The Spatial Spillover Effect Of High-Speed Railway On CO₂ Emissions In China

Climate change and Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction attracted more and more attention.CO₂ emissions accounted for more than 80%of global Greenhouse Gas（GHG）emissions and were the main cause of global warming.The transport sector was an energy-intensive and high-emission industry and has become the third largest CO₂emitting sector in China after the energy sector and the industrial sector.As a major technological innovation in transportation,the high-speed railway（HSR）brought convenience to people’s lives and contributed to the development of regions along the route.In addition to the impact of high-speed railway on economic growth,many existing researches also focused on the impact of the high-speed railway on the global environment.Exploring the impact of high-speed railway on carbon emissions was critical to test whether the innovation in transportation can contribute to energy-saving and emission-reduction.To explore the impact of high-speed railway on carbon emissions,this paper constructed SAR model using panel data of 283 cities in China from 2007 to 2019 and further divided data into three regions.CO₂ emissions were calculated from electricity consumption,heating consumption and gas consumption,and other control factors such as technology and affluence were also considered.The distribution of carbon emissions was plotted,and it shown that the distribution of carbon emissions has significant spatial characteristics.We also computed global Moran’s I and local Moran’s I_i and found that there was a significant spatial autocorrelation in urban carbon emissions and such autocorrelation has regional heterogeneity.After selecting models based on the Hausman and LR test,the SAR model was finally chosen to estimate the impact that high-speed railway has on carbon emissions.The results showed that high-speed railway can reduce carbon emissions in the whole area.In addition,the impact of the high-speed railway varied from different regions;it had a significantly negative impact in the central region and eastern region but no significant impact in the western region.Finally,this paper also examined the impact of high-speed railway on carbon emissions in cities that are not provincial capitals and municipalities directly under the Central Government,and it showed that the impact of high-speed railway on urban carbon emissions was not significant in this area.Based on the above findings,policy implications for achieving energy-saving and emission-reduction are as follows.Firstly,energy saving and emission reduction policies should be both synergistic and differentiated.Secondly,make full use of high-speed railway to promote energy saving and emission reduction.Third,promote technological progress and innovation on the realization path of energy-saving and emission-reduction.