Global and local carbon footprints of city of Hong Kong and Macao from 2000 to 2015

Hong Kong and Macao are featured with their urban metabolism as they heavily rely on the energy and resource supply from other regions. However, a comprehensive perspective is lacked to depict their CO2 emissions due to the independence of statistical data. Here we analyze the carbon footprints of Hong Kong and Macao. The direct energy-related emissions (Scope 1), the emissions of cross-boundary electricity (Scope 2), and the embodied emissions associated with trade (Scope 3) are examined. Scope 1 carbon footprints of the two areas were stabilized at 50 Mt, accounting for 0.6% of those from Mainland China in 2018. Their global footprints were approximately three times of their Scope 1 emissions, accompanied by a continuous growth between 2000 and 2015, and the contribution of their local footprints has doubled on average. Their Scope 3 emissions were mainly due to the enormous unfavorable balance of trade. Meanwhile, the increasing impact of imports' higher emission intensity on their Scope 3 emissions should not be ignored. We suggest that Hong Kong and Macao should adjust their mitigation policies that focus only on Scope 1 emissions as developed cities outsourcing production through supply chains

Written sentence context effects on acoustic-phonetic perception: fMRI reveals cross-modal semantic-perceptual interactions

Available online 3 October 2019.This study examines cross-modality effects of a semantically-biased written sentence context on the perception of an acoustically-ambiguous word target identifying neural areas sensitive to interactions between sentential bias and phonetic ambiguity. Of interest is whether the locus or nature of the interactions resembles those previously demonstrated for auditory-only effects. FMRI results show significant interaction effects in right mid-middle temporal gyrus (RmMTG) and bilateral anterior superior temporal gyri (aSTG), regions along the ventral language comprehension stream that map sound onto meaning. These regions are more anterior than those previously identified for auditory-only effects; however, the same cross-over interaction pattern emerged implying similar underlying computations at play. The findings suggest that the mechanisms that integrate information across modality and across sentence and phonetic levels of processing recruit amodal areas where reading and spoken lexical and semantic access converge. Taken together, results support interactive accounts of speech and language processing.This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, NIDCD grant RO1 DC006220

An emissions-socioeconomic inventory of Chinese cities

As the centre of human activity and being under the threat of climate change, cities are considered to be major components in the implementation of climate change mitigation and CO2 emission reduction strategies. Inventories of cities’ emissions serve as the foundation for the analysis of emissions characteristics and policymaking. China is the world’s top energy consumer and CO2 emitter, and it is facing great potential harm from climate change. Consequently, China is taking increasing responsibility in the fight against global climate change. Many energy/emissions control policies have been implemented in China, most of which are designed at the national level. However, cities are at different stages of industrialization and have distinct development pathways; they need specific control policies designed based on their current emissions characteristics. This study is the first to construct emissions inventories for 182 Chinese cities. The inventories are constructed using 17 fossil fuels and 47 socioeconomic sectors. These city-level emissions inventories have a scope and format consistent with China’s national/provincial inventories. Some socioeconomic data of the cities, such as GDP, population, industrial structures, are included in the datasets as well. The dataset provides transparent, accurate, complete, comparable, and verifiable data support for further city-level emissions studies and low-carbon/sustainable development policy design. The dataset also offers insights for other countries by providing an emissions accounting method with limited data

Quantification and scenario analysis of CO2 emissions from the central heating supply system in China from 2006 to 2025

Policies associated with the central heating supply system affect the livelihoods of people in China. With the extensive consumption of energy for central heating, large quantities of CO2 emissions are produced each year. Coal-fired heating boiler plants are the primary source of emissions; however, thermal power plants are becoming much more prevalent, and gas-fired heating boiler plants remain uncommon. This study quantified the amount of CO2 emitted from the central heating supply system in China using a mass balance method with updated emission factors from the IPCC. Emissions increased from 189.04 Tg to 319.39 Tg between 2006 and 2015. From a spatial perspective, regions with larger central heating areas, durations and coverages produced more CO2 emissions. The central heating method depends on the level of electric power consumption, policies and regulations, and resource reserves at the local scale. Compared with the use of only coal-fired heating boiler plants to provide central heating, using thermal power plants and gas-fired heating boiler plants reduced CO2 emissions by 98.19 Tg in 2015 in China. A comparison of the CO2 emissions under various central heating scenarios showed that emissions will be 520.97 Tg, 308.79 Tg and 191.86 Tg for business as usual, positive and optimal scenarios through 2025, respectively. China has acknowledged the considerable potential for reducing central heating and will make efforts to pursue improved heating strategies in the future

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with a worse prognosis in patients with heart failure: A pool analysis

Background and aimsNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with a higher risk of heart failure (HF) than those without NAFLD. However, the prognostic impact of NAFLD in HF is still controversial. This meta-analysis aimed to explore the association between NAFLD and the risk of adverse outcomes in patients with HF.MethodsWe searched multiple electronic databases (Embase, PubMed, and Google Scholar) for potentially related studies up to June 30, 2022. Cohort studies reported multivariable adjusted relative risks and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of adverse outcomes in HF patients with NAFLD comparing those without NAFLD were included for analysis.ResultsA total of six studies involving 12,374 patients with HF were included for analysis, with a median follow-up duration of 2.5 years. The pooled analysis showed that HF patients with NAFLD were associated with a significantly increased risk of major composite adverse outcomes (HR 1.61, 95% CI 1.25-2.07), all-cause mortality (HR 1.66, 95% CI 1.39-1.98), and HF hospitalization or re-hospitalization (HR 1.71, 95% CI 1.03-2.86).ConclusionNAFLD is associated with a worse prognosis in patients with HF. Effective screening and treatment strategies are needed to improve the prognosis in HF patients with NAFLD

Socioeconomic impact assessment of China's CO2 emissions peak prior to 2030

China is the largest emitter of carbon emissions in the world. In this paper, we present an Integrated Model of Economy and Climate (IMEC), an optimization model based on the input-output model. The model is designed to assess the tradeoff between emission deceleration and economic growth. Given that China's projected average growth rate will exceed 5% over the next two decades, we find that China may reach its peak CO2 emissions levels by 2026. According to this scenario, China's carbon emissions will peak at 11.20 Gt in 2026 and will then decline to 10.84 Gt in 2030. Accordingly, approximately 22 Gt of CO2 will be removed from 2015 to 2035 relative to the scenario wherein China's CO2 emissions peak in 2030. While this earlier peaking of carbon emissions will result in a decline in China's GDP, several sectors, such as Machinery and Education, will benefit. In order to reach peak CO2 emissions by 2026, China needs to reduce its annual GDP growth rate to less than 4.5% by 2030 and decrease energy and carbon intensity levels by 43% and 45%, respectively, from 2015 to 2030

Enlarging Regional Disparities in Energy Intensity within China

As energy saving and emission reduction become a global action, the disparity in energy intensity between different regions is a new rising problem that stems a country's or region's energy-saving potential. Here we collect China's provincial panel data (1995–2017) of primary and final energy consumption to evaluate China's unequal and polarized regional pattern in energy intensity, decompose the inequality index into contributing components, and investigate possible driving factors behind the unequal pattern both regionally and structurally, for the first time. The results show that China's interprovince disparities in energy intensity increase and are exacerbated by the enlarging disparities in energy intensity between the least developed and most developed regions of China. The causes for this phenomenon are as follows: (i) rather loose regulatory measures on mitigating coal consumption; (ii) inferior energy processing technology in areas specializing in energy-intensive industries; (iii) increasing interregional energy fluxes embodied in trade; and (iv) separate jurisdictions at provincial administrative levels. These factors can synthetically result in unintended spillover to areas with inferior green technologies, suggesting an increasingly uneven distribution of energy-intensive and carbon-intensive industries and usage of clean energy. The results reveal the necessities of regional coordination and cooperation to achieve a green economy