Free trade and environmental sustainability are currently top economic and environmental research priorities. While numerous theories connect trade openness with environmental quality, empirical evidence often fails to support these claims. Using data spanning from 1980 to 2020, our study examines the effect of trade openness on CO₂ emissions in South Africa. By employing a novel ARDL modeling framework, our analysis confirms the presence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in South Africa. Our findings reveal that while GDP square enhances environmental quality, trade openness and economic growth have a degrading effect over time. Additionally, the study identifies that energy consumption, FDI, and value-added activities all contribute to environmental degradation. Findings also highlights the influence of institutional quality on the environment, demonstrating that political stability and control of corruption lead to increased CO₂ emissions, while the rule of law reduces CO₂ emissions. The research suggested that the potential of green economies should be leveraged in developing renewable energy, sustainable development, the recycling industry, and green financing sectors. A shift in economic activity in this direction will thus foster long-term economic growth and sustainable development.

Charcoal production is an essential energy source and income source for many people in low-income countries, such as Africa. Charcoal production is also associated with deforestation—a global issue that significantly affects the environment and ecosystems. Therefore, promoting strategies that can balance forestry protection and people’s livelihoods in low-income countries is critical. This study investigated the factors affecting Zambia’s rural households’ participation in the natural regeneration (NR) program—the program initiated by the Forest and Farm Facility program (FFF) of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Zambia in 2015. Using household survey data collected from Choma District in Southern Zambia, this study used descriptive statistical analysis and a logit model to detect the factors that affect the use of the NR program. The results indicate that charcoal production enhances the livelihoods of rural households when forest conservation is reconciled with household income and forest-management methods that abandon traditional practices. Participation in the NR program seems to be mainly driven by household income. The results indicated that the relationship between forest-resource utilization and conservation in Choma is encouraging. The implementation of the Forest and Farm Facility program is recommended to be spread to other communities to improve both livelihoods in local communities and forest conservation.

Forests and the forest products industry contribute to climate change mitigation by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in biomass, and by fabricating products that substitute other, more greenhouse-gas-emission-intensive materials and energy. This study investigates primary wood-working industries (panel, furniture, pulp and paper) in order to determine the development of carbon emissions in China during the last two decades. The input–output approach is used and the factors driving the changes in CO₂ emissions are analyzed by Index Decomposition Analysis–Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI). The results show that carbon emissions in forest product industries have been declining during the last twenty years and that the driving factor of this change is the energy intensity of production and economic input, which have changed dramatically.

In confronting escalating economic uncertainty, achieving a win–win situation for low-carbon transition and improved employment structure will contribute to economic recovery and sustainable growth but also contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind. A critical issue for China’s economy and societal welfare, as well as a core component of sustainable development, concerns whether low-carbon economic transition influences employment skill structure. This study utilizes data from 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China from 2006 to 2021. Employing the entropy method, a low-carbon economic development level indicator system was constructed from four aspects: low-carbon output, low-carbon consumption, low-carbon resources, and low-carbon environment to measure the low-carbon economy and explore its direct and indirect effects on employment skill structure and spatial effects. The research findings indicate that low-carbon economies not only directly and significantly promote employment skill structure optimization but also indirectly generate promotional effects through pathways such as industrial structure adjustment, green innovation’s innovative effects, and factor substitution effects of increased pollution control investment. Among these, the indirect impact of industrial structure adjustment contributes most substantially. Low-carbon economies’ influence on employment skill structures exhibits spatial spillover effects, with neighboring regions’ low-carbon economies exerting positive spillover effects on local skill structures. Additionally, significant negative interdependence exists among regional employment skill structures. Based on the aforementioned research conclusions, the following recommendations are proposed: accelerate low-carbon economy development and employment skill structure enhancement in central and western regions to diminish regional disparities; encourage green innovation and promote traditional industry upgrading and transformation; formulate regional coordinated development plans, thereby strengthening the low-carbon economy’s optimizing role upon employment skills structure; and increase educational investment and strengthen labor skill training.