Social and Economic Impact Assessment of Coal Power Phase-Down at the Provincial Level: An Entropy-Based TOPSIS Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please read the attachment. Thank you.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please, consider my comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to read the manuscript, and please allow me to make a few suggestions for the authors.

I suggest that in the Introduction section the authors could provide a little bit more context on the issue of coal power phase-down to help readers understand the importance of this particular research.

I recommend the authors that, at the end of the Introduction, the other sections of the manuscript should be briefly presented.

I suggest that the authors enhance the clarity of terms and acronyms, for example C1 and C2 (which could be described a little bit in the text not only in table 4),  in order that this journal’s readers can understand easily these concepts.

The list of references seems rather short. I suggest the authors to enhance it by quoting more references from the research literature on this topic.

Based on these, the authors could enhance the Discussion section/sub-section by highlighting/presenting more their own contribution to the research field, in comparison to the research and publications of other researchers.

I suggest that the authors could elaborate a little bit more on the entropy weight TOPSIS approach used for their assessment, perhaps by including its advantages, limitations, how it was adapted for their study etc.

I also suggest that the authors offer in the Results section some more explanations of the figures and their implications.

Aren’t any potential limitation of this study? I suggest that the authors discuss the potential limitations, particularly regarding data sources and the methodology employed.

I also recommend the authors that the conclusion at the end of the manuscript could be  clearer, to summarize the study's main findings and recommendations. In the conclusion, the authors should also suggest potential avenues for their future research, such as examining alternative energy transition models or assessing the long-term socio-economic impacts of coal phase-down on local communities and the national economy.

If not in this study, perhaps in their future research, I suggest that the authors could :

·         conduct a more extensive comparative study of the success and failure factors within each zone, and then provide insights into the specific policies or initiatives that proved effective in mitigating the impacts of coal phase-down,

·         present more detailed and tailored policy recommendations for each zone, and address issues like job transitions, economic diversification, sustainable energy development etc. It would be interesting to read about some actionable steps that local governments and enterprises can implement to facilitate a smoother transition,

·         include an input-output analysis in order to understand the ripple effects of the coal phase-down on related industries and the broader economy, for a better holistic view of socio-economic implications,

·         gather qualitative data based on interviews with various stakeholders, such as government officials, industry experts, affected community members etc.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I suggest that the authors could consider breaking down complex sentences into shorter, perhaps more digestible ones for better readability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The article contains interesting considerations. These may be useful in the era of energy transition in China. As an improvement, it is suggested to:
1. Explain why the authors decided to use the TOPSIS method. Were other approaches also considered?
2. Discuss the TOPSIS approach in more detail highlighting its advantages and limitations.
3. Enlarge Figure 2 and its description - it is not very readable due to its size.
4. In the Results section, include descriptions of the issues that are presented in the figures.
5. In the conclusion, indicate possible directions for future research.
6. The provided literature list is modest. Please cite more references from the literature.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf