CO2) within a framework of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in a panel of BRICS countries for the period 1992–2014. The results indicated that CEC and EG have a significant positive impact on EG, while CO2 has a negative impact on it. Our results also found that EC and EG increase CO2 while CEC significantly reduces it. Further, we found that the EKC hypothesis is valid in the BRICS countries. Finally, panel causality test indicated that unidirectional causality running from EC to EG. However, we did not find a causal relationship between CEC and EG. Based on these results, some of the policy implications have proposed for these emerging market economies.