Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 8213.

This study provides bottom-up emissions from global cement production and reveals the regional shifts. It further explores cement emissions over 2020-2050 that correspond to different housing and infrastructure conditions and emissions mitigation options for all developing countries except China. Read more...

Nature Geosciences, 2023, 16, 932–934.

The rapid spread of solar power plants onto cropland is having increasingly detrimental impacts. Targeted policy and technological solutions are urgently needed to resolve the tension between renewable energy and food production. Read more...

Science Bulletin, 2023, 68(20), 2456-2466.

Inter-city supply chains that link the production and consumption of cities are a factor in shaping inequality and mitigation but less considered aggregately. Here, we modelled supply chains of 309 Chinese cities for 2012 to quantify carbon footprint inequality, as well as explored a leverage opportunity to achieve an inclusive low-carbon transition. Read more...

Nature Energy, 2023, 8, 304-316.

The Russia–Ukraine conflict has triggered an energy crisis that directly affected household energy costs for heating, cooling and mobility and indirectly pushed up the costs of other goods and services throughout global supply chains. Here we bridge a global multi-regional input–output database with detailed household-expenditure data to model the direct and indirect impacts of increased energy prices on 201 expenditure groups in 116 countries. Read more...

Nature Food, 2023, 4, 483–495.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to food consumption complement production-based or territorial accounts by capturing carbon leaked through trade. Here we evaluate global consumption-based food emissions between 2000 and 2019 and underlying drivers using a physical trade flow approach and structural decomposition analysis. Read more...

Nature Sustainability, 2023, 6, 587–598.

In our globalized economy, the consumption of goods and services induces economic benefits but also environmental pressures and impacts around the world. Consumption levels are especially high in the current 27 member countries of the European Union (EU), which are some of the wealthiest economies in the world. Here, we determine the global distribution of ten selected environmental pressures and impacts, as well as value added induced by EU consumption from 1995 to 2019. Read more...

Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 2727.

Capital assets such as machinery and infrastructure contribute substantially to CO2 emissions over their lifetime. Unique features of capital assets such as their long durability complicate the assignment of capital-associated CO2 emissions to final beneficiaries. Whereas conventional approaches allocate emissions required to produce capital assets to the year of formation, we propose an alternative perspective through allocating required emissions from the production of assets over their entire lifespans. Read more...

Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 3144

The low-carbon power transition, which is key to combatting climate change, has far-reaching effects on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of issues such as resource use, environmental emissions, employment, and many more. Here, we assess the potential impacts of the power transition on progress toward achieving multiple SDGs (covering 18 targets across the 17 goals) across 49 economies under nine socioeconomic and climate scenarios. Read more...

Patterns, 2023, 4, 100760.

Emerging economies are predicted to be future emission hotspots due to expected levels of urbanization and industrialization, and their CO2 emissions are receiving more scrutiny. We firstly compile energy-related emissions of 30 selective emerging economies from 2010 to 2018. Then, three growth patterns of emissions in these economies have been identified through emission data, which imply different low-carbon pathways. Read more...

The Innovation Geosciences, 2023, 1, 100015

The sustainability of life on Earth is under increasing threat due to human-induced climate change. This perilous change in the Earth's climate is caused by increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily due to emissions associated with burning fossil fuels. Read more...

Science Bulletin, 2023, 68, 1899-1905.

The health threats posed by climate change in China are increasing rapidly. Each province faces different health risks. Without a timely and adequate response, climate change will impact lives and livelihoods at an accelerated rate and even prevent the achievement of the Healthy and Beautiful China initiatives. The 2021 China Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is the first annual update of China’s Report of the Lancet Countdown. Read more...

Science Bulletin, 2022, 67, 1910-1920.

China is playing an increasing role in global climate change mitigation, and local authorities need more city-specific information on the emissions trends and patterns when designing low-carbon policies. This study provides the most comprehensive CO2 emission inventories of 287 Chinese cities from 2001 to 2019. We further investigate the state of the emission peak in each city and reveal hidden driving forces. Read more...

Nature Sustainability, 2022, 5, 311–320.

Wealth and income are disproportionately distributed among the global population. This has direct consequences on consumption patterns and consumption-based carbon footprints, resulting in carbon inequality. Due to persistent inequality, millions of people still live in poverty today. On the basis of global expenditure data, we compute country- and expenditure-specific per capita carbon footprints with unprecedented details. Read more...

National Science Review, 2022, 9, nwac223.

International efforts to avoid dangerous climate change have historically focused on reducing energy-related CO2 emissions from countries with either the largest economies (e.g. the EU and the USA) and/or the largest populations (e.g. China and India). Here, we analyse the trends and drivers of emissions in each of the 59 countries where emissions in 2010–2018 grew faster than the global average (excluding China and India), project their emissions under a range of longer-term energy scenarios and estimate the costs of decarbonization pathways. Read more...

Nature Climate Change, 2021, 11, 200-206.

The global economy is facing a serious recession due to COVID-19, with implications for CO2 emissions. Here, using a global adaptive multiregional input–output model and scenarios of lockdown and fiscal counter measures, we show that global emissions from economic sectors will decrease by 3.9 to 5.6% in 5 years (2020 to 2024) compared with a no-pandemic baseline scenario. Read more...

One Earth, 2021, 4, 124-134.

Cities contribute to over 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and account for at least 75% of global CO2 emissions. As such, they are well placed to lead climate change mitigation efforts. Decoupling economic growth from emissions is key to low-carbon development, particularly in fast-growing countries, such as China. In this work, we estimated CO2 emissions for 294 Chinese cities and examined the extent to which economic development is decoupled from emissions. Read more...

The Lancet Public Health, 2021, 6, E932-E947.

China, with its growing population and economic development, faces increasing risks to health from climate change, but also opportunities to address these risks and protect health for generations to come. Without a timely and adequate response, climate change will impact lives and livelihoods at an accelerated rate. Read more...

One Earth, 2021, 4, 1114-1126.

The oil refining industry remains the third-largest stationary emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, contributing 4% of the total global emissions in 2018. Ever-expanding fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure will hinder the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C by 2100. Our research investigates the current emission patterns of global oil refineries and their emission reduction potential by developing a time-series, technical-specific inventory of global refineries' CO2 emissions. Read more...

Nature Food, 2020, 1, 552–561.

China has a rapidly growing online food delivery and takeaway market, serving 406 million customers with 10.0 billion orders and generating 323 kilotonnes of tableware and packaging waste in 2018. Here we use a top-down approach with city-level takeaway order data to explore the packaging waste and life-cycle environmental impacts of the takeaway industry in China. Read more...

Nature Climate Change, 2020, 10, 647-653.

Government policies during the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically altered patterns of energy demand around the world. Many international borders were closed and populations were confined to their homes, which reduced transport and changed consumption patterns. Here we compile government policies and activity data to estimate the decrease in CO2 emissions during forced confinements. Read more...

Nature Communications, 2020, 11, 5492.

This study seeks to estimate how global supply chain relocates emissions of tropospheric ozone precursors and its impacts in shaping ozone formation. Read more...

One Earth, 2019, 1, 240-253.

This research shows that patterns of carbon emissions have changed dramatically upon entering the new normal phase. It is found that gains in energy efficiency and changes in consumption patterns are crucial in achieving a low-carbon transition and long-term sustainability in China. Read more...

Joule, 2019, 3, 1163-1168.

In this Commentary, we study the changes in energy drivers for the provinces with observed declines in their primary energy consumption and discuss how their drivers are different from the others. This study highlights the opportunity for structural declines in terms of energy consumption at the provincial level in China. Read more...

One Earth, 2019, 1, 126-137.

Urban sustainability is essential to ensure equality among and the well-being of city citizens, yet most studies focus on individual cities and ignore the vital intercity supply-chain connections. Our research investigates the flows of carbon and water within the Hebei-Beijing-Tianjin urban network in China and reveals a clear imbalance. Read more...

Science Advances, 2018, 4, eaaq0390.

As national efforts to reduce CO2 emissions intensify, policy-makers need increasingly specific, subnational information about the sources of CO2 and the potential reductions and economic implications of different possible policies. This is particularly true in China, a large and economically diverse country that has rapidly industrialized and urbanized and that has pledged under the Paris Agreement that its emissions will peak by 2030. We present new, city-level estimates of CO2 emissions for 182 Chinese cities, decomposed into 17 different fossil fuels, 46 socioeconomic sectors, and 7 industrial processes. Read more...

Nature Geosciences, 2018, 11, 551–555.

As part of the Paris Agreement, China pledged to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. In retrospect, the commitment may have been fulfilled as it was being made—China’s emissions peaked in 2013 at a level of 9.53 gigatons of CO2, and have declined in each year from 2014 to 2016. However, the prospect of maintaining the continuance of these reductions depends on the relative contributions of different changes in China. Here, we quantitatively evaluate the drivers of the peak and decline of China’s CO2 emissions between 2007 and 2016 using the latest available energy, economic and industry data. Read more...

Scientific Data, 2018, 5, 170201. 

China is the world’s top energy consumer and CO2 emitter, accounting for 30% of global emissions. Compiling an accurate accounting of China’s CO2 emissions is the first step in implementing reduction policies. In this study, we constructed the time-series of CO2 emission inventories for China and its 30 provinces. We followed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions accounting method with a territorial administrative scope. The inventories include energy-related emissions (17 fossil fuels in 47 sectors) and process-related emissions (cement production). Read more...

Nature Communications, 2017, 8, 1712.

This study seeks to estimate the carbon implications of recent changes in China’s economic development patterns and role in global trade in the post-financial-crisis era. We utilised the latest socioeconomic datasets to compile China’s 2012 multiregional input-output (MRIO) table. Environmentally extended input-output analysis and structural decomposition analysis (SDA) were applied to investigate the driving forces behind changes in CO2 emissions embodied in China’s domestic and foreign trade from 2007 to 2012. Read more...