Critical Transmission Paths of Aggregate Embodied Carbon Emission Influencing Factors in China

Carbon emissions, being embedded in sectorial production chains, need to be reduced through targeted carbon emission reduction strategies. For such a reason, it is urgent to assess the contributions of different influencing factors among different sectors for different supply chains. Focused on China, being the world’s largest carbon emitter, this paper uses the latest 2018 China’s input-output table to assess different factors, at sectoral scale, related to embodied carbon emissions. The analysis proved that the total final use factor prompted the largest emission growth, while the input-output structure factor inhibited the emission increase significantly. The gross fixed capital formation category was the largest contributor to aggregate embodied carbon emission growth, followed by urban consumption and export categories. The construction was identified as a key sector for its embodied carbon emission, the most relevant intermediate inputs to construction sector are the manufacture of non-metallic mineral products, the smelting and rolling of metals, and the production and supply of electric power and heat power sectors. Results indicate that, in the case of China, low-carbon building materials should be favored in the future. Meanwhile, energy-saving should be promoted among urban residents to increase the effectiveness of carbon emissions reduction strategies

University-Campus-Based Zero-Carbon Action Plans for Accelerating the Zero-Carbon City Transition

After three decades of global climate initiatives, local governments’ capabilities to implement policies and solutions have not always been effective in making the urban environment more resilient and adaptive to climate change. All the previous climatic initiatives and decisions were mostly carried out by governments or affiliated actors on global or regional scales. However, the lack of notable climate actions at the community level is evident in the current crisis of urban sustainability. To drive a radical change toward a zero-carbon transition at the city scale, massive decarbonization is required at the institutional level (academic/nonacademic campus) of a city. Among all the nongovernmental actors, it is always expected that Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) would take the lead in promoting a resilient and sustainable future for the cities through their education, research, and innovation. HEIs’ multidimensional activity resembles the “small scale model of a city” interacting with different subsystems like education, administration, transport, housing, health, etc. However, the present studies were found to be mostly based on specific regions and developed countries. In addition, the previously developed methods of assessing energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the university level lack adaptability for other countries and urban settings. Following the need for a comprehensive method of evaluating energy consumption and accelerating the zero-carbon practice to a broader scale, a new framework is proposed here for a university campus. It can be implemented regardless of the campus type and geographic and weather conditions. After implementing the evaluation methods on a 753-acre campus of Rajshahi University, the campus typology and natural resources were identified. Following that, the behavior patterns of the users in terms of energy usage and waste generation were also determined. Finally, the results show that 1900.71 tons of CO2 was emitted in the academic year 2022. The per-capita CO2 emission was 0.041 tons of CO2. To boost the zero-carbon city transition, three core parameters of scaling-up methods were taken into consideration to evaluate the benefits of zero-carbon campuses. The scalability of the zero-carbon practices was evaluated based on the ideas of (1) expansion—how educating future generations about the environment can have a long-lasting impact, (2) demonstration—adopting innovative practical and technological solutions to exhibit the benefits of zero-carbon practices to society, and (3) collaboration—building strong alliances with state and nonstate actors of the city to promote sustainability through sharing knowledge, innovation, and technology