• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.179-207
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• 2023

Carbon neutrality, the international community's practical challenge in response to climate change, is becoming a key industrial strategy for the future development of nations. Despite concerns that China, as an economic powerhouse in the G2, may face challenges leading global climate change efforts due to its high-carbon-emitting industrial structure, it is leveraging carbon neutrality to enhance its industrial competitiveness. The Chinese government has formulated national policies for achieving carbon neutrality and detailed sector-specific plans to implement them. In particular, it aims to leverage carbon neutrality industrial strategies as a lever for adjusting the domestic industrial structure and fostering new industries, at the same time responding to international climate norms and external pressures. However, the effectiveness of carbon-neutral industrial strategies is expected to vary based on regional conditions such as economic and industrial levels. This article analyzes the regional conditions for implementing carbon neutrality in China, as well as the contents and characteristics of major industrial policies. Due to differing levels of economic development and industrial structures, significant variations in carbon emissions, size, emission sources, and efficiency are inevitable across regions. These disparities introduce diverse initial conditions and endogenous factors in pursuing carbon-neutral goals, limiting the direction and implementation of carbon-neutral industrial strategies favoring certain regions. In particular, the extent of policy autonomy granted to local governments regarding carbon neutrality implementation will influence the regional dynamics of central-local environmental governance. Consequently, it is crucial to emphasize regional monitoring alongside comprehensive national research to accurately navigate the path towards carbon neutrality in China. In summary, the article underscores the importance of understanding regional variations in economic development, industrial structure, and policy autonomy for successful carbon neutrality implementation in China. It highlights the need for regional monitoring and comprehensive national research to determine a more precise direction for achieving carbon neutrality.

• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.505-517
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• 2023

This study investigates the impacts of carbon neutrality and air quality control policies on near-term climate change in East Asia, by examining three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios from five climate models. Specifically, low carbon and strong air quality control scenario (SSP1-1.9), high carbon and weak air quality control scenario (SSP3-7.0), and high carbon and strong air quality control scenario (SSP3-7.0-lowNTCF) are compared. For these scenarios, the near-term climate (2045-2054 average) changes are evaluated for surface air temperature (SAT), hot temperature extreme intensity (TXx), and hot temperature extreme frequency (TX90p). In all three scenarios, SAT, TXx, and TX90p are projected to increase in East Asia, while carbon neutrality reduces the increasing rate of SAT and hot temperature extremes. Air quality control strengthens the warming rate. These opposed mitigation effects are robustly forced in all model simulations. Nonetheless, the impact of carbon neutrality overcomes the impact of air quality control. These results suggest that fast carbon neutrality, more effective than an air quality control policy, is necessary to slowdown future warming trend in East Asia.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Carbon neutrality is the concept of reducing greenhouse gases emitted by human activities and making actual emissions zero through removal of remaining gases. It is also called "Net-Zero" and "carbon zero". Korea has declared a "2050 Carbon Neutrality policy" to cope with the climate change crisis. Various carbon reduction legislative processes are underway. Since carbon neutrality requires changes in industrial technology, it is important to prepare a system for carbon zero. This paper aims to understand the status and trends of global carbon neutrality technology. Therefore, ROK's web platform "www.naver.com." was selected as the data collection scope. Korean online articles related to carbon neutrality were collected. Carbon neutrality technology trends were analyzed by future signal methodology and Word2Vec algorithm which is a neural network deep learning technology. As a result, technology advancement in the steel and petrochemical sectors, which are carbon over-release industries, was required. Investment feasibility in the electric vehicle sector and technology advancement were on the rise. It seems that the government's support for carbon neutrality and the creation of global technology infrastructure should be supported. In addition, it is urgent to cultivate human resources, and possible to confirm the need to prepare support policies for carbon neutrality.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-29
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• 2022

Climate action is at the top of the agenda in the international community, as demonstrated at the 2021 G7 Summit and the 2021 UN Climate Summit. Major developed countries are scrambling to make a transition to a green economy and create a new growth momentum. Following the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, they focus on "carbon neutrality" as an effective means of tackling climate change. The Republic of Korea, a high-carbon economy, submitted its second Nationally Determined Contribution and announced carbon neutrality as a top policy priority. Accordingly, the country increases government budget in research and development (R&D) and science and technology (S&T) policies. Against this backdrop, this study analyzed policies on carbon-neutral S&T and R&D in major advanced countries. The analysis was made by identifying globally pending issues in carbon-neutral policies and climate technology. In addition, focus group interviews were conducted six times with 10 experts to come up with three R&D strategies and action plans for government-funded research institutes to achieve carbon neutrality. To be specific, the following measures were suggested. First, creative and innovative R&D programs are required to solve the problem of carbon emissions. Second, it is necessary to establish carbon neutrality policies and infrastructure which are sustainable to run and manage. Third, it is crucial to promote cooperation in climate technology based on excellence. In conclusion, the strategies proposed in this study are expected to provide directions and implications for policymakers, researchers, and scholars in science and technology to develop effective strategies to achieve national carbon neutrality.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.100-112
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• 2023

This study evaluated the contribution of carbon neutrality by calculating the carbon reduction amount and reduction intensity targeting the hydrogen pilot city and applying it to the carbon neutral reduction target. In the building sector, the reduction amount for 2030 was 10.8% on average. In addition, by 2050, the contribution to carbon neutrality of plan A was 14.1% on average, and the contribution to carbon neutrality of plan B was 15.1% on average. In the 2030 reduction amount of the transportation sector, the contribution to carbon neutrality was 138.4% on average. In addition, by 2050, the contribution to carbon neutrality in plan A was 82.5% on average, and the contribution to carbon neutrality in plan B was 74.9%. From the above research results, additional carbon reduction is possible when creating a hydrogen city, so it will be used as a basis of city-level carbon neutral model. It will also be used as a basis for technology development and investment promotion for various hydrogen supply methods in the future.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.145-162
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• 2023

This research investigates how users of Bilibili, a video sharing website based in China have responded to carbon neutrality. By conducting quantitative textual analyses on 3,311 comments on Bilibili using LDA topic extraction and content statistics, this research discovers that: (1) Bilibili users have assigned more weight to geopolitical topics (56.3%) than energy (22.0%) and environmental topics (21.7%). (2) When assessing carbon neutrality, Bilibili users considered geopolitical (53.8%) and energy factors (15.8%) more heavily than factors related to the class (9.2%), economy (8.9%), environment (8.7%), and definition (3.6%). (3) More Bilibili users had negative (64.6%) attitudes towards carbon neutrality, with only a small portion of them expressing positive (26.8%) and neutral (8.6%) attitudes. (4) Negative attitudes towards carbon neutrality were mainly driven by geopolitical concerns about the West's approach to China, other countries' free-riding on China's efforts and the West's manipulation of rules, doubts about the feasibility of energy transition and suspicion of capitalists exploiting consumers through this concept. This research highlights the geopolitical concerns behind the environmental attitudes of Chinese people, deepening our understanding to psychological constructs and crisis sensitivity of Chinese people towards environmental issues.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2023

'Carbon-neutrality Assessment based on Technology Application Scenario (CATAS)' provides an analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction effectiveness when applying carbon-neutrality technology to areas such as energy conversion, transportation, and buildings at certain spatial levels. As for the development scope of the model, GHG emission sources were analyzed for direct GHG emissions, and the boundary between direct and indirect emissions are set according to the spatial scope. The technical scope included nine technologies and forest sinks in the transition sector that occupies the largest portion of GHG emissions in the 2050 carbon neutral scenario. The carbon neutrality rate evaluation methodology consists of four steps: ① analysis of GHG emissions, ② prediction of energy production according to technology introduction, ③ calculation of GHG reduction, and ④ calculation of carbon neutrality rate. After the web-based CATAS-BASIC was developed, an analysis was conducted by applying the new and renewable energy distribution goals presented in the ｢2050 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Promotion Plan｣ of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As a result of applying solar power, hydrogen fuel cell, and hydrothermal, the introduction of technology reduced 0.43 million tCO₂eq of 1.49 million tCO₂eq, which is the amount of emissions from the conversion sector in Seoul, and the carbon neutrality rate in the conversion sector was analyzed to be 28.94 %.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.333-343
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• 2017

Across the world, building energy codes are becoming stricter, demanding higher levels of energy performance with each issuance. Some locations have taken initiatives to eliminate operational emissions altogether by requiring buildings to be carbon neutral. However, while the objectives of carbon neutrality are without doubt statement worthy, we believe that once operational performance has been tackled to a reasonable level of performance the sights should be trained on a different objective-life; cycle carbon. This paper defines what we mean by life cycle carbon neutrality and presents an approach toward reducing it.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.261-275
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to analyze the conceptual understanding of carbon neutrality among secondary school science pre-service teachers, as well as to identify gaze patterns in visual materials. For this study, gaze tracking data of 20 pre-service secondary school science teachers were analyzed. Through this, the levels of conceptual understanding of carbon neutrality were categorized for the participants, and differences in gaze patterns were analyzed based on the degree of conceptual understanding of carbon neutrality. The research findings are as follows. First, as a result of performing modeling activities to predict carbon emissions and removals until 2100 using the concept of '2050 carbon neutrality,' 50% of the participants held a conception that carbon emissions would continue to increase. Additionally, 25% of the participants did not properly understand the causal relationship between net carbon dioxide emissions and cumulative concentrations. Second, the gaze movements of the participants regarding visual materials related to carbon neutrality were significantly influenced by the information presented in the text area, and in the case of graphs, the focus was mainly on the data area. Moreover, when visual data with the same function and category were arranged, participants showed the most interest in materials explaining concepts or visual data placed on the left side. This implies a preference for specific positions or orders. Participants with lower levels of conceptual understanding and inadequate grasp of causal relationships among elements exhibited notably reduced concentration and overall gaze flow. These findings suggest that conceptual understanding of carbon neutrality including climate change and natural disaster significantly influences interest in and engagement with visual materials.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Local governments play a critical role in achieving carbon neutrality and reducing national carbon emissions. To manage carbon emissions effectively, it is essential for local governments to analyze regional carbon emissions. In this study, we developed a model for estimating carbon emissions based on land use and analyzed regional characteristics of carbon emissions to suggest policies for achieving carbon neutrality at the regional level. Our model for calculating carbon emissions is based on an analysis of the activities that contribute to carbon emissions for each land use, and we established the spatial scope of carbon emission calculation. We applied this model to the cities and counties in Gyeongsangnam province, calculating carbon emissions from settlement and agricultural production activities and comparing regional characteristics of carbon emissions. Our analysis showed that areas with larger populations generally produced higher emissions in all categories, but we observed different results in terms of unit emissions, emissions divided by area, population, and household. Based on these findings, we propose policies such as increasing the generation of new and renewable energy using public institutions, promoting the conversion to cleaner cooking and heating energy sources, and encouraging the adoption of eco-friendly automobiles on roads. We believe that our analysis of the spatial and regional characteristics of carbon emissions can help local governments establish effective policies for reducing carbon emissions in their regions.