Rural Energy Sustainability and Carbon Emission in Advanced and Emerging/Developing Countries and Implications for China

As the climate crisis intensifies, the importance of carbon mitigation policies has become increasingly prominent. Rural regions, serving as one of China’s major carbon emission sources, are poised to become key focus regions for emission reduction. However, significant disparities in rural development levels and carbon emissions across China’s regions necessitate tailored energy sustainability and carbon mitigation strategies. Notably, advanced and emerging/developing nations exhibit substantial differences in research priorities and practical pathways, offering multifaceted insights for China’s rural carbon emission research. Adopting a hybrid bibliometric and narrative approach, the study retrieves data from the Web of Science, applies CiteSpace for bibliometric visualization, and synthesizes thematic developments in the international literature through a narrative analysis, with a discussion of the implications for China. The findings reveal distinct trajectories: over the past 25 years, advanced countries have shifted their research focus from air quality improvement to low-carbon mitigation, while emerging and developing countries have transitioned from energy demand toward air quality enhancement, with emerging momentum toward low-carbon strategies. By reviewing 95 relevant articles, this study summarizes the differences between the two in terms of their main lines of research. Building on these differences, this study proposes targeted research priorities for advanced and emerging/developing regions of China.