Examining the Impacts of Economic, Social, and Environmental Factors on the Relationship between Urbanization and CO2 Emissions

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between urbanization, economic growth, industrial transformation, technological change, public services, demographical change, urban and natural environmental changes, and carbon emissions using a dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities in China between 2001 and 2010. Specifically, this paper differs from previous studies in two aspects. First, the extant literature has focused on how economic processes accompanying rapid urbanization affect carbon emissions in urban areas but gives little attention to the other dimensions of urbanization, including social and environmental changes, which may have important effects on carbon emissions. We assessed the effects of 17 key processes accompanying urbanization in a full range of economic, social, and environmental dimensions on carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas. The results showed that social processes accompanied with rapid urbanization had distinct effects on carbon emissions, compared to economic and environmental processes. Specifically, improvement in public services, indicated by education and cultural developments, reduces the increase in carbon emissions during urbanization, while economic growth and urban construction reinforces the growth in carbon emissions. Second, we examined the impact of various urbanization processes on carbon dioxide emissions using a unique dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities that covers a wide span of regions in China. The results of our analyses on the city level have important implications for the formulation of comprehensive policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emission in urban areas, focusing on different urbanization processes in economic, social, and environmental phases.

Analysis of Regional Carbon Emission Decoupling Coupling in China Based on ArcGIS Analysis-Empirical Evidence From Urban-Rural Integration in Fujian Province

“…The urbanisation process will inevitably have an impact on increasing the use of energy, resulting in the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases such as CO 2 (Haouraji et al, 2021;Mata et al, 2021;Pang et al, 2021). Ding et al (2021) analysed the impact of 182 prefecture-level cities in China on carbon emissions during rapid urbanisation. They found that urban construction increases the growth of carbon emissions (Ding et al, 2021).…”

“…Ding et al (2021) analysed the impact of 182 prefecture-level cities in China on carbon emissions during rapid urbanisation. They found that urban construction increases the growth of carbon emissions (Ding et al, 2021). Liu et al (2022) found that under China's new urbanisation scenario, the population-land-economic urbanisation (PLEU) coupling coordination degree has an inverted U-shaped effect on carbon emissions and gradually tends to decrease as the PLEU coupling coordination degree is high to a certain degree (Liu et al, 2022).…”

Investigating the Impact of Multiple Factors on CO2 Emissions: Insights from Quantile Analysis

“…Urbanization processes have a significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas. Numerous studies have focused on the relationship between economic processes and carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas [25]; however, these studies have shown that as cities become more urbanized, there is a corresponding increase in carbon dioxide emissions [26]. However, in recent years, there has been growing concern about the impact of communication technology infrastructure on CO 2 emissions [27].…”

Multidimensional Impact of Urbanization Process on Regional Net CO2 Emissions: Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an Example

“…According to a crude development pattern, China achieves economic growth by consuming Land 2022, 11, 1079 2 of 16 large amounts of energy, resulting in a rapid increase in carbon emissions [3], and the most important driving factor exacerbating this situation is rapid urbanization [4]. The urbanization rate of China has increased dramatically over the last four decades, from 17.9% in 1978 to 60.6% in 2019 [5], and the urban population of the country is expected to surpass 75% of the overall population by 2050 [6]. Urbanization is accompanied by industrial economic growth, increasing energy consumption, lifestyle changes, and changes in land use types due to economic and social progress, all of which have a significant influence on carbon emissions [7].…”