Greening the Belt and Road Initiative: Evidence from emergy evaluation of China’s provincial trade with ASEAN countries

The Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)is a central policy within China’s regional development and foreign trade strategy.Traditional trade has typically depended on economic valuation of resources,while the embedded environmental value is rarely considered.This situation exists in most BRI trade evaluations.To address BRI environmental sustainability issues,we consider the role of pivotal Chinese provinces and their key trade partners(ASEAN countries)as an illustration for the environmental value of resource exchanges.Emergy accounting is used as the valuation tool for a sample period of seventeen years.Key results include:(1)Emergy valuations show sustainability of sample provinces decreased over time;(2)ASEAN countries such as Indonesia,Malaysia,Singapore,Thailand,and Vietnam play significant resource roles for provincial economic systems;(3)Diverse trends in trade between pivotal provinces and ASEAN countries resulted in an unbalanced trade structure from trade.Policy implications are proposed to promote a more globally sustainable and fair trade using BRI as an established trade policy.

Spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors for GHG emissions of aluminum industry in China

China’s aluminum(Al)production has released a huge amount of greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions.As one of the biggest country of primary Al production,China must mitigate its overall GHG emission from its Al industry so that the national carbon neutrality target can be achieved.Under such a background,the study described in this paper conducts a dynamic material flow analysis to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution features of Al flows in China from 2000 to 2020.Decomposition analysis is also performed to uncover the driving factors of GHG emission generated from the Al industry.The major findings include the fact that China’s primary Al production center has transferred to the western region;the primary Al smelting and carbon anode consumption are the most carbonintensive processes in the Al life cycle;the accumulative GHG emission from electricity accounts for 78.14% of the total GHG emission generated from the Al industry;China’s current Al recycling ratio is low although the corresponding GHG emission can be reduced by 93.73% if all the primary Al can be replaced by secondary Al;and the total GHG emission can be reduced by 88.58% if major primary Al manufacturing firms are transferred from Inner Mongolia to Yunnan.Based upon these findings and considering regional disparity,several policy implications are proposed,including promotion of secondary Al production,support of clean electricity penetration,and relocation of the Al industry.

Toward carbon neutrality:Uncovering constraints on critical minerals in the Chinese power system

China has set up its ambitious carbon neutrality target,which mainly relies on significant energy-related carbon emissions reduction.As the largest important contributing sector,power sector must achieve energy transition,in which critical minerals will play an essential role.However,the potential supply and demand for these minerals are uncertain.This study aims to predict the cumulative demand for critical minerals in the power sector under different scenarios via dynamic material flow analysis(DMFA),including total demands,supplies and production capacities of different minerals.Then,these critical minerals are categorized into superior and scarce resources for further analysis so that more detailed results can be obtained.Results present that the total minerals supply will not meet the total minerals demand(74260 kt)in 2060.Serious resource shortages will occur for several key minerals,such as Cr,Cu,Mn,Ag,Te,Ga,and Co.In addition,the demand for renewable energy will be nearly fifty times higher than that of fossil fuels energy,implying more diversified demands for various minerals.Finally,several policy recommendations are proposed to help improve the overall resource efficiency,such as strategic reserves,material substitutions,and circular economy.