Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between urbanization, innovation, and CO2 emissions, with particular attention paid to the issue of how innovation influences the effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions in urban agglomerations, considering the spatial spillover effect between cities. Therefore, based on panel data on 48 cities in the three major urban agglomerations in China from 2001–2015, a spatial econometric model is used to estimate the effect of urbanization and innovation on CO2 emissions. The empirical results indicate that the relationship between urbanization and CO2 emissions follows a U-shaped curve in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), an N-shaped curve in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and an inverted N-shaped pattern in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Additionally, innovation shows a significantly positive effect on reducing CO2 emissions in the YRD, but does not exert a significantly direct effect on CO2 emissions in the BTH and the PRD. More importantly, innovation played an important moderating role between urbanization and CO2 emissions in the YRD and PRD, suggesting that reducing the positive impacts of urbanization on CO2 emissions depends on innovative development. In addition, urban CO2 emissions presented a clearly negative spatial spillover effect among the cities in the three urban agglomerations. These findings and the following policy implications will contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.
Highlights
Urbanization is regarded as an interrelated transformation of the economy, land use, society and the concentration of population and economic activities in an urban area [1,2,3]
The findings show that most cities of the three urban agglomerations are at or will enter the stage of exacerbating CO2 emissions as urbanization progresses, which will place enormous pressure on emissions reduction in China, where urbanization capture the effect of urbanization
By using city-level datasets on China’s three major urban agglomerations over the 2001–2015 period, this study examines the moderating effect of innovation on influencing the urbanization-CO2 emissions nexus using a spatial econometric model
Summary
Urbanization is regarded as an interrelated transformation of the economy, land use, society and the concentration of population and economic activities in an urban area [1,2,3]. Ji [9] hold that the development of urbanization can reduce energy consumption because of the effect of agglomeration economy. Research on the impact of urbanization on CO2 emissions in urban agglomerations is vitally important to help the China government reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Innovation is considered an important factor in promoting economic sustainable development and reducing its negative effect on emissions by improving energy efficiency in order to address the pressure from increasing CO2 emissions [17,18,19]. Some innovations may improve the efficiency of energy consumption and reduce the CO2 emissions of economic activities in cities, in addition to affecting the environmental impacts of urbanization as well as the relevant energy demand and CO2 emissions by changing living environments, lifestyles and needs. According to IPCC Guidelines [32], the low calorific value (θ1) and emissions coefficient ( f1) of natural gas are 38,979 KJ/m3 and 56,100 kg/TJ, respectively; the emissions coefficient ( f2) of electricity is 10,069 t/B kWh; and the low calorific value (θ2) and emissions coefficient ( f3) of liquefied petroleum are 50,241 kJ/kg and 63,100 kg/TJ, respectively
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