The role and transmission mechanism of forest resource abundance on low-carbon economic development in the Yangtze River Delta region: Insights from the COP26 targets

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Climate change is getting more and more attention. The COP26 emphasized the need to stop deforestation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help mitigate climate change. As such, China has spare no effort to promote green and low-carbon development to achieve the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. This paper aims to analyze the impact and transmission mechanism of the forest resources abundance at the city level in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region on the realization of low-carbon economic development with the targets of COP26. From the static and dynamic relative carbon emission indicators, based on the panel data of 41 cities from 2007 to 2019, this article constructs spatial econometric models and a mediation effect model to empirically verify the impact of forest resources on low-carbon development and the transmission mechanism. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Forest resource abundance and carbon emissions per GDP show a significant negative relationship at the 1% level, and the energy consumption structure has the greatest impact. (2) The abundance of forest resources has a significant positive correlation with the carbon sequestration capacity per GDP at 1%. (3) The forest resources abundance is significantly negatively correlated with the net carbon emissions per GDP, which means after considering the carbon sequestration effect, forest resources abundance has a greater impact on the carbon emissions intensity. (4) Forest resources mainly produce a transmission mechanism for low-carbon economic development through the urbanization effect. Economic development is positively correlated with carbon emissions but negatively correlated with forest carbon sequestration. Although forest carbon sinks play a role in low-carbon economic development, it is not enough to rely solely on forest carbon sinks because of social cost. Finally, this paper proposes policy recommendations to promote low-carbon economic development from the perspectives of administrative orders, economic incentives, and voluntary participation.