Quantifying the Impact of Urban Form and Socio-Economic Development on China’s Carbon Emissions

Cheng Huang, Yang Qu, Lingfang Huang, Xing Meng, Yulong Chen and Ping Pan
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Cheng Huang: School of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China
Yang Qu: Chongqing Key Laboratory of Precision Optics, Chongqing Institute of East China Normal University, Chongqing 401120, China
Lingfang Huang: School of Water Resources & Environmental Engineering, East China University of Technology, Nanchang 330127, China
Xing Meng: Key Lab of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Yulong Chen: Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development & Collaborative Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization of Henan Province, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, China
Ping Pan: School of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Carbon emissions (CEs) are one of the most important factors causing global warming. The development of social economy and the acceleration of the urbanization process leads to increasing CEs, especially in China. Therefore, it has become an international community consensus to control the growth of CEs and mitigate global warming. Understanding the changing patterns and driving forces of CEs are important prerequisites for formulating policies that target the reduction of CEs in response to global warming. This study developed an improved logarithmic mean Divisia index (Spatial-LMDI) to explore the urban form and socio-economic driving forces of CEs in China. Comparing with previous studies, this study is unique in the way of applying spatial landscape index to LMDI decomposition analysis. The results show that population, per capita GDP, investment intensity and urban expansion are the top driving forces of CEs growth from 1995 to 2019. Investment efficiency, technology level, and aggregation are the most important factors in terms of restraining the growth of CEs. To achieve the goal of energy saving, CEs reduction and climate change mitigation, we proposed that strategies should be formulated as follows: improving efficiency of energy investment, optimizing the spatial distribution of construction land aggregation, and rationalizing distribution of industries.

Keywords: Spatial-LMDI; carbon emissions; driving forces; urban form (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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