Airin Rahman

In order to further implement the goal of “dual carbon” proposed by China’s government, and promote energy enterprises to carry out low-carbon economic transformation, this paper takes listed companies in China’s A-share energy industry from 2014 to 2019 as samples to conduct descriptive statistics, correlation test and regression analysis, and empirically studies the impact of carbon performance and technological innovation on financial performance of China’s energy industry as well as their roles under different property rights. At the same time, the variables were delayed for one period to investigate the sustainability of carbon performance and technological innovation on financial performance and to weaken the endogeneity of the reverse causality between financial performance, carbon performance and technological innovation. The results show that good carbon performance and technological innovation in the energy industry can positively affect the financial performance of enterprises. During the research of interactive relationship, we find that carbon performance and technological innovation have synergistic effect on energy firm’s financial performance, which means technology innovation can significantly positive to adjust the action of carbon performance on financial performance,and carbon performance at the same time can also be positive to adjust the action of technology innovation on financial performance. They mutually promote energy enterprise’s financial performance. Further experimental research among different property- rights-owned enterprises, we found that the synergistic effects of carbon performance and technological innovation on corporate financial performance is much more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, possibly due to private firms’ capital profit-seeking nature. The results will guide and inspire China’s energy enterprises’ low carbon development strategy formulation and implementation under the background of “dual carbon” goal.

Bangladesh is an agrarian-based developing economy that has recently achieved accelerated economic growth via its industrial sector. Such levels of industrial development have increased energy demands, with negative impacts not only on human health but also on agricultural land and biodiversity. These forms of environmental degradation pose risks to rice production, the main agricultural crop, due to associated declines in soil, water, and air quality. This study intends to analyze rice farmers’ level of awareness and perception of the impacts of environmental degradation, and factors influencing the awareness. Primary data were collected from 300 rice producers in six districts in Bangladesh during August-September 2019 by a structured questionnaire, where agricultural arable lands have been degraded the most. A multinomial logit model has been used to explore the relationship among key factors. Farmer awareness levels varied according to age, farming experience, farm household income, adoption of inclusive agribusiness, access to extension workers, and distance from the nearest industrial zone. There was spatial heterogeneity among rice grower perceptions of the impacts of environmental degradation. Government guidance and some socio-economic factors could reshape and improve the farmer awareness levels on natural degradation, to facilitate the maintenance of farm operations and food security nationwide.

The prime goals of this article are to classify farmers’ production structures in different regions through comparative analysis and propose a structural framework that can quantify the transformation and upgrade of the vegetable industry in Shaanxi. The study utilized New Structural Economics (NSE) theory to construct the theoretical model, and the empirical data set has been crafted from 1992 vegetable growers in the Shaanxi, Hebei, and Shandong provinces. We qualitatively evaluated the potentiality of the Shaanxi vegetable industry, facilitating an industrial upgrade by drawing on the development experience of other regions. More specifically, we utilized the tomato growers to construct a five-step analysis method to transform and upgrade the vegetable industries. This article found that the chosen three provinces have structural differences and similarities in their production sides, and, compared with Hebei and Shandong, the vegetable industry in Shaanxi is still in the catching-up stage. Hebei has similar planting characteristics to Shaanxi, but the production characteristics of growers in Shaanxi are quite different from those in Shandong. Therefore, tomato growers in Hebei are the desired learning object for growers in Shaanxi. By learning planting experience from Hebei growers, tomato growers in the Shaanxi Province can improve their yield and product quality. We found that Shaanxi farmers have 15.57 percent improvement potential in improving crop management and rational allocation of production materials. Proper information-sharing platforms should be implemented to grasp consumption trends on the demand side and guide industrial upgrading.

Due to the severe irrigational water scarcity and ever-growing contamination of existing water resources, the potential of improved and innovative irrigation technology has emerged. The risk-taking network may play an essential role in the adoption of modern irrigation technology (MIT). The main goals of the current study were to find the impacts of external shocks on MIT adoption by farmers. For doing so, the study analyzed the mediating effect of economic vulnerability (EV) and the moderating effect of the risk-taking network on farmer’s adaptation of MIT. Economic vulnerability of farmers refers to risks caused by external shocks to the farming system which may affect the farmer’s adoption of MIT. The empirical set-up of the study consists of micro survey data of 509 farmers from the Gansu Province of China. The results show that the external shock has a significant negative impact on adapting MIT by rural farmers. At the same time, EV plays an intermediary effect in increasing the impact of external irrigation on the adaptation of MIT. The intermediary to total effect is 36.57%. The risk-taking network has a moderate effect on the relationship between external shocks, affecting farmers to adopt MIT, while external shocks also increase EV which affects farmers’ adopting MIT. Thus, it can be said that the risk-taking network regulates the direct path of external shocks affecting farmers’ choice to adapt to MIT, and external shocks also affect farmer’s MIT adaptation. The public and private partnerships should be strengthened to facilitate risk minimization. Government should provide subsidies, and financial organizations should also formulate more accessible loans and risk-sharing facilities. The government should expand the support for formal and informal risk-taking network. They should also extend their support for formal and informal risk-taking networks to improve the risk response-ability of vulnerable farmers. The concerned authorities should attach smallholder farmers’ socio-economic structure and reform the existing policies according to their demands. The governmental authorities should also endorse the risk-sharing function of informal institutions.