Interaction patterns between economic growth and atmospheric environment in China under the "carbon neutrality" target.

Abstract

Clarifying the interaction patterns between economic growth and atmospheric environment (EG-AE) in China is important to achieve the "carbon neutrality" target. A conceptual framework of air pollutant emission in urban economic growth (APEUEG) was proposed to explore the interaction patterns in China from 2007 to 2017. The empirical analysis revealed that a N-shaped EKC exists between aerosol optical depth (AOD) and gross domestic product (GDP), with inflection points of $5000 and $27,000, respectively. Therefore, we speculated that when GDP per capita of a city exceeded $5000, the AOD gradually decreased. However, when GDP per capita of a city gained over $27,000, the economic growth and the atmospheric environment would be coordinated steadily. The interaction of EG-AE experienced three stages-pollution, improvement, and coordination-in China. Spatially, the interaction patterns of EG-AE presented five clusters, which were associated with the spatial distribution of city levels. China's prefecture-level cities have undergone the cluster of low AOD-low GDP (LL), the cluster of high AOD-high GDP (HH), and the cluster of low AOD-high GDP (LH), as urban level improves. By 2017, about 44% of Chinese cities had not completed the coordinated development yet. We found that policymakers should formulate differentiated urban greener economic development policies to reduce APEUEG.