Does It Help Carbon Reduction in China? A Research Paper about the Mediating Role of Production Automation Based on the Carbon Kuznets Curve
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors I appreciate your work on important topic. However, my suggestions/observations are as follows:
1. Whole document need to be revised for clarity.
2. I think, authors did not explain well the CKC theory, although related literature exist which explains the well-known EKC hypothesis (Inverted U-shape relationship between per capita and environmental degradation. There is difference between U-shape and inverted U-shape. Please clear state the CKC theory.
3. When one will have U-shape for CKC and inverted U-shape for CKC hypothesis.
4. Please also logically argue why you are focusing and recommending CKC hypothesis although we have well-known EKC hypothesis.
5. Likewise, elaborate well the U-shape relationship between wage rate and automation
6. Lines 100-101, These studies all show that the dominant 100 factors of carbon emissions vary within the scope of the same developed countries. Not clear what authors want to conclude from literature.
7. Lines 101-105, In contrast, the economic structure of developing countries is more diverse, and the reasons for carbon emissions are more complex. Jayasinghe and Selvanathan's study points out that international tourist spending is also an important factor in India's carbon emissions[11], authors claims that developing countries are more diversified. Is it their claim or someone else claim as seems illogical.
8. For same lines mentioned above, whats the point to highlight tourism as a factor of environmental degradation. As in literature, there are many factors determined in the context of developing countries.
9. I don't understand from where authors concluded this point (2) the influence of average wage change in different types of production automation differences between the marketing activities of enterprises, while the whole show is in the form of a u-shaped curve, but the three types of automated production enterprise of inflection point vary, reflecting the average wage change in the process, for production automation needs periodic differences.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Mediating Role of Production Automation in Carbon Reduction” (ID: sustainability-2040493). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research.
We have uploaded the response as an attachment. Please see the attachment.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a very interesting paper with well articulated assumptions and findings.
Some minor suggestions:
Is it possible to have more representative title? Possibly make reference to Carbon Kuznets Curves (CKC) to attract attention.
Need for spell check and grammar check throughout.
e.g.L97: "super emitators" should be "large emitters"
L222: "Are able to think...." grammar check
For table 4 and 5 is "Note: **, and *** respectively represent significant differences at the 5%, and 1% levels" relevant given there is no ** in each table
Table 5 labeling of different company types should be consistent with text in L3338-348.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Mediating Role of Production Automation in Carbon Reduction” (ID: sustainability-2040493). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research.
We have uploaded the response as an attachment. Please see the attachment.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript is showing the impact of the initiatives, green investments, and policies in the manufacturing sector of China on carbon emission reduction. It an interesting to read and a good idea, however, my major concerns are related to the basic equations, significant factors, and technical writing. Following are my queries.
1. Better to add “China” in the title.
2. Correct the keywords: Most of the keywords are not suitable. Manufacturing transformation, intelligence, and automation are similar in the context of the proposed work. You may add one related to the method you used.
3. There must be a space between the citation and text. Correct throughout the manuscript.
4. Contribution is not well addressed and there must be a gap analysis at the end of the Literature section.
5. Equation (03) and Equation (04) are the base of the proposed research work. However, the equation is not clear to understand. There are too many factors that are the source of carbon emission, and the equation considers a few of these e.g., GDP, Average wage, energy consumption, production automation, etc. Justify
6. One more crucial concern: The basic equations of the proposed work Equation (01)-Equation (04) considered a few factors multiplied with the betas, one is squared, one is summed, etc., it must be verified. The curve is required to see how the carbon emission is changing with respect to individual factors or maybe the 3D plot for two factors.
7. The equation is basically generated from the previous data, plotting, and data analytics. That is missing in the research work. The whole research work is relying on these basic equations and it is necessary to make these clear first.
8. Beta6 is not defined in the text. [Line 247-249]
9. The factors must be firsts analyzed to see the significant factors for carbon emission reduction in the region. It is one of the major challenges to transforming intangible factors into equations.
10. Grammatically, the entire article is full of mistakes and errors.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Mediating Role of Production Automation in Carbon Reduction” (ID: sustainability-2040493). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research.
We have uploaded the response as an attachment. Please see the attachment.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
1- 1- Abstract should be summarize and can be improved by mentioning some of the key policies recommended.
2- The scientific significance of the study should be clarified in the Introduction of the paper.
3- Update the literature review with most recent studies
10.1108/IJES-12-2021-0084
10.3389/fenvs.2022.975177
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Mediating Role of Production Automation in Carbon Reduction” (ID: sustainability-2040493). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research.
We have uploaded the response as an attachment. Please see the attachment.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am satisfied with manuscript and recommended for publication
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments on our manuscript and your recognition of our research.
We re-checked the manuscript and made some changes in expression.
In the process of revising the manuscript, Reviewer gave us many suggestions, which provided great help for our revision.
Once again, We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Author, I have no further comments. Only edit the title and improve it more if possible. I don't like the first statement.
Thanks
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you for your comments on our manuscript and your recognition of our research.
【Suggestion】 Only edit the title and improve it more if possible. I don't like the first statement.
【Reply】 We discussed the title of the manuscript again. We decided to change the first statement of the title to "Does It Help Carbon Reduction in China?". The revised manuscript is "Does It Help Carbon Reduction in China? A Research about The Mediating Role of Production Automation Based on Carbon Kuznets Curve". After discussion, we believe that Carbon Reduction used in the original title is more appropriate for the content of this manuscript than Carbon Neutrality in the previous version.
Moreover, we re-checked the manuscript and made some changes in expression.
In the process of revising the manuscript, Reviewer pointed out the problems, which provided great help for our revision.
Once again, we appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
