Study on the impact of comprehensive urbanization on urban civil building CO2 emissions in China

Abstract

With the rapid development of China, urbanization has become an important research topic of China's CO2 emissions.To fill the gap in considering the spatial correlation of the comprehensive urbanization that includes multi-dimensional factors on CO2 emissions from the operation phase of urban civil buildings (ubec). This study constructs a comprehensive evaluation indicator of urbanization from four aspects including population, economy, society and land urbanization by using the entropy method. The spatial spillover effect of ubec and the impact of comprehensive urbanization on ubec are also studied by using the spatial panel model in this paper. This study finds out that ubec has obvious spatial spillover effects. During the early years of the study period, the eastern coastal areas had greater carbon emissions, while in recent years they have gradually transitioned to the northwestern regions. Comprehensive urbanization has a significant promotion effect on it. And foreign direct investment and per capita energy consumption also have positive impact on ubec. This study provides a reference for measuring the effects of urbanization on sector-specific CO2 emissions and maybe useful for energy efficiency and emission abatement efforts in China.

Research on the Spatial Effect and Threshold Characteristics of New-Type Urbanization on Carbon Emissions in China’s Construction Industry

“…Some scholars measured the development level of comprehensive urbanization from various aspects such as population, land, and economy [27,28]. Furthermore, some scholars have incorporated aspects related to the quality of urbanization development, such as ecology and social services, into the indicator system for the level of new-type urbanization, taking into account the connotation of new-type urbanization [29][30][31][32].…”

“…In order to measure the carbon emissions from the construction industry, scholars commonly adopt different measurement methods based on specific research objects, such as the carbon emission factor method, the input-output method (input-output analysis), and the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Some scholars have adopted the carbon emission factor method for national and regional carbon emissions from the construction industry based on a macro perspective [14,29,[33][34][35]. Also, some studies have chosen the input-output method to account for carbon emissions from the construction industry on a regional scale [36][37][38][39].…”

“…In addition, life cycle assessment is mostly applied to single engineering materials or construction projects [40][41][42]. Compared with the other two methods, the carbon emission factor method is suitable for measuring carbon emissions from a macro perspective, whose calculation process is simple and direct; on the other hand, the data used in this method are more available, which is why it has become the choice of most scholars to study the carbon emissions from the construction industry [29].…”

“…In terms of the key factors affecting carbon emissions in the construction industry, it can be seen that the demographic system, technological revolution, industrial system, energy consumption intensity, and foreign direct investment are the main factors affecting carbon emissions in the construction industry [4,29,43]. In general, urban population density or total population is positively correlated with urban carbon emissions, but different levels of economic development will affect the level of positive correlation between the two [4,44,45].…”

“…Scholars have come to different conclusions about the relationship between the two. Guo et al [29] constructed a comprehensive evaluation index of urbanization from four aspects, population, economy, society, and land urbanization, by using the entropy method, and the results showed that comprehensive urbanization plays a significant role in promoting the carbon emissions from urban civil buildings. Xiao et al [34] explored the impact of new-type urbanization on urban building carbon emissions from three dimensions: scale, average and structure, and found that the construction of new-type urbanization reduces urban buildings' carbon emissions, industrial upgrading has an obvious reduction effect on buildings' carbon emissions, and urban green space significantly inhibits buildings' carbon emissions.…”