Impact of Urbanization and Industrial Structure on Carbon Emissions: Evidence from Huaihe River Eco-Economic Zone

Abstract

Rapid urbanization in China greatly contributes to carbon emissions, while the industrial structure greatly contributes to changes in the variation of carbon emissions. This research addresses the impact of urbanization and industrial structure on carbon emissions from 2010 to 2018, by focusing on the Huaihe River Eco-economic Zone, which is an important economic corridor along the north–south division of China. Although many studies have focused on investigating the impact of urbanization or industrial structure on carbon emissions, few studies further addressed an analysis of the impact of both on carbon emissions, using multiple measurement models. This paper reveals the holistic and local impact of industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emissions, by integrating a threshold regression model with geographically weighted regression. The results are as follows: (1) From a holistic point of view, industrial structure and urbanization had both, single threshold, and double threshold effects on carbon emissions in the Huaihe River Eco-economic Zone. (2) From a regional perspective, the coefficients of industrial structure on carbon emissions were all positive, but the rate of increase gradually slowed down. The coefficients of urbanization on carbon emissions were all negative, reaching a maximum value of negative effect in 2013. Understanding the holistic and local impact of urbanization and industrial structure on carbon emissions provides governments with differentiated and forward-looking suggestions for mitigating carbon emissions in the Huaihe River Eco-economic Zone.

Urbanization Influences CO2 Emissions in the Pearl River Delta: A Perspective of the “Space of Flows”

“…When considering this body of work, we note that whilst identifying the driving mechanisms and factors behind carbon emissions is key to formulating emission reduction policies and implementing scenario simulations, no uniform conclusions have yet been reached. This is not to say that studies have not addressed the relationship between different drivers and carbon emissions-for example, we note that Solarin et al [27] found a stable long-term equilibrium relationship between the level of urbanization and carbon emissions, and previous research has shown that the driving factors of carbon emissions include population structure [28], GDP [29], industrialization [30], energy consumption [31], urbanization level [32], and land-use change [33]. The study methods employed include least order squares [34], the STIRPAT model [35], the LMDI model [36], vector autoregressive models [37], geographically weighted regression models [38], and multiplier effects [39].…”

Urban Expansion and Carbon Emission Logistic Curve Hypothesis and Its Verification: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province

“…International experience shows [18,19] that in the primary stage of urban expansion, the industrial structure of a country or region is dominated by the primary industry, and the demand for energy use is not significant, which has no significant impact on carbon emissions. In the development stage of urban expansion, the proportion of primary industry continues to decline, the secondary industry becomes the dominant industry, and the demand for energy increases dramatically, leading to a rapid increase in carbon emissions.…”

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.…”