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

Maogang Tang,Fengxia Hu

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2021.766839

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.

Highlights

Urbanization involves an important change: the conversion of large areas of cultivated land into urban land
The results indicate that the impact of the land urbanization rate on total CO2 emissions is positive; the relationship between land urbanization rate and total carbon emissions presents an inverted U-shaped curve after adding the quadratic term of the land urbanization rate
The results are in accordance with that of Wang et al (2021b), which believed that land use efficiency improvement and land use intensity optimization can mitigate the increase in carbon emissions

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization involves an important change: the conversion of large areas of cultivated land into urban land. This process is called “land urbanization” (Zhang and Xu, 2017). The proportion of secondary industrial land to construction land in China has always been maintained at approximately 20%, which greatly exceeds the international average of 5–8%. Since unreasonable land urbanization has increased carbon emissions, there is a need to investigate in-depth the mechanism through which land urbanization affects CO2 emissions Research on exploring this mechanism is conducive for promoting the coordinated development of urbanization and CO2 emissions reduction through land use optimization and industrial structure adjustment

Methods

Results

Conclusion