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This article investigates the impact of environmental regulations on energy consumption. As the main way for the government to protect the environment, the implementation of environmental pollution tax has played an important role in China's energy consumption. This article uses data from the implementation of environmental pollution tax in Chinese cities to match with urban energy consumption data, and uses the difference-in-difference method (DID) to estimate the impact of environmental regulations on energy consumption. We find that the implementation of environmental pollution tax has reduced energy consumption, but this effect is mainly effective in the central and western regions and two-controlled areas. Further analysis shows that the reduction of energy consumption by environmental pollution tax is mainly attributed to improving technological innovation capabilities, optimizing industrial structure, and increasing tax collection intensity. The results in this study provide evidence for achieving an environmentally friendly society and sustainable development.

Transboundary water pollution is a long-standing problem in China, although the Chinese government has been committed to the protection of water resources. Due to the different interests of multilevel governments and the regionalization of management, there is still no unified plan to solve the transboundary water pollution in China. Watershed ecological compensation as a holistic plan to deal with transboundary water pollution is being promoted currently. Taking the South-to-North Water Transfer Project&rsquo ; eastern route as an example, this paper firstly analyses stakeholders&rsquo ; strategies and establishes a tripartite game model based on evolutionary game theory. Secondly, by introducing Cobb Douglas production function creatively, the supervision level of the central government is refined into supervisory attitude and supervisory skills. Thirdly, the numerical simulation is used to analyze the sensitivity of influencing factors. The results show that: (1) whether the central government supervises the local governments mainly depends on the benefits of water environment improvement and supervision costs ; (2) the initial negotiation plan of the stakeholders has a significant impact on their optimum strategies ; (3) the fines imposed by the central government on the local governments have a small impact on the stable state of the system ; (4) the higher the eco-compensation fee, the lower their likelihood of cooperation ; (5) the central government&rsquo ; s supervisory attitude and supervisory skills have significant effect on the sustainability of the optimum arrangement, even when willingness of upstream and downstream governments to cooperate is low ; (6) the initial ecological benefits of downstream governments have no effect on the optimum strategy. Therefore, considering these insights is helpful to improve the watershed ecological compensation mechanism in order to solve transboundary water pollution and achieve the sustainability of water resources.

The sustainable development of socioeconomic and environmental systems are highly dependent on water capital and water utilization efficiency. Nowadays, a significant portion of the world is facing water security issues due to a combination of various factors. As a result, socioeconomic and environmental systems are threatened. China is also currently experiencing problems. Water security assessment helps to identify key determining factors for optimal water utilization, so the authors present the Driving Forces-Pressures-Carrying Capacity-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSCIR) water security assessment framework. Unlike previous methods, the proposed framework incorporates the carrying capacity of the environment, and as a result, yields assessment results that are more realistic. As a case study, the proposed framework coupled with the entropy method is applied to assess the water security status of the One Belt and One Road (B& ; R) region in China. In addition, the water security level of the provinces and municipalities in this region are simulated for the time period from 2017 to 2022 using the Grey Prediction Model. The results show that Responses, State, Pressures, and Carrying Capacity Subsystems greatly influence water security of the region. According to the assessment, water security of the area improved from 2011 to 2016. The results portray the following trend among the three subregions of the study area, the water security of the 21st Maritime Silk Road (One Road) area is better than Silk Road Economic Belt (One Belt) and the Strategy Support and Pivotal Gateway (SSPG) of B& ; R areas. Generally, from the evaluation results it can be concluded that only focusing on the subsystem of Responses cannot entirely address the water security problems within the B& ; R area. Therefore, to ensure sustainable water security in the region and in the country, the government needs to design water resource management mechanisms that take all the subsystems into account.

Previous research stresses that system justifying belief can weaken corruption perception, by this possibly fostering unjust behaviors. However, general results of the effect of general system justification on corruption are ambiguous, indicating also a lessening impact. We conducted a line of studies trying to elucidate these circumstances by testing the effect of general system justification on corruption perception and intention. In addition, we explored institutional trust as a possible mediator in this process. For this purpose, we conducted three studies. The first two studies examined the association between general system justification and corruption. In Study 1, a correlational design was run using questionnaires to assess the relation between general system justification and corruption perception as well as corruption intention. In Study 2, an experimental design was conducted manipulating general system justification via exposure to high or low system threat condition, then measuring its effect on corruption perception and corrupt intention. In Study 3, two sub-studies using correlational and experimental designs were run to explore the mediating role of institutional trust, respectively. Results replicated former studies showing that general system justification is negatively associated with corruption perception. However, they also showed a negative correlation with corrupt intention. Furthermore, they showed that institutional trust mediated the relation between general system justification and corruption. We suggest to consider these findings to further elucidate the psychological basis underlying different effects of general system justification on human behaviors.