Carbon Productivity and Mitigation: Evidence from Industrial Development and Urbanization in the Central and Western Regions of China

Yongjiao Wu,Claudio O Delang,Jiao Qian,Yu Li,Huazhu Zheng

doi:10.3390/su13169014

Abstract

This paper investigates carbon productivity (CP) from the perspectives of industrial development and urbanization to mitigate carbon emissions. We propose a hybrid model that includes a spatial lag model (SLM) and a fixed regional panel model using data from the 17 provinces in the central and western regions of China from 2000 to 2018. The results show that the slowly increasing CP has significant spatial spillover effects, with High–High (H–H) and Low–Low (L–L) spatial distributions in the central and western regions of China. In addition, industrial development and urbanization in the study area play different roles in CP, while economic urbanization and industrial fixed investment negatively affect CP, and population urbanization affects CP along a U-shape curve. Importantly, the results show that the patterns of industrial development and urbanization that influence CP are homogenous and mutually imitated in the 17 studied provinces. Furthermore, disparities in CP between regions are due to industrial workforce allocation (TL), but TL has been inefficient; industrial structure upgrades are slowly improving conditions. Therefore, the findings suggest that, in the short term, policymakers in China should implement industrial development policies that reduce carbon emissions in the western and central regions by focusing on improving industrial workforce allocation.

Highlights

Constructing a weight matrix of carbon productivity relationships based on the gravity model, we propose a hybrid model merging a spatial lag model and a fixed regional panel model to investigate the impacts of industrial development and urbanization on CP and its spatial spillover effects
We proposed a hybrid model integrating an spatial lag model (SLM) and a fixed coefficient panel model to investigate CP, which accounts for carbon emission mitigation from industrial development and urbanization in the less developed central and western regions of China
The results show that industrial development (TL, TK, and TS) and urbanization levels (UP and UI) play important, yet differing roles in the evolution of CP in the central and western regions of China

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Carbon emissions continue to increase driven by energy consumption increase from human activities, which is the most important factor in global warming and environmental degradation [1]. Carbon emission mitigation plays a vital role in ensuring the protection of the human living environment [2,3,4]. Since China has become the largest emitter of carbon emissions [5], the Chinese government has planned to achieve carbon neutrality by. Enhancing carbon productivity (CP), the ratio of economic output to per-unit carbon emissions [6,7], has become a national strategy in China to build a low-carbon economy

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion