How Does Land Urbanization Promote CO2 Emissions Reduction? Evidence From Chinese Prefectural-Level Cities

Abstract

The process of land urbanization may result in a great change in land use structure, land use intensity, and efficiency, which could further lead to an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Despite rich literature on the link between urbanization and CO2 emissions, the mechanism through which land urbanization promotes CO2 emissions reductions has not been fully investigated. To address this gap, this study theoretically and empirically explores the mechanism of land urbanization’s influence on CO2 emissions by integrating land use optimization and high-quality industrial development into a unified framework. Firstly, the theoretical mechanism analysis indicates that low-level industrial development and land use management promote the increase of CO2 emissions per unit of land at the extensive land use stage; however, high-quality industrial development and land use optimization lower CO2 emissions per unit of land at the intensive land use stage. Subsequently, a STIRPAT model and a spatial adaptive semi-parametric model are employed to verify the relationship between the land urbanization rate and total CO2 emissions. The results indicate that the land urbanization rate and total CO2 emissions present an inverted U-shaped relationship. In addition, the mediating mechanism of the advanced industrial structure, CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, and CO2 emissions per unit of land, are studied using the mediating effect model. Results indicate that CO2 emissions reduction can be achieved by promoting the advanced industrial structure, reducing CO2 emissions per unit of GDP or reducing CO2 emissions per unit of land. Ultimately, this study showed that the Chinese government may reduce CO2 emissions by promoting land use structure optimization, land use intensity regulation, land use efficiency improvement, and adjusting energy consumption structure, upgrading industrial structure, and promoting emission efficiency technologies.

Land urbanization and urban CO2 emissions: Empirical evidence from Chinese prefecture-level cities

“…Accordingly, our findings support the suggestion that the Chinese authorities must strengthen the integrated utilization of energy and support information's spillover and technology advancement supported by land urbanization [ [50] , [51] , [52] ]. Besides this, our results support the suggestion that local government should strengthen land-use management, optimize the structure, reasonably control the intensity, and strive to incline the land-use efficiency [ 15 , 32 , 53 ].…”

“…First, the enhanced level of urban land construction significantly increases carbon's emissions and sharply declines absorption capacity of carbon [ 14 ]. The China's urban construction land enhanced to 55,155.5 square kilometers in 2017, from 20,877 square kilometers in 1999; thereby, displaying an upsurge of 164% [ 15 ]. In addition to this, the urban construction land's expansion is followed by a sharp increase in CO 2 emissions because this type of use represents CO 2 emissions' net source.…”

“…China's unit construction land output, that is, land output intensity, almost tripled from 530 million Yuan per square kilometer in 2004 to 1.5 billion Yuan per square kilometer in 2017. This intensified land use and excessive intensity of land development destroy the biosphere's original carbon balance; resultantly, affecting and enhancing the process of carbon emissions [ 15 , 16 ]. Fourth, energy-use efficiency is influenced by the land-use's efficiency, which consequently affects CO 2 emission levels.…”

Estimating the Decoupling between Net Carbon Emissions and Construction Land and Its Driving Factors: Evidence from Shandong Province, China

“…Zhang et al confirmed that there was a two-way causal relationship between the quality of land urbanization and carbon emissions, and the former had a negative impact on carbon emissions in various provinces [ 37 ]. Tang et al believed that low-level industrial development and land use management promote the increase of carbon emissions at the extensive land use stage, however, high-quality industrial development and land use optimization lower carbon emissions at the intensive land use stage [ 38 ]. A study has also demonstrated that intensive land use could reduce carbon emissions more effectively than extensive land use [ 39 ].…”

Spatial-temporal evolution of industrial land transformation effect in eastern China

“…Industrial land transformation effect refers to the expected effect obtained by the industrial industry in changing the original development model and progressive adjustment and reform. The expected effect of transformation contains several aspects such as industrial structure, development conditions, employment status, resource utilization, and ecological environment (Sun and Yuan, 2015;Tang and Hu, 2021;Tian et al, 2021) 1) to measure industrial land transformation effect by drawing on existing literature (Chen and Zhou, 2017;Liu H. et al, 2022;Li Q. et al, 2022;Pu and Zhang, 2022) and the actual development of industrial land in China.…”