Research On The Impact Of China's Urbanization On Carbon Emissions

With the development of China's reform and opening up over the past 40 years,the whole country has enjoyed fruitful reform results,especially the continuous advancement of urbanization in provinces,municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions,which has promoted the rapid development of China's social economy.At the same time,China's energy consumption also increased rapidly during this period.The resulting large amount of carbon dioxide has a very bad impact on China's environmental indicators.The data collected in this paper are quoted from China Statistical Yearbook,China Energy Statistical Yearbook and provincial statistical yearbooks.The equilibrium panel data of 30 provinces in China from 1985 to 2017 were analyzed with STATA15.0 software.Firstly,STIRPAT model is used to study the various effects of urbanization on carbon emissions in China.The dependent variable index is expressed by carbon dioxide emission.Independent variables are expressed by the proportion of urban population,per capita GDP,the proportion of secondary industry output value,the proportion of tertiary industry output value,per capita disposable income,total import and export trade,and the intensity of energy consumption.This paper uses the fixed effect model of provincial panel data to analyze the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions in different provinces of China(divided into high urbanization rate group,medium urbanization rate group and low urbanization rate group).Meanwhile,the square of per capita GDP and the proportion of urban population are introduced to test whether there is an obvious Kuznets curve effect between economic development and carbon emissions,as well as between the proportion of urban population and carbon emissions.That is,whether there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the two groups of non-linear relations and whether it meets the EKC hypothesis.Furthermore,virtual time variables are introduced to compare and analyze the impact of different groups of urbanization on carbon emissions before and after the implementation of the new urbanization strategy in China in 2013.In addition,this paper uses the provincial panel data threshold model to test and estimate the impact of industrial structure upgrading(the ratio of tertiary industry output value to secondary industry output value)and dependence on foreign trade(ratio of total import and export trade to gross domestic product)on carbon emissions in the process of urbanization in 30 provinces of China.The results show that there is a positive U-shaped non-linear relationship between urban population ratio and carbon emissions in all groups.The relationship between per capita GDP and carbon emissions is different,for not all of them have environmental Kuznets effect,which does not fully satisfy the EKC hypothesis.In the first few years of the implementation of the national new urbanization strategy,the development of urbanization in the three groups of provinces did not have a significant positive impact on carbon emissions,on the contrary,the development of urbanization aggravated the growth of carbon emissions.The industrial structure of provinces with high urbanization rate has been adjusted from secondary industry to high-tech and low-carbon tertiary industry,but its impact on carbon emissions is greater than economic development.The problem of excessive energy consumption of tertiary industry in middle urbanization rate group and low urbanization rate group is not significant.There is a negative non-linear relationship between the impact of industrial structure upgrading on carbon emissions,and with the gradual improvement of urbanization level,the positive relationship between the two sides gradually strengthened until the threshold point began to show a negative relationship.The impact of human capital effect,import and export pull effect and technological innovation effect are basically promoting on carbon emissions.The former two effects are relatively weak,while the latter has greater impact.There is a negative non-linear relationship between foreign trade dependence and carbon emissions.With the gradual improvement of urbanization level,the negative relationship between the two sides becomes weaker.According to the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward corresponding policy recommendations.It is believed that we should actively grasp the macro-layout of the urbanization route,deal with the problems at the micro level,pay attention to high-quality development,not seek blindly high-speed extensive development,and strive to reduce costs and develop a low-carbon economy.We need to accelerate the transformation of economic structure,grasp the development opportunities of low-carbon economy,and support the development of new energy and clean energy industries.For the mature urbanization development region,we should accelerate the pace of intensive development,make good use of the economies of scale and agglomeration effect to promote the coordinated development of all aspects of the region.