Over the past two decades, China has become an economic powerhouse. However, as the world's largest producer of CO2 emissions, the scale and seriousness of China's environmental problems are clearly evident. This pioneering book provides an economic analysis of the significant environmental and energy problems facing China in the 21st century. Chinese Economic Development and the Environment measures productivity, taking into account energy resources and environmental attributes that are central to sustaining economies. Applying an integrated model of energy production, transformation and consumption processes, the authors investigate the underlying driving forces behind trends in CO2 emissions in relation to the total primary energy supply. Exploring the history and development of China's economic, energy and environmental policy, this book will strongly appeal to postgraduate students in economics and environmental studies. It will also be beneficial for practitioners and policy-makers interested in understanding how successful market and environmental policies can contribute to efficiency by encouraging, rather than inhibiting, technological innovation.

This book provides new insights into the development of integrated approaches to peace and sustainability in the era of global change. Since the late 1980s, and in order to regulate the increasingly detrimental impacts of humans on the environment, the transition towards sustainability has been high on the agenda of researchers and policymakers alike. Meanwhile, peace considerations have expanded in recent decades to include the varied types and sources of conflict, from inter-state to intra-state conflicts due to various social, political, economic, and environmental factors. Through providing theoretical and empirical insights, this book demonstrates that sustainability and peace as intrinsically interrelated. The book elaborates on the multi-dimensional and constantly evolving concepts of sustainability and peace. In addition, the book contributes to a better understanding of the complex and dynamic interlinkages between peace and sustainability by presenting examples of pathways where sustainability and peace interact considering the different factors and contexts that are constantly shaping and reshaping the conditions for sustainable and peaceful societies