China is world renowned for its significant achievements in several fields. China’s economic growth has been prominent, with the country’s GDP ranking second globally. China’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows have been significant, with the country now known as the second largest economy in the world. FDI however does have some negative consequences on China’s environment. While attracting FDI promotes economic growth through industrial upgrading, the deleterious impacts of the latter on the environment cannot be ignored. The current study analyses the actual use of FDI and carbon emissions in China from 1997 to 2018. Quantitative analysis was employed to analyze the trends of FDI and carbon emissions in China as a whole and in the respective regions, namely the eastern, central and western regions. Regression analysis was then conducted to analyze the impact of FDI on carbon emissions in China on the national level and regional levels, i.e., in the eastern, central and western regions. The conclusion of this article is that FDI will play a positive role in China’s overall carbon emissions. The study has important implications for policy. We recommend that the corresponding investment policies need to be formulated according to the different levels of economic development among the regions.

Collective Forestland Tenure Reform has confirmed the forestland tenure of rural households and made forestland property rights clearer. In order to explain whether this policy is effective in improving rural households’ expected returns and sense of forestland tenure security, we built models to study the impact of off-farm employment on forestland input in the context of labor migration to urban areas. We used data from the rural household tracking survey conducted by the Development Research Center of the National Forestry and Grassland Bureau from 2003–2016, which includes nine provinces (districts) and 1227 sample rural households in China. Regression models with the forestland titling program as the key influencing factor were constructed, controlling for household characteristics, household head characteristics, forestland characteristics, village level characteristics, market characteristics, and policy factors. Forestland leases had no significant on cash outlays and labor inputs. Forest tenure mortgage loans had a significant positive effect on cash outlays and labor inputs. For households’ off-farm employment, the moderating effects of labor migration on labor inputs and cash outlays are modeled separately. The study indicated that the forestland tenure titling certificates increase households’ enthusiasm in forestland production and promote cash outlays and labor inputs in forestland management. The results regarding the moderating effect indicated that labor migration has a positive moderating effect on rural households’ forestland inputs including labor inputs and cash outlays.

In recent years, there has been an increased focus on carbon sink plantation projects. Carbon sink plantations can slow global climate change and promote sustainable economic development, which is well suited to the needs of both ecological protection and economic growth. This article aims to accurately assess the causal effect of carbon sink plantation projects on economic development at the county level and explore its effect mechanisms. In this study, 56 counties in Guangdong Province were selected as the research areas, providing balanced panel data from 2006 to 2018. Then the propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) model was used to estimate both the average and dynamic effects of carbon sink plantation projects on county-level economic development. The ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression results of the single-difference method and difference-in-differences (DID) model show that carbon sink plantation projects have a significant role in promoting county-level economic development. In addition, our findings suggest that the economic benefits of carbon sink plantation projects began to gradually appear from the sixth year after the projects were implemented.

This study examines the impact of foreign direct investment in forestry, a prominent phenomenon in China, on forestry industry structure upgrading, using comprehensive economic theory and the panel data of 27 provinces from 2003 to 2019 in China. We used fixed and moderating effect models, and regional heterogeneity tests were conducted. Our results indicate that, at the national level, foreign direct investment in forestry and labor migration promotes forestry industry structural upgrading. In addition, our results indicate that labor migration as a moderating variable weakly promotes forestry industry structural upgrading via foreign direct investment in forestry, and these effects have regional heterogeneity. Finally, different control variables also have influence on forestry industry structural upgrading, such as the number of forestry stations. Based on these empirical results, we provide an explanation and give policy implications, such as developing secondary and tertiary forestry industries, building forestry infrastructure, and improving the efficiency of forestry foreign investment utilization to promote the optimization of the forestry industry structure in China.

In order to tackle increasingly serious environmental problems, China has been promoting the development of a green economy and guiding the green transformation of various regions and industries through environmental regulation in recent years. By participating in international trade, Hebei Province has been embedded in the global value chain. However, Hebei’s involvement in the high-energy-consuming and polluting manufacturing sector and its lower position in the global value chain have led to serious environmental issues. In practice, the government has promulgated environmental regulations to restrict economic activities of enterprises. What role does environmental regulation play in Hebei’s manufacturing industry’s participation in the global value chain? In order to explore the impact of environmental regulation on Hebei’s manufacturing industry in the global value chain, this paper constructs a fixed-effect econometric model based on the panel data of the embedding level of the value chain of 12 manufacturing sectors in Hebei Province. The research results show that: first, the R & D capacity of the manufacturing industry in Hebei Province still needs to be improved. Second, environmental regulation has promoted the global value chain position of Hebei’s 12 manufacturing sectors. Third, environmental regulation will show obvious heterogeneity to manufacturing industries with different capital intensities and different pollution levels. The impact of environmental regulation on the manufacturing industry with different intensities is different. Therefore, the government should formulate targeted environmental regulation to promote the position of Hebei’s manufacturing industry in the global value chain, such as further improving environmental regulation and increasing the intensity of environmental regulation and increasing the investment of human capital, and cultivating innovative talents.

This study examines the relationship between industrial agglomeration and carbon emissions in China’s forestry industry, using panel data from 30 provincial-level regions between 2009 and 2020. The industrial agglomeration level is measured by the Location Quotient (LQ), which is calculated based on regional employment shares to reflect the concentration of the forest products industry. This study finds that LQ exhibits a multiplicative effect—meaning that its influence on carbon emissions amplifies through interactive mechanisms of scale, technology diffusion, and spatial concentration. Four carbon indicators—carbon emissions from export products, carbon emission intensity, energy intensity, and energy structure cleanliness—are analyzed. Employing a threshold regression model, the study identifies nonlinear effects of agglomeration on carbon outcomes. The estimated threshold value (LQ = 0.7122) divides the process into three stages: (1) an embryonic stage (LQ < 0.7122) with rising emissions and declining efficiency; (2) a growth stage (around LQ ≈ 0.7122) with simultaneous increases in emissions and efficiency; and (3) a mature stage (LQ > 0.7122) where emissions decline as efficiency improves. These results reveal that the environmental effects of forestry industrial agglomeration evolve nonlinearly across development stages.