Promoting Systematic Transformation of China’s Economy and Society under the Goal of Carbon Neutrality and Peaking Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Since September 2020,President Xi Jinping has reiterated to the world that China will achieve the goal to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060,which reflects China’s role as a great power in coping with global climate change and highlights China’s determination to accelerate green and low-carbon development.

Radical innovation breakthroughs of biodegradation of plastics by insects:history,present and future perspectives

Insects damaging and penetrating plastic packaged materials has been reported since the 1950s.Radical innovation breakthroughs of plastic biodegradation have been initiated since the discovery of biodegradation of plastics by Tenebrio molitor larvae in 2015 followed by Galleria mellonella in 2017.Here we review updated studies on the insect-mediated biodegradation of plastics.Plastic biodegradation by insect larvae,mainly by some species of darkling beetles(Tenebrionidae)and pyralid moths(Pyralidae)is currently a highly active and potentially transformative area of research.Over the past eight years,publications have increased explosively,including discoveries of the ability of different insect species to biodegrade plastics,biodegradation performance,and the contribution of host and microbiomes,impacts of polymer types and their physic-chemical properties,and responsible enzymes secreted by the host and gut microbes.To date,almost all major plastics including polyethylene(PE),polypropylene(PP),polyvinyl chloride(PVC),polyethylene terephthalate(PET),polyurethane(PUR),and polystyrene(PS)can be biodegraded by T.molitor and ten other insect species representing the Tenebrionidae and Pyralidae families.The biodegradation processes are symbiotic reactions or performed by synergistic efforts of both host and gut-microbes to rapidly depolymerize and biodegrade plastics with hourly half-lives.The digestive ezymens and bioreagents screted by the insects play an essential role in plasatic biodegradation in certain species of Tenebrionidae and Pyralidae families.New research on the insect itself,gut microbiomes,transcriptomes,proteomes and metabolomes has evaluated the mechanisms of plastic biodegradation in insects.We conclude this review by discussing future research perspectives on insect-mediated biodegradation of plastics.

SCC-UEFAS, an urban-ecological-feature based assessment system for sponge city construction

An effective sponge city construction evaluation system plays a crucial role in evaluating sponge city construction schemes.The construction of a sponge city evaluation system still faces challenges related to incomplete index selection and unscientific weight division.Limited studies have focused on the comprehensive assessment of sponge city construction in the early stages.This study constructed a scientific assessment indicator system and a quantitative indicator weight at all levels by literature review and statistical analysis methods from an objective perspective.To demonstrate how to utilize our evaluation methods,three construction schemes randomly generated by MATLAB were evaluated under evaluation states of constant weight and variable weight,respectively.Scheme 3 had the highest score of 0.638 under the constant weight assessment,but it cannot practically be the final construction scheme due to the imbalance between indicators.Compared to the constant weight assessment,a variable weight assessment can effectively balance the states of the evaluation index with changes in the decision variable.Among the three schemes,Scheme 2 is the best choice with a value of 0.0355 under variable weight evaluation due to punishment and incentives in the variable weight method.The concept of“punishing”a disadvantageous indicator and“motivating”an advantageous indicator increases the relative advantages of the indices,ultimately affecting the assessment results of schemes and leading to a more balanced state.This study provides reasonable analysis and decision-making mechanisms to support decision-making and guide the scientific selection of a construction scheme.