Impact assessment of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions in China: A spatial econometric investigation

Abstract

Human activities are closely related to energy consumption and carbon emissions. Nevertheless, in the context of energy transition and carbon emission reduction policies, the impact of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions is still unclear. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial regions in China from 2000 to 2019, this paper uses the spatial Durbin model to perform a spatial econometric investigation on this issue. In particular, this study innovatively embeds two spatial weight matrices, an economic gravity weight matrix and a population migration weight matrix, into the spatial Durbin model to capture the spatial spillover effects of population migration. The results show that population migration has obvious adverse impacts on the provinces with net outward population migration. Specifically, on the one hand, population migration increases energy consumption and energy poverty, but energy poverty is more severe in provinces with net outward population migration. On the other hand, population migration increases the carbon emissions and carbon reduction barriers of the provinces with net outward population migration and has no significant impact on the carbon emissions and carbon reduction barriers of the provinces with net inward population migration. Besides, the results of heterogeneity analysis show that population migration causes gaps in the energy structure among regions and even triggers the carbon transfer to provinces with net outward population migration. On the whole, the research results of this paper all prove that population migration increases the carbon reduction barriers in the provinces with net outward population migration. These empirical insights enrich the relevant theoretical achievements of the impact of population migration on energy consumption and carbon emissions and have a high reference value for formulating more reasonable regional energy transition and carbon emission reduction policies.