Can Green Infrastructure Investment Reduce Urban Carbon Emissions:Empirical Evidence from China

Abstract

Green infrastructure (GI) plays a pivotal role in contemporary urban infrastructure. Green infrastructure investment (GII) provides a fresh perspective for controlling urban carbon emissions in the context of global climate change. Based on theoretical analysis, we employed panel data from Chinese cities to examine the effects and operating mechanisms of GII on urban carbon emissions. The research reveals that the incremental GII can notably decrease urban carbon emissions, and various robustness tests and endogeneity checks corroborate this finding. However, when considering the cumulative effect, the GII stocks do not appear to influence urban carbon emissions; GII mitigates urban carbon emissions by drawing in pollution control talents, improving the efficiency of household waste treatment, increasing urban green spaces, and heightening public attention to the environment. Relative to cities in the central-western region, northern cities, smaller cities, resource-based cities, smart pilot cities, and cities with a lesser environmental emphasis, GII is more effective in curbing carbon emissions in eastern cities, southern cities, larger cities, non-resource-intensive cities, cities not in the smart pilot initiative, and cities with a stronger environmental focus. This research enhances the understanding of GI’s environmental outcomes and the determinants of urban carbon emissions from an investment viewpoint. It also dissects the four operative mechanisms through which GII lowers urban carbon emissions, offering a novel interpretation of GII for the variance in carbon emission levels across cities with diverse traits.

Unveiling the Complexities of Land Use Transition in Indonesia’s New Capital City IKN Nusantara: A Multidimensional Conflict Analysis

“…To ensure that the new capital city's growth strategy maximizes social benefits while minimizing environmental harm, it is crucial to integrate economic development and cultural preservation. The plan involves investing $300 million in green infrastructure to address the negative impacts of rapid urbanization and reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2040 [81,83,84]. Social equity is a significant factor, and policies will be implemented to prevent displacement without adequate compensation and ensure that local labor forces and businesses benefit from development projects.…”

The Moderating Role of ESG Administration on the Relationship between Tourism Activities and Carbon Emissions: A Case Study of Basic Local Governments in South Korea

“…Biological sequestration by plants and soil serves as a carbon sink, contributing to reducing surface temperatures and enhancing urban resilience [99]. Various studies support the role of urban green infrastructure in maintaining carbon balance (e.g., [98,100]).…”

“…It has also been proposed that the ESG administrative framework could intervene in the relationship between tourism activities and carbon emissions, suggesting that the greater the ESG administrative power of local governments, the more effectively carbon emissions induced by tourism activities will be mitigated [42,43,[68][69][70][71][72]. Furthermore, as for improving the precision of the findings, this study dealt with essential control variables, such as infection safety [78][79][80][81], atmospheric pollution [83][84][85][86], tourism development [88][89][90][91], income level [95][96][97], green space [98][99][100], and local population [101,[103][104][105]. Consequently, the research questions (RQ) that the current study has to address are as follows:…”