Research On The Nonlinear Impact Of Urbanization On Carbon Emissions

In recent years,the issue of carbon emissions has been of great concern to scholars at home and abroad.The greenhouse effect caused by the continuous increase of carbon dioxide emissions has led to many natural and social problems,the most serious of which is global warming.Melting glaciers and rising sea levels brought about by global warming are already seriously affecting the balance of ecosystems and are a great challenge for all countries in the world.Therefore,it is urgent to find effective ways to slow down the emission of carbon dioxide and improve our ecological environment.With the development of economy and society,urbanization is accelerating,and the energy demand for building and infrastructure construction in the process of urbanization is increasing,and CO2 emissions are increasing dramatically,which brings great pressure to the ecological environment.Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,China has continuously promoted the construction of new-type urbanization,emphasized people-oriented,promoted the integrated development of urban and rural areas,and paid attention to the construction of ecological civilization,which has alleviated this problem to a certain extent.Therefore,in the context of China’s vigorous promotion of new urbanization,it is important for China to take the road of sustainable development by making suggestions for carbon emission reduction.This paper takes 30 provincial panel data in China from 2005 to 2020 as samples,and firstly constructs a comprehensive index system and measures urbanization using the entropy method,and measures carbon emissions using the emission factor method;then analyses the current situation at both national and sub-regional levels;finally establishes a semi-parametric spatial lag model through correlation tests,and studies the non-linear effects of urbanization and carbon emissions at both national and sub-regional levels.The empirical study of this paper shows that:(1)at the national level,the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions in China is nonlinear.On the whole,it can be divided into two stages.The development of urbanization in the first stage promotes carbon emissions and the promotion effect gradually decreases as the level of urbanization increases;the development of urbanization in the second stage has a suppressive effect on carbon emissions and the suppressive effect gradually strengthens with the development of urbanization.From other influencing factors,industrial structure has a suppressing effect on carbon emissions,while energy intensity,foreign investment,economic development level,and R&D investment in science and technology all have a promoting effect on carbon emissions.(2)At the sub-regional level,the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions in the eastern,central and western regions of China is non-linear.On the whole,the analysis results of the eastern and central regions are similar to those of China as a whole,showing "promotion-inhibition";The western region manifests itself as "promotion-inhibition-promotion".In addition,there is a difference in the scope of the effect of urbanization on carbon emissions between the eastern,central and western regions.The remaining control variables are analyzed as follows: energy intensity,economic development level,and R&D investment in science and technology in the three regions promote carbon emissions;industrial structure in the eastern and western regions suppresses carbon emissions,while the central region plays the opposite role;foreign investment in the eastern and central regions promotes carbon emissions,while foreign investment in the western region suppresses carbon emissions.Finally,according to the research conclusions,this paper puts forward targeted proposals for China’s carbon emission reduction in the context of vigorously promoting the construction of new-type urbanization: pay attention to high-quality urbanization development;differentiated measures in different regions to reduce carbon emissions;strengthen regional cooperation and promote regional joint development.