Eco-climate drivers shape virome diversity in a globally invasive tick species.

Spillovers of viruses into human occur more frequently under warmer conditions, particularly arboviruses. The invasive tick species Haemaphysalis longicornis poses a significant public health threat due to its global expansion and its potential to carry a wide range of pathogens. We analyzed meta-transcriptomic data from 3595 adult H. longicornis ticks collected between 2016 and 2019 in 22 provinces across China, encompassing diverse ecological conditions. Generalized additive modelling revealed that climate factors exerted a stronger influence on the virome of H. longicornis compared to other ecological factors, such as ecotypes, distance to coastline, animal host, tick gender, and anti-viral immunity. We investigated the mechanistic understanding of how climate changes drive the tick virome using causality inference and emphasized its significance for public health. Our findings demonstrated that higher temperatures and lower relative humidity/precipitation contribute to variations in animal host diversity, leading to an increased diversity of tick virome, particularly the evenness of vertebrate associated viruses. This finding may explain the evolution of tick-borne viruses into generalists across multiple hosts, thereby increasing the probability of spillover events involving tick-borne pathogens. Deep learning projections indicate that the diversity of H. longicornis virome is expected to increase in 81.9% of regions under the SSP8.5 scenario from 2019-2030. Extension of surveillance should be implemented to avert the spread of tick-borne diseases.

A net-zero emissions strategy for China's power sector using carbon-capture utilization and storage.

Decarbonized power systems are critical to mitigate climate change, yet methods to achieve a reliable and resilient near-zero power system are still under exploration. This study develops an hourly power system simulation model considering high-resolution geological constraints for carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage to explore the optimal solution for a reliable and resilient near-zero power system. This is applied to 31 provinces in China by simulating 10,450 scenarios combining different electricity storage durations and interprovincial transmission capacities, with various shares of abated fossil power with carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage. Here, we show that allowing up to 20% abated fossil fuel power generation in the power system could reduce the national total power shortage rate by up to 9.0 percentages in 2050 compared with a zero fossil fuel system. A lowest-cost scenario with 16% abated fossil fuel power generation in the system even causes 2.5% lower investment costs in the network (or $16.8 billion), and also increases system resilience by reducing power shortage during extreme climatic events.

Assessment of potential, cost, and environmental benefits of CCS-EWR technology for coal-fired power plants in Yellow River Basin of China.

As an effective emission reduction approach, CO2 capture and storage (CCS) combined with enhanced water recovery (EWR) technology can not only reduce CO2 emissions, but can also recover deep saline water resources to relieve pressure on regional water resources, and can ensure the energy supply and both social and economic development. However, the environmental benefits and application costs of CCS-EWR are uncertain, and are determined by the technology level, geological conditions, and other physical factors. In this study, an optimal source-sink matching model and a techno-economic assessment model were developed to evaluate the contributions of CCS-EWR to carbon emission reduction and the increase of the water supply by considering various uncertain factors, as well as the corresponding costs. In addition, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) in China was selected as the research region because, while there are abundant coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in the YRB, the water resources are scarce. The results revealed the following. (1) The maximum CO2 capture capacity of the 236 CFPPs in the YRB is about 738.77 Mt/a, and nearly 13.14 Gt of fresh water could be provided until the 236 CFPPs in the YRB retire, which can partially relieve the pressure on the supply of water resources. (2) With the consideration of the CCS-EWR benefits, the average cost of the 236 CFPPs in the YRB in their residual lifetime to reduce their CO2 emissions by 90% will be no more than 180 CNY/t. (3) The incentive effect of the increase of the industrial water price on the profits of CCS-EWR projects is not significant. CCS-EWR technology has better application prospects in China under the dual constraints of carbon-neutral targets and water shortages, and more policy support is required for its deployment.

How does "the Belt and Road" and the Sino-US trade conflict affect global and Chinese CO2 emissions?

In the context of the rapid development of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative, the continuous transfer of Sino-US trade to the B&R countries is an important means to mitigate the threat of Sino-US trade, and the environmental impact of this transfer should be considered, so as to provide a scientific basis for China's policy formulation about achieving this possible trade transfer with minimized environmental impacts. This study proposes a multiregional input-output model and analyzes the impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of transferring the Sino-US trade to the B&R countries for two types of scenarios. The results show the following: (1) A transfer of either the import trade or the export trade increases global and Chinese CO2 emissions by 81.76 Mt and 24.84 Mt, respectively. When both the import trade and export trade are transferred, the increases in CO2 emissions are only 0.22% and 0.26%, respectively. (2) Globally, the changes in international trade-embodied CO2 emissions are responsible for most of the global emission changes, especially the CO2 emissions exported from Russia, India, and many Southeast Asian countries to China. (3) Different from the impact on global emissions, the increases in Chinese domestic production-based CO2 emissions influence China's total CO2 emissions. Due to the imported CO2 emissions, the consumption-based CO2 emissions are affected to a greater degree and increase by 70.30 Mt, accounting for only 0.86% of the CO2 emissions in 2015. Finally, some policy implications are proposed.

Inequality of household energy and water consumption in China: An input-output analysis.

Household consumption activities affect energy and water consumption directly and indirectly. Based on input-output modeling, this paper divided Chinese urban and rural residents into 12 groups, and investigated the impact of the consumption activities of residents with different levels of income on China's energy and water consumption from the perspective of consumers. Two main results were found. 1) In 2012, the energy consumption caused by the consumption activities of the highest-income urban residents accounted for 17.3% of the total energy consumption. For water resources, the per capita water withdrawal and consumption of the highest-income urban residents reached 481.21 m3 and 284.45 thousand m3, 6 times more than that of the low-income rural residents. 2) We identified medium and medium-high income urban residents as the key groups of residents. From the perspective of the industrial sectors, the key sectors for high energy consumption and water usage included the Electricity and Agricultural sectors, and we identified the Electricity sector as the key sector for the water and energy nexus of the residential sectors. The conclusions of this paper have pertinence for policymaking, and they provide an appropriate policy basis for guiding residents' energy and water consumption.

The impact of climate change on residential energy consumption in urban and rural divided southern and northern China.

In different regions of China, climate change has various influences on urban and rural residential energy consumption, which also shows that the research on it could be profoundly vital in order to formulate the energy-saving and emission-reducing policies. Based the provincial panel data from 2000-2016, the extended stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology (extended STIRPAT) model was utilized to evaluate the impacts of climate change on residential energy consumption in different Chinese regions. The results show that: (1) during 2000 to 2016, the urban and rural energy consumption enlarged by 878.83 billion kWh and 488.98 billion kWh, respectively. In addition, electricity and oil have occupied more proportion in urban energy consumption, while coal still plays an important role in rural residential energy consumption (28.2%). (2) Heating degree day (HDD) and cooling degree day (CDD) have positive influences on urban and rural residential energy consumption in different areas, and the elastic coefficients are 0.028-0.371 and 0.066-0.158, respectively. (3) The elastic coefficient of CDD in urban areas of southern regions (0.158) is much larger than that in northern regions (0.068).

Decomposition analysis of energy-related CO2 emission in the industrial sector of China: Evidence from the LMDI approach.

Energy consumption and increasing CO2 emissions in China are mainly indorsed to the industrial sector. The objective of this study was to explore the main factors driving CO2 emissions in China's industry throughout 1991-2016. Based on the log-mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, this study decomposes the change of industry-related CO2 emissions into energy structure effect, income effect, energy intensity effect, carbon emission, and labor effect. The core results indicate that CO2 emissions in China's industry experienced a significant increase from 738.5 to 7271.8 Mt during 1991-2013, while it decreased to 6844.0 Mt in 2016. The income effect and labor effect are the top two emitters, which accounted for increases of 351.8 Mt and 57.8 Mt in CO2 emissions respectively. Additionally, the energy structure effect also played a role in increasing CO2 emissions. Energy intensity and carbon emission effects are the most important factors in reducing CO2 emissions. The policy suggestions about the different period-wise analyses in terms of economic growth, energy structure, and energy intensity are provided.

Comparative study on the influence of final use structure on carbon emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region's rapid economic development has led to a dramatic increase in its CO2 emissions, which is closely related to various regions' consumption habits and structures. In this paper, the decomposition analysis method based on input and output (IO-SDA) was applied to decompose the CO2 emissions change of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from 1997 to 2012 into five driving factors: population, carbon emission efficiency, production structure, final use structure and per capita regional GDP, and then the final use structure factor was further analyzed. The results show that: (1) the population and per capita regional GDP promote the CO2 emissions of all regions; Carbon emission efficiency is the biggest offsetting factor; The effect of final use structure changes on the growth of CO2 emissions in Beijing and Hebei remains unchanged. The effect on Tianjin was from 0.7Mt offset to 0.8Mt promotion. (2) Urban household consumption is the most important factor offsetting CO2 emissions in Beijing. Investment and export are the most important final use types for promoting the growth of CO2 emissions in Tianjin and Hebei, with the contribution of 95.78% and 88.09%, respectively. (3) From the sectoral perspective: The construction sector has the greatest impact on the total capital formation of the three regions. In terms of exports, Beijing's tertiary industry has the largest offsetting effect, while Tianjin and Hebei mainly rely on the promotion of metal smelting and other manufacturing industries. Finally, some policy implications for low carbonization are proposed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Exploring the changes and driving forces of water footprints in China from 2002 to 2012: A perspective of final demand.

Due to economic development and population growth, the water shortage in China has gradually become increasingly severe. In this paper, by developing an environmentally expanded input-output (IO) model, water footprint in China during 2002-2012 is calculated from the perspective of final demand. Furthermore, a structural decomposition analysis (SDA) model is used to study the driving factors of the water footprint of rural and urban household consumption, gross fixed capital formation and exports. The findings indicate that: 1) the water footprint driven by final demand in China increased by 18.3% during 2002-2012, reaching 617.68 billion m3 in 2012, of which urban household consumption accounts for the highest proportion. 2) Of the different sectors, agricultural commodities have the highest water footprint, accounting for 35% of national water footprint in 2012. 3) In terms of the driving factors, water efficiency inhibits the increase of water footprint regardless of final demand types, while GDP per capita makes a great contribution to its rise. 4) As for rural household consumption, the most important driving factor is the inhibition effects of consumption pattern in water footprint. For urban household consumption, the water footprint is inhibited by consumption pattern but promoted by production structure during 2002-2010. However, it is no longer the case during 2010-2012 that consumption pattern becomes a promoting factor, with production structure being inhibiting one. 5) Regarding gross fixed capital formation, its water footprint increase driven by consumption pattern is only 12.4 billion m3 during 2007-2010. As for exports, consumption pattern causes the decline of water footprint after 2005 and the overall water footprint of exports declines during 2007-2012. Finally, this paper provides policy implications with respect to the promotion of China's water footprint conservation.