The Impact of Multi-Dimensional Urbanization on CO2 Emissions: Empirical Evidence from Jiangsu, China, at the County Level

Abstract

Understanding the underlying mechanism of how various dimensions of urbanization affect CO2 emissions could be helpful for achieving the goal of low-carbon cities in China. However, previous research has seldomly examined this relationship granularly in economically developed regions at the micro level, nor did they examine the mediating effects of economic development, industrial structure, and coal consumption. Using the panel dataset of 80 counties from 2002 to 2021 at the county level in Jiangsu, China, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of population, economic, and land urbanizations on CO2 emissions in Jiangsu province and examines the regional heterogeneity. The findings indicate that population and economic urbanization have positive impacts on CO2 emissions, whereas land urbanization has insignificant effects. This finding is supported by various robustness tests. Population and economic urbanizations are found to have significantly positive impacts on CO2 emissions in the southern and northern Jiangsu regions, whereas none of the three dimensions are significant in the middle Jiangsu region. Economic urbanization contributes the most to CO2 emissions in southern Jiangsu. In addition, our results indicate that multi-dimensional urbanizations affect CO2 emissions through the mediating roles of economic development, industrial structure, and coal consumption. Our analysis shed some insights into the nuanced relationship between multi-dimensional urbanization and carbon emissions, which could contribute to sustainable urban transformation.