To address the challenges of climate change caused by the prevailing use of fossil fuels, the low-carbon transition is urgently needed as a major approach to realizing sustainable development in developing countries. Officially launched in 2015, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) provided opportunities for deep cooperation between China and Pakistan focusing on the energy, transportation, ports, and industrial cooperation. Under the CPEC, an increasing number of renewable energy projects have been funded, providing increasingly significant carbon emission avoided effects in Pakistan. Among the priority energy projects in the CPEC, the photovoltaic power stations in the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park are among Pakistan’s representative solar energy projects. The development of the project is with the participation of multiple Chinese enterprises, including TBEA Xinjiang Sunoasis Co., Ltd. and Zonergy Company Limited. During the whole processes, the development model of the photovoltaic power stations gradually changed from the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction plus Operation and Maintenance model to the Build-Own- Operate model. Based on the multi-stage construction of solar power stations in the solar park, the land, infrastructure, and transmission facilities could be arranged, simplifying the procedures for the respective enterprises. Meanwhile, the construction and operation of the photovoltaic power stations are subject to the multi-scale embedding framework including resource endowments, industrial linkages, development plans, and institutional systems in the host countries. The construction of the solar park could provide references to promote low-carbon transition, improve energy institutional systems, fulfill carbon reduction commitments, and mitigate climate change, which is expected to provide policy implications for renewable energy development and low-carbon transition.

Attention is now paid to the Dohol Formation as a result of the black shales it contains. The Dohol Formation is one of the formations in Peninsular Malaysia which contain abundant black shales; however, the rocks of this formation are not fully understood. Moreover, detailed information on the exposed locations of these black shale is very limited. This study was conducted to characterize the black shales and discover new areas where the black shales of the Dohol Formation can be located. Detailed fieldwork was then undertaken to describe the rocks and discover new areas where outcrops are exposed. Three different lithofacies of shales were encountered on the field: the massive black shale facies, light grey shale facies, and the red shale facies with fine sandstone laminae. The black shales were dark grey in colour, laminated and some parts are fissile. The second type of shale, light grey, looks like the dark shales, but it probably contains less organic matter. In certain areas these grey shales are found to have intrusions of quartzite. The third type of shales are the red shales which are sandy, fissile, and highly weathered and it is overlain by sands that are pebbly in nature. The red shales were probably formed from the two other types of shales which has undergone extreme weathering. Six new outcrop locations were discovered, and these outcrops were spread across Jemaluang, Kota Tinggi, and the outskirts of Mersing town in East Johor. It was observed that most of these shales have been covered with vegetation with only a few being exposed by road cuttings

Land-based pollutants, such as sediments and nutrients, have been recognized as chronic local stressors to coral reef health and coastal ecosystem. Excessive sediments have direct adverse effects on the coral reef and shallow coastal environment in tropical Pacific islands. Declining water quality induced by high concentration of nutrients may influence the reproductive cycle of corals and benthic habitats. For such coral reef conservation programs, it is therefore essential to manage anthropogenic land-based pollutants.

The main aim of the ridge-to-reef (R2R) approach is to provide the integrated information on inter-connection between freshwater sources from mountain ridges and the shallow coastal areas. Although the sequent actions are to identify and diminish the identified stressors’ contributions through many applications, there is still a challenge to account for where best management practices (BMPs) are required.
The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model has been used in numerous applications of watershed-scale models for simulating flow, soil erosion, sediment, and nutrient transport, and for evaluating the effect of climate change, land use change, and BMP applications. Because SWAT model provides inputs and outputs from each delineated sub-catchment, a number of applications have been suggested for simulating soil erosion and non-point loadings at various soil types. This study hence proposes the application of a SWAT model for figuring out the variations of the chronic stressors in time and space for supporting the R2R management.
The overall objective of this study is to develop a suitable SWAT model for supporting a ridge-to-reef management associated with coral reef conservation programs. Because numerous studies related to coral bleaching have been carried out around Pago Bay by the University of Guam Marine Laboratory, the Pago Watershed is selected for this study for linking inland hydrologic inputs to ecological responses in the coastal area. Additional water quality tests from four sites within the watershed are conducted for identifying locations of concern.